After having a few decent hitters under his belt with End of Watch and Fury, director David Ayer
decided to take on a larger beast with Warner
Bros and DC Entertainment’s Suicide Squad. After mixed reviews for Man of Steel, and an onslaught of horrific
remarks on Batman v Superman: Dawn of
Justice, the pressure was on for DC films to get their act together. From
the surface it appeared the studio was doing just that. The concept in itself
for Suicide Squad is brilliant enough
by transforming the most dangerous criminals into an underground lean mean
fighting task force machine. Along with a dream team cast of actors to fill
those roles, flashy trailers, and clever editing, one might think this would
change the approach to comic book features and/or films as a whole. Though
while having a fair amount of comedic moments and character drive; the
storytelling, villain, and third act were a shambling mess that will be
difficult to clean up.
Not wasting any time, the film delves right into the
characters in roll call style, starting out with Deadshot (Will Smith). By far, and as expected, he was the glue that tied
everything together. He naturally stole every scene he was a part of without
asking for the attention. His confidence influenced those around him, bringing
out their best; whether it was in the heat of battle or while having a heart to
heart about what really matters in life. While I enjoyed his performance, it
wasn’t the Deadshot I’m familiar with from the source material. Though Smith
being Smith is never a bad thing. Viola
Davis as Amanda Waller was another strong performance. Her character is
obsessed with power and being in control, and will stop at nothing to achieve
it. Something happened years ago that made the character walk around with a
cold dark shoulder, and Davis brought it out to the forefront. She’s the
ultimate female you don’t want to be around, and the character was done justice.
Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and the
Joker (Jared Leto) were by no
surprise standouts as well. Even though there was no true explanation as to how
their relationship flourished, seeing them insanely in love with each other
still piques my interest for the future. Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) was a wasted time of talent, character,
and make up. He didn’t do much, but when he did it left a lasting impression.
The rest of the characters, besides one, aren’t worth mentioning.
While a hand full of the characters were great at bouncing
off of each other and delivering laughs, the tone of the film had a difficult
time finding its footing. The roll call set-up towards the beginning of the
film started out great with Deadshot, but then shortly after turned into a
non-interesting dry monotone exposition fest going through each character down
a line. The graphics were nice to see, but the flow from each character to the
next was stale. It was simply boring and possessed no real form of narrative
storytelling. What makes it worse is the scene repeated itself again shortly
after, but at least in better fashion. A conversation to set up a group of
people can happen naturally in many ways, but instead of being creative with a
well-rounded group of characters, screen-time is wasted that could’ve been used
to flush out the villain. The film also wastes it’s time setting up an epic
adventure only to be let down by random music that doesn’t belong in the given
setting. Every time a member of the Squad was gearing up to do something
amazing, it was diluted down by a soundtrack that has no business being in this
film. An audience member should feel upbeat, enhanced, pumped up and ready to
go into battle with whoever is on the screen; as opposed to a feeling of
rushing to change the radio station because your ears hurt. There was no
intensity, danger, or epicenes to the song choices, which ruined a great
portion of the film.
As a comic book fan, I don’t mind going far deep into
mythology that the average movie goer has never heard of before, but even I
feel the studio went too far with this one. This is due to Enchantress (Cara Delevinge). This is possibly the
WORST character I’ve seen on screen. She’s an individual with so much power,
but she doesn’t know how to use it properly. Now coming up towards the end of
the film there are a couple of action beats that serve the film well. Each
character is given enough cannon fodder to show what they can do on the battle
field. Some have great abilities, while other characters are just crazy and
have no real reason to be in the fight or film. Another sin that’s made is
there are no stakes to be found at all. At no point did the Squad feel like
they were ever in danger. That would be impossible, because the film did not
have a valid reason for the squad being created or the mission they were trying
to accomplish. The overall villain is a joke. At times giant lightning bolts
are used to cause global destruction, but then they aren’t used during up close
fist fights.
The film is a jumbled mess that still has a few fun moments.
At this time it seems Warner Bros has a completely different approach to shared
universes between characters. Marvel took their time, while DC is attempting to
play catch up. It’s completely unnecessary to go about it this way. With Suicide
Squad, they tried to cram too many characters into a film in an attempt to be
the next big thing. I respect their efforts, but not the outcome. Overall I
didn’t walk out angry, but I did want much more. The characters were fine and
made me laugh, but everything else was all over the place. The story, plot, and
villain could have all had a makeover. If
this is the start of a new comic book shared cinematic universe, the reality is
it may not last too much longer.
4.5/10
Release Date: August
5, 2016
Director: David
Ayer
Writer: David
Ayer
Cast: Will Smith,
Jaime FitzSimons, Ike Barinholtz, Margot Robbie, Christopher Dyson, Bambadjan
Bamba, Viola Davis, Ted Whittall, David Harbour, Robin Atkin Downes, Robert B.
Kennedy, Billy Otis, Shailyn Pierre Dixon, Jared Leto, James McGowan, Jim
Parrack, Derek Perks, Common, Jai Courtney, Ezra Miller, Jay Hernandez, Adewale
Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cara Delevinge, Joel Kinnaman, Aidan Devine
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 123
minutes
Production Company: Atlas
Entertainment, DC Comics, DC Entertainment, Dune Entertainment, Lin Pictures,
Warner Bros.
Genre: Action,
Adventure, Comedy
Language: English
Country: USA
Budget: $175,000,000
(estimated)