MOVIE REVIEW: Suicide Squad

(No Way Out - Grammatik)

Let's not sugar-coat the situation:

DC needs a win.  They need a win badly. Superman Returns saw an excellent Brandon Routh fall prey to a too-long movie with too-little action and too-poor story.  Man Of Steel wasn't horrible, but it failed almost utterly to capture the spirit of the original films.  Dawn Of Justice was a complete trainwreck until the extended edition shined a dimOnly Christopher Nolan's excellent Batman trilogy has stood out as wholly successful.  With Marvel continuing to stack up movies in the 'W' column, a successful DC film to pave the way for the upcoming Justice League and Wonder Woman films is needed badly.

Is the Skwad up to the task?

 

THE SHORT VERSION: 

Yes, actually, they are.

 

THE LONG VERSION:

It's darkly fitting that this movie had so many obstacles to overcome on its way to the theater, given the content.

First, there's the business of Ensemble casts themselves.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again; Ensemble casts are hard to work with.  The business of bringing a cast together that works with one another and then making sure that each member of the cast gets his or her due is no walk in the park.  That would be enough of an issue for this movie, but it has to stand up against three nearly perfect examples of Ensemble Cast films in the same genre -- Avengers, Avengers 2, and Civil War.  

Then you've got Will Smith to worry about.   Smith isn't a bad thing, per se, but he's a scene eater.  When Big Willy is on the screen, ain't no one else on the screen.  You would be right to worry that the movie was going to be less about the Squad and more about Willy Smith and his little friends.

Then there's crazy-ass Jared Leto and his spin on the Joker, which could easily dominate the film.

Several opportunities, then, for this film to fail.  That makes the fact that the movie isn't a complete and utter cluster rather impressive, really.

WHAT WORKED:

• Deadshot, Harley Quinn, El Diablo:  Of the six members of the Squad, only three of them were given any kind of meaningful backstory.  Those that were, however, were given pretty decent content.  Naturally, Will Smith's bad guy is as 'good guy' a bad guy as there can be.  Harley's story is lifted, mostly intact, from the DCU and placed on screen, though it doesn't quite explain how she goes from a really crappy Arkham shrink to a melee combat specialist.  El Diablo has no seeming back story until the second act draws to a close, but it's a doozy once it is revealed.  He may be one of the film's best parts.
• Harley Quinn's caboose: For better or worse, Harley's short-short-covered posterior is practically its own character in this movie.  It's the source of much amusement in several scenes, I assure you.  Plus...yeah.  
• The Humor:  It's strongly rumored that the original cut of the movie was shown to a studio audience and they hated it because it was too dry -- LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE DC DOES.  Reshoots were demanded, and additional humor was injected into the movie.  I'm not sure if the rumors were true, but in any case, the humor is present and accounted for in the film.  One of Marvel's claims to fame has always been that they never took themselves too seriously, and there's finally, FINALLY some of that here in DC.  It's so much better for it!  An aside, it's clear that this is the direction they're going with Justice League as well.  That scene between Batman and Wonder Woman in the trailer is just perfect!
• The Joker: As a character, The Joker is the living embodiment of the Lead Fridge.  You HAVE to take him with a nod and a wink, because as a friend of mine pointed out, "There's no way he could manage a gas station, let alone a crime empire."  A lot of folks have griped that he's more of an afterthought than a prominent main character.  He's not an afterthought though, and here's the part that a lot of folks can't seem to grasp; he's in this movie as a SUPPORTING CHARACTER.  The only reason why The Joker is in this movie is because Harley is there, and that's just fine.  When he is in the movie, it's absolute chaos.  As it should be.
• Amanda Waller: If you've watched any of the Justice League cartoons, you know how much of a stone-cold monster Waller is, and Viola Davis delivers in spades...  
• The Soundtrack: Are you reading this, 'Guardians Of The Galaxy?'  This, right here, is how you use a soundtrack.  You want to put a ton of good songs in a movie and have them thematically make sense?  You do it THIS WAY.  You don't just get a bunch of random hits that are oldies and throw them around wherever the hell you want.
• Cameos!  

WHAT DIDN'T WORK:

• Captain Boomerang, Killer Croc, Slipknot:  Unfortunately, the other three members of the Squad get almost no backstory.  Poor Slipknot gets none at all.  Every single one of them is utterly disposable.  Boomer and Croc are good for a bit of humor, but other than that, they're completely forgettable.
• Katana: Her backstory is brief, but explanatory. No, that's not where the problem lays with Katana.  They establish her as a character, but then pay no more attention to the rest of her arc at all.  Doubly a shame is the fact that the combat scenes where she's whirling around like a wee little Slap Chop on crack, it's in the dark, so you can barely see her.
• Enchantress:  Graphically, the Enchantress is realized in a fashion that only the current, state-of-the-art CG houses can manage, and it shoes.  She looks fantastic, especially during her transformations, especially the first one.  Unfortunately, she's also the source of, or related to, every single plot hole in the entire movie.  All of them.  And some of them are really big.  Visually, she' s stunning, in both of her forms.  Everything else is sort of a crapshoot.
• Rick Flagg: An utter, utter moron.  His involvement with the Enchantress storyline is...yeah, he's a freakin' moron.
• Amanda Waller: ...right up until she does something that makes you think she's less a stone-cold genius, and more a person that has heads in her freezer.  Trust me, you'll know it when you see it.
• The Audio Mix:  I'm not sure who mixed the audio for this movie, but the audio for the background was up WAY too loud.  You can't even hear half of The Joker's dialogue when he's on the screen because of it, and it drove me absolutely crazy.

All in all, the Suicide Squad could have failed in a million different ways.  Instead, it succeeded far beyond most of the other DC movies, delivering an enjoyable, if not entirely perfect, entertainment experience.  If you've got some time to kill and want to catch a matinee, you could do far worse than suiting up and joining the Skwad.

 

 

SPOILERS!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

So many things made me grumpy about this movie.  Wow.  Let's begin:

• Seriously, how does a dip in a chemical bath suddenly turn Harley into a combat specialist?!
• As a disciplined uber-soldier, Rick Flagg can't manage to keep it in check with June Moon, who is possessed by ... oh, fuck it, never mind...
• And while we're talking about June Moon, so she's over in wherever, she gets piggeybacked by Enchantress, and...what, just fucks around while Waller goes and finds the only thing that can harm her?  
• And while we're talking about THAT, they find her brother's mystic Ken Doll and don't account for THAT?!
• So, the first scene with Enchantress opens with June Moon like...giving the Witch permission to come out.  She lets her out.  But, apparently, June talks in her sleep, and ... mutters the sekrit safe-word that lets her out?  That shit is convenient.  You're telling me no one thought that might be an issue, and like...gagged her?
• Third act of the movie, Amanda Waller gets captured by the Enchantress' goons.  She gets taken before the Queen Bitch herself, lips off, and Enchantress turns her into a minion.  Then, later, she suddenly appears again, and just happens to have the detonation device with her?!  REALLY?!
• So, El Diablo in Super Saiyan mode couldn't melt the bad guy, but we got him with a shaped charge, so...wait, what?!
• So, Harley abandons the Squad for the Joker, falls, and the Squad just sort of...welcomes her back without incident?
• Deadshot confesses that he LIKES shooting people, likes the killing, LIKES putting his gear on, because that means he gets to do these things.  Then, after knowing Harley for less than a total day, she abandons the Squad, jumps into Joker's chopper, and he...refuses to shoot her?  Why?  Because he wants to prove to himself that he's not a bad person?  If that's the case, why did he even say the things he did about liking the killing?  I DON'T UNDERSTAND!
• Can we talk about how Harley's accent gets thicker and thicker as the movie goes on?!
• Can we also talk about how much of a freaking psychopath Waller shows herself to be when she just sort of shoots the other agents in the room with her when she's being rescued, just because, "They weren't cleared to be here anyway."  The FUCK?
• Like...half of the shit from the trailer didn't make it into the movie.
• Yes, Margot Robbie has an ass that absolutely REFUSES to stop.  I get it.  Even my wife went, "DAMN!" while we were in the theater at one point.  But still, guys, come on.

I think that's all...

Comments

[Michael J Zupon]

My confusion about Deadshot and Harley is, he pretends to miss shooting her, then 5 minutes later he says that he never shoots women or kids. Why didn't he just say that instead of aiming and missing?

For the DCU to set up the Joker as one of their ultimate bad guys, making him a secondary supporting character seemed odd. It seems they could have used the Joker as a background presence, dropping hints that he knows Harley is out and might show up, without spoiling his DCU entrance by FAILING AT EVERYTHING.

That, and someone that suicidally crazy and chaotic couldn't run a gas station, let alone run a criminal empire. No one would work for him, no one would work with him, he'd be ratted out or stabbed in the back at the first opportunity... but that's just sayin.