Let's just get through this. Suicide Squad is a bad movie. I see what DC is going for here, but now was not the time.
With Marvel, they were eight years and nine movies into their catalog before they introduce the off-beat and unexpected Guardians of the Galaxy. They had to build a universe before they could start digging into those C-level characters.
DC was trying to do that with Suicide Squad, but they had not put in the legwork yet to get here. It's too soon to trot out your C-level characters. I say this, not including Harley in that description.
So where do I even start with this movie? Let's just start with what I actually liked about this movie and then we'll go from there.
I thought Margot Robbie was a great Harley Quinn. I figured she would do a good job, but she did not disappoint. Will Smith was good as Deadshot. I liked Viola Davis as Amanda Waller. That is perfect casting in my opinion. There were some good jokes and some cool action scenes. I want you to take note of how short my list is for the things I liked.
This movie is all over the place. It doesn't know what it wants to be. It wants to be an action movie with a bunch of lovable rouges. Did we forget that this is a story about murderers? To try and flip the switch to make them heroes is more than forced. This movie should have gone darker because it doesn't really deliver on the premise. These guys do what they're told for self preservation. Not because they want to right their wrongs. El Diablo's arc I can appreciate. I think he's the only one you could say is redeemable. Deadshot's hallmark like story is forced down our throats. While sweet in it's own way, I don't think that should be the focus of the movie.
Over half of this team is filler and not memorable. Killer Croc? Has maybe ten lines the whole movie. He's here to check a box. Katana, she shows up halfway and she doesn't really add much. Captain Boomerang? He yo-yos between lovable goofball and just too stupid for his own good. Rick Flag? He's as cookie cutter a soldier as you can get, without any of the charisma.
Let me spend a moment talking about Enchantress. They do some cool creepy stuff with her at first, but she devolves into generic super villain with a thin premise for taking over the world. Towards the end, as Carla Delevinge is hamming it up, it was too much for me to take. She had an exaggerated walk and head movements as the Enchantress that really irked me. The last fight scene with her I didn't like because at the end of the day, why is an all powerful sorceress going hand to hand with a group of people that have guns and bats? There's NO reason she would lose that fight!
I also don't like that the Suicide Squad's first mission is one to stop the end of the world. I am a big proponent of using at least a montage to show the time these guys spent together as a team. This way I can buy the friendship that they all share by the end of the movie. Here, it happens in the span of a day and it feels completely forced. Why should we buy the fact that they won't stab each other in the back at their first chance?
Then there is Jared Leto's Joker. With the first couple of screenshots, I was super worried. Then I thought, "I was worried about Heath Ledger's Joker and he was arguably the best one ever". Nope, Leto did not move the needle at all. The Juggalo appearance with his weird Joker voice was too much for me to overcome. Also, his neediness for the love of Harley doesn't exactly ring true.
If this movie had been rated R and they really cut loose, like villains should, this could have been a different movie. Instead it's a paint by numbers super hero story and we have enough of those already. I hate that this will make me look like DC hater, but they need to get it together with their motion pictures.
At least I have the TV shows to fall back on.
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