It’s getting to the point where attacking DC movies isn’t even fun anymore. Watching one feels like pushing a kid face-first into the mud while you and your buddies laugh, only for the kid to break down and run away in tears, leaving you with the hollow realization that “well… that wasn’t as fun as it was supposed to be.” After the critical disaster that was Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Warner Bros. desperately needed Suicide Squad to hit a home run and restore some optimism in the DC Extended Universe.
Early reviews, however, tore into the film like a perfect piece of smoked pork. You can’t judge a movie purely on speculation, so I went in myself. After watching it, I came away feeling that a lot of people are having a little too much fun beating the already-busted piñata that is DC’s cinematic output.
There were plenty of questions surrounding the casting from the start. Tom Hardy dropped out early in production. Will Smith was cast as Deadshot, Jared Leto as the Joker, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, and Cara Delevingne in yet another role that requires actual acting. The weight of the entire franchise’s future seemed to rest on this film’s shoulders. Suicide Squad picks up immediately after the events of Batman v Superman. Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) assembles a team of the world’s most dangerous incarcerated criminals to serve as a disposable black-ops weapon for the U.S. government. As with most government projects, things go wrong very quickly. Waller controls an ancient witch named Enchantress by holding her heart hostage. Enchantress soon summons the spirit of her brother and begins a plan to take over the world—less than forty minutes into the movie. It falls to this ragtag group of B-list villains to stop a mythical force of destruction.
Because the majority of these characters were largely unknown to mainstream audiences, a significant amount of backstory was required. The first twenty minutes of the film are essentially an extended series of character introductions and origin flashbacks for nearly everyone on the team (except Slipknot, who is introduced and then unceremoniously killed almost immediately, surprising no one).
A big question going in was whether the actors could nail these iconic comic-book characters. Let’s start with Jared Leto’s Joker. The answer is… fine. Leto is only in the movie for roughly ten minutes, and he has claimed that many of his scenes were cut. When he does appear he chews the scenery with gusto. He isn’t Heath Ledger, but he is more convincing than Jack Nicholson’s version for my money. Leto sounds like a plausible Joker; he just doesn’t particularly look like one. The tattoos and grill make him resemble a Fast & Furious villain more than Batman’s arch-nemesis. Costume design in general was a personal sticking point. When dealing with characters who aren’t household names, it helps if they at least visually resemble their comic counterparts so audiences can orient themselves. In Suicide Squad, almost no one looks much like their printed version. The only performer who truly resembles the source material is Will Smith as Deadshot.
I had worried that Will Smith would simply play “Will Smith” instead of Deadshot—and that’s largely what happened. Like it or not, he is the best thing in the movie. Smith is the only actor who consistently brings natural charisma to the role. He is funny when the scene needs humor, serious when it needs weight, and surprisingly empathetic when the story calls for it. Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn is good but never fully sold me. Her Long Island-ish accent drifts in and out, and the costume choices don’t always scream “Harley.” She wears the classic red-and-black outfit for about two seconds; the rest of the time she’s a baseball-bat-wielding one-liner machine in booty shorts. That said, her screen presence is nearly as strong as Smith’s, and she delivers a large share of the film’s funniest and most memorable moments.I also have to question the film’s music choices. About halfway through it becomes obvious that Warner Bros. was trying very hard to bottle the same lightning Guardians of the Galaxy caught with its needle-drop soundtrack.
The difference is that the songs in Guardians actually fit the tone and emotional texture of the scenes. Here, tracks are frequently shoehorned in at awkward moments that pull you out of the movie rather than enhance it. The most egregious example is the sudden blast of Eminem’s “Without Me” during the sequence where the Squad is released and re-armed. It isn’t clever and it doesn’t match the tone at all, leaving you wondering why that particular song was chosen.Despite these annoyances, things were progressing surprisingly well heading into the third act. I was preparing to push back hard against the mountain of negative reviews because the film simply wasn’t as bad as I’d been told.
Then the third act arrived and many of those criticisms suddenly felt valid. Cara Delevingne has never been a strong actor, and the movie seems to agree—she is given as little actual dialogue as possible. After some awkward dubbed voice-over and a laughable summoning sequence, much of the goodwill the film had built is undercut by a chaotic CGI-fest of creatures, corny dialogue, forced jokes, endless explosions, and overly dramatic scoring.Does Suicide Squad deserve the sheer volume of hate it received? In my opinion, no. There is genuinely more to like here than dislike. Viola Davis’s Amanda Waller is every bit as cold, ruthless, and intimidating as the character should be.
Jay Hernandez’s El Diablo quietly steals large portions of the film with a compelling backstory and grounded presence; for a relatively unknown character he becomes one of the movie’s biggest strengths. The film does a solid job humanizing this group of criminals. You actually feel for several of them and their tragic pasts, which makes the team more complex than the average superhero roster.The story is undeniably flawed, and some creative decisions (especially in the final act) hold the movie back from greatness. Still, Suicide Squad feels like a step in the right direction for DC after Batman v Superman.
The tragedy is that it needed to be a bigger, cleaner swing to generate real momentum for the universe going forward. What we got is a good film with clear potential that was apparently weighed down by studio interference. It isn’t the disaster many claimed, but it also isn’t the home run Warner Bros. so desperately required.
3/5
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