Review: Suicide Squad

So this was a weird movie. Like, I can’t think of a better word, than “weird”. There were a lot of great scenes, and I will get into spoilers, but I’ll warn you before I do.

Let’s start with a behind the scenes story. Marvel and DC have been competitors forever. Now that Marvel has had huge success with their MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe), and DC has been hit or miss (mostly miss) with their movies, they decided to create their DCEU (DC Extended Universe). DCs TV Shows have been really good, but their movies haven’t. The Dark Knight trilogy was hugely successful, and Man of Steel was OK, but a lot of people had issues with it. So after Man of Steel, DC decided to create their universe, based on the Man of Steel universe.

The first movie of the DCEU was Batman V Superman, which was largely hated. At the same time, Suicide Squad was in post production, so the executives did some reshoots. This is a common thing with movies, so who knows how much they changed. One rumor was that they wanted Suicide Squad to have more humor. DC really needed a winner with Suicide Squad.

It worked for the most part. There are some funny scenes, and it’s an entertaining movie. It’s far better than BvS. There are cameos, and more than a few easter eggs. But there are some bizarre flaws. The physics of the villains was the main one for me. I’ll delve into that more in the spoiler section. The cast was overall well done, particularly Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn. I was worried that Will Smith would play Will Smith, rather than Deadshot, and I was right. And he has way too much screen time. I’d much rather have had the Joker and Harley Quinn more and less Deadshot. Viola Davis is perfect as Amanda Waller. She basically just played her character from How To Get Away With Murder. Diablo was the brooding one, because in this universe, there HAS to be a brooding character. Cara Devawhateverthefuckhernameis was… interesting… as Enchantress.

Slipknot was a red shirt and was only in the movie so that they could kill someone off without killing someone we would care about. Katana was in it, though she wasn’t a prisoner. I don’t know why she is in this movie. She’s just a vigilante, and as far as the movie is concerned, only killed the people who killed her husband. Killer Croc was there because they needed an underwater level. Captain Boomerang was the comedic relief. He got majorly screwed over in the end, and it’s not clearly explained why.

Rick Flagg was kind of annoying in this. He was supposed to be their leader, but did that stupid thing in all superhero movies where he hides information “for their own good”, but in reality, if he would actually explain what was going on, maybe the team would have volunteered.

The music was odd. Like, they just looked at lyrics to find songs that had something to do with the scene, and just threw them in. For instance, when the Squad is first suiting up, they played Eminem’s “Without Me” for the line “Guess who’s back… back again…” But this is the first movie. So are they really “back” as far as the audience is concerned? I guess they meant “back on the streets”?

The pacing was all over the place. The beginning was very fast, to get everyone up to speed on who was who and what they could do. Then it slows down, almost to a crawl. Then lots of things at the end. The end fight had lots of bright and shiny and then lots of dark and smokey. It was really hard to focus at times. It wasn’t even shakey cam. It was just ALL THE THINGS at once on the screen.

In the end, I think the cast worked really well together and had a real “team” vibe.

Spoilers ahead

Ok. Some major problems. What the fuck was with the physics of the monster army? Bullets kind of slowed them down, but Harley’s bat and Katana’s blade could kill them. Then as soon as Will Smith… I mean “Deadshot”… needed something to do, then all of the sudden bullets kill them, too. Actually none of the Enchantress stuff made any real sense. I know, it’s a super hero movie, so you have to suspend disbelief and just go with it, but wow. Like, she’s smoke. Then she leaves to find her brother. He magics her to be human looking. Then later, she turns into smoke again… because reasons. Also, she has the power to teleport and do all kinds of amazing things. So naturally, she decides to have a fist fight with the squad. What kind of logic is that? “Oh I can make a huge lighting portal thing. But I’ll fight you with swords.” Oh. And what was with her “dancing” as she’s trying to magic. She clearly went to the Aaliyah in Queen of the Damned school of “dirty dancing = dastardly deeds” school of acting. It wasn’t supposed to be seductive, because she wasn’t looking at anyone. Did her magic not work unless she swayed her hips?

How did Incubus (who isn’t named in the movie) become giant and part metal? Did he fuse with the train tracks? Did they just need something to look cool? And how did Diablo become a giant fire monster? That wasn’t even hinted at. It’s like the writers couldn’t figure out how the human squad would fight a magic octopus monster, so they decided “Oh yeah. And by the way, Diablo can become a giant fire statue.”

A lot of people didn’t like the tattoos on the Joker, but some said that it “made sense in this universe”, and I kind of agree, now that I’ve seen it. He’s a mobster, but in the now time. He was vicious and not really “funny”, except for one line. Oh. And what the fuck was with that “purring” thing he did? Was it supposed to be menacing or silly? He clearly had a love hate relationship with Harley Quinn, but the “love” part wasn’t explored. Just “and she fell in love with him”. Then they show a bunch of hate. Lots of really brutal stuff. Yet Harley falls for the Joker.

Speaking of Harley Quinn, she was really the best part of this movie, but one thing that bothered me was her accent. It changes throughout the movie. I know the actress is from Australia. At first I thought she couldn’t keep the accent straight. Then I thought maybe she got the typical accent the more crazy she got, which would have been absolute genius. But then she changed accent mid line. It was either a colossal fuckup, or some high brow acting. Her accent hurt me. Really. Really. Bad.

Batman and Flash had cameos. Batman a little more so. Plus he’s in the post credits scene which surprise, surprise, is setting up the Justice League. Oh and while I’m on the topic, one of the main flaws in this movie is the inconsistency. It’s part super hero movie, then it becomes the Walking Dead, then it becomes Ghostbusters. The post credit scene is just more inconsistency. Marvel has made a trademark about the hidden scenes. BvS didn’t have one. This does. Why? Pick one. It was an interesting scene, but it just doesn’t fit. It’s like DC is trying to do whatever it can to force us to be interested in this universe, rather than making a quality product that interests us.

Overall, this was a good movie. I was entertained throughout. 4 out of 5 stars.