Squad Goals
Another DC movie, another set of poor reviews. If my readers recall, I was one of the few who came to the defense of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, so is this a case of deja vu where all the negativity is largely unwarranted? I won't be able to give a fully in-depth review today, but this DC fan must admit that the negative reviews, this time, make a lot more sense. Suicide Squad was a disappointment for me as the film just wasn't able to live up to the hype promised in the trailers. I could feel a bit of studio tampering in the cut I witnessed in the theater. The editing was kind of sloppy and I just felt so much potential wasted. But......that doesn't mean the film isn't without its redeeming qualities. Let's go over the good and the bad shall we?
THE GOOD: The best part of this movie is Margot Robbie. She makes the role of Harley Quinn her own and she's clearly having a ball. She undoubtedly steals every scene she's in, which just makes me sad that sometimes she's not given anything more to do in a scene than call someone a pussy. (Cool! She says shocking things! /sarcasm.) Will Smith is solid in the role of Deadshot and very likable, though he's not really doing anything too new. They're kind of the only two characters that really seem to matter because they're given the most depth (aside from perhaps Diablo.) Viola Davis is good at being her intimidating How to Get Away With Murder self and Joel Kinnamon was reliable as always. The comic world that we see Harley and the Joker (Jared Leto who didn't get enough time to make too much of an impression) inhabit is one of the best parts of the movie and we didn't get to see nearly enough.
THE BAD: Some of these characters are completely throwaway. I'm looking at you Killer Croc with your horrible one liners. And one liners in general grated on me where you get the sense they were told to try to copy the Marvel formula. No DC! Do your own thing I beg of you!! That style competed with the movie the whole time where you just can sense that a darker movie was hiding under the surface that was probably the filmmakers' true vision. Unfortunately what we got was somewhere in between with emphasis from studio execs to try to be crowd pleasing. One final thing to add to this category would be that I wasn't really into Cara Delevigne's villain and as mentioned before didn't get to see nearly enough of Jared Leto's joker to decide how I felt about him. Obviously, you don't walk out of this movie feeling about him the way you did when you first saw Heath Ledger's take on the character.
FINAL VERDICT: Suicide Squad is flawed, but still enjoyable. My expectations were just a little too high. RATING: 6/10