“Suicide Squad” Movie Review

Hey all, I’m back and I saw Suicide Squad recently. Now before I talk about the movie,  let me talk about some other stuff first. I’m kind of a DC Comics fan. I love the Marvel films, but I’ve been waiting for DC to have their own series of connecting films. I thought Man of Steel was an okay movie, but I didn’t like it. I liked Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but it wasn’t a good movie. So I was really hoping this movie would be good. The trailers looked good and fun, I didn’t mind Jared Leto’s look for the Joker, and we were  finally gonna have a DCEU movie with characters who are supposed to kill.

And then the reviews started to come out. And that caused the fanboys to get their undies in a bunch and had another fit about how the critics are biased Marvel lovers (because the fans going crazy for someone else having a different opinion aren’t biased at all) and even started a position to shutdown Rotten Tomatoes (which has now been changed to raise awareness that you don’t have to agree with critics and can like a movie despite what others say, most likely due to the negative reception of the original premise that was essentially “critics don’t like DC so they’re stupid)”). I hate these kind of fans. They’re awful and make the rest of us fans look bad. People have different opinions, and that’s fine. I don’t attack people because they like the Transformers movie or hate Space Jam.

Let me actually start talking about the movie now. So the film focuses on Amanda Waller gathering various meta-humans and criminals as a group to go on dangerous missions the government doesn’t wanted to be connected with called Taskforce X (aka the Suicide Squad). The Squad (including Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Killer Croc, Katana, El Diablo, and Slipknot), led by Col. Rick Flag, are sent on a retrieval mission into a city under attack.

I really liked this movie. I’m going to go into more detail on it soon, but it will contain spoilers. It has flaws, but it’s very entertaining and the best DCEU movie so far. Go see it.

 

Okay, I’ll go into the good and bad things about this film.

The Good:

The cast is fantastic. Will Smith was great as Deadshot (even though he seems to be doing Will Smith and not Floyd Lawton). Margot Robbie was perfect as Harley Quinn.  The cast had good chemistry.

Like I said before, this movie is really fun. Again, Will Smith was really good and charismatic as usual (Well, most of the time. I’m looking at you, After Earth!). Smith, of course, got most of the best lines in the movie. Like him telling Rick Flag to go up to Enchantress, grab her ass, and tell her to knock all this shit off.

What was really shocking was Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang. Now, I have nothing against the guy, but after doing films like A Good Day to Die Hard and Terminator Genisys, I was a little worried he would be bad. I am glad to say I was wrong. Since the film has a big cast, he doesn’t contribute a ton, but he appears enough to establish his character and gets a couple good scenes like getting captured by the Flash and lying about getting caught by the Flash.

Viola Davis is a stone cold bitch in this movie, and plays Amanda Waller perfectly.

It stays connected to the other DCEU films. Superman’s death is acknowledged, we see Batman catching both Harley Quinn and Deadshot (at different times), and we get another hint towards the Justice League. It’s not much, but it’s nice to more of this universe.

There are a lot of twists that I think are done well. While being shown as being a part of the squad in the trailers, Enchantress is actually the villain. It turns out the person the team was sent into the city to rescue was Amanda Waller, which kind of explains why these people are brought together for this situation. Many people and critics, like Chris Stuckmann, thought the squad was intended to fight and stop this villains. But no, they were only meant to get Waller and get out of there. The only reason they fight at the end is because Flag has a connection to Enchantress and the villains captured Waller.

Now…

The Bad:

This movie is a mess. It’s clear a lot of scenes were cut. At one point, Captain Boomerang leaves the group instead of helping save the day, but immediately joins them again literally in the next scene with no explanation.

Since we have a large cast in the film, not all the characters get enough screen time. Killer Croc doesn’t do much other than standing in the background, grunt, and fight during the climax. And that sucks because we really could’ve had some good scenes going into Croc’s origin and dealing with his appearance. We don’t get enough time with all the characters. Which leads me to…

Slipknot was useless! He has 2 scenes (both of which were in the trailers), then dies. And I get that not all of the Squad would survive and someone would have their head explode and be an example, but they don’t even try to hide that it’ll be Slipknot. He’s not introduced until the Squad is brought together for the first time and doesn’t get a flashback or a fancy stat card like the others.

Katana was wasted. We at least get a flashback with her and some backstory about how her husband’s soul is trapped in her sword, but that’s it. She threatens Boomerang, talks to her husband’s soul through her sword, and helps fight at the end. Oh, and she goes with the squad to drink when they abandon Flag. The problem is, she goes with them for no reason. No explanation at all.

It’s very clear a lot of the Joker’s scenes were cut out. And they were. Apparently there was a scene where Harley pulls a gun on the Joker and he has to manipulate her into putting the gun down. And when she does, he backhands her.

Look, I get that stuff has to be cut out of movies for whatever reasons, but we shouldn’t have to wait for the film to come out on DVD to see the whole story. I am tired of going to the theatre and only seeing a fraction of the movie I was promised.

The villain is forgettable. Enchantress is alright (and has some sick dance moves), but her brother is forgettable. I don’t even know his name and don’t even think his name was said. For some great and powerful ancient God, he seems easily defeated by a bomb.

 El Diablo being connected to the villains and his powers being part of that ancient power came out of nowhere. It’s not till the final fight that we find this out when he speaks the ancient language of the villains. I’m guessing this was more of the footage that was cut out. 

Now with all that said, I still think everyone should check it out. It’s a fun stupid movie, so if you just want to waste a couple of hours with Will Smith shooting some bad guys, go see it.