Suicide Squad – 1.5/5 – Movie Reviews by Ry!
Suicide Squad – 1.5/5 – Storytelling is at the heart of any kind of tale, no matter what medium. When you put together the idea for a story, you want to be able to tell it in a coherent, concise and gripping fashion. Regardless of genre, this is something that becomes the central point of any film. DC has started to build their own universe with their comic book characters (like Marvel); but haven’t produced a good story within the most recent attempts. No matter the strikes, they keep on rolling with new entries. Suicide Squad is a film that flips the generic superhero formula on its head. Instead of focusing on good guys, it is a group of villains in the spotlight fighting for good. Even for the unique premise and some intriguing characters; this film falls flat on its face. For all the potential of building a new team, characters and some interesting relationships; Suicide Squad just doesn’t hit the mark as promised.
Premised: With a new idea, Amanda Waller puts together Task Force X. Creating a team of villains to fight for good. With all hope lost, will these individuals decide to fight on the right side in the end.
There are so many characters that I recommend looking at the full list at the IMDb page. A few stand out characters are:
Will Smith as Deadshot
Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn
Viola Davis as Amanda Waller
Jaret Leto as The Joker
These four become the shining light of this film. Each of these individuals provide charm, bravado and uniqueness to each of their characters. In that unique take, they put humanistic qualities in awkwardness. This helps bring believability to the term ‘comic book adaptation’. Will Smith as Deadshot mimics the greatness we are used to seeing from him. He adds a humanizing element to an otherwise heartless person; putting flaws in his reasonable choices to ‘killing’. The heart of his struggle is finding that purpose to live while not getting consumed by the lust of the kill. Viola Davis provides a crude, stern and morally broken character in Amanda Waller. She presents the idea that she knows what’s best and will do whatever it takes to stop terrible things from happening. Her commanding presence is visceral on screen; as she strikes fear in everyone. Margot Robbie is whimsical, witty but completely off the rails in her portrayal as Harley Quinn. She puts true quality to the ideas of a psychopath; one that breeds a sense of beauty within her own crazy killer instinct. Jaret Leto does his best in providing the audience with another take of the classic villain, The Joker. His spin is one that combines the influences of much of the previous iterations; but it is original enough to enrapture the audience on his own. Even for the oddities and quirks that come with his method acting, Joker is barely in the film to make any real impact. For the rest of the cast, it boils down to them being ancillary characters to the action or pawns used only as plot devices. This is especially true for the villain(s); whom become underused and oversaturated with a combination of clichés, CGI and horrible lines.
The direction is never focused on the most important trait of ‘telling a story’. There’s so much ‘bits’ of different ideas thrown into the directing that as an audience member, there’s no comprehension of what is really going on. The film takes a premise that is unique to stand on its own and presses it against multiple methods. From the opening scene of this film, the ideal situation of trying to introduce and reintroduced items, characters and situation from previous DC films meanders into disarray of multiple subplots. It pushes plot points to create a situation that this film’s story ‘must’ occur. Once all the pieces are on the chess board, the film begins to move at a heighten quick pace. That ‘heighten’ sense is to mask the dangling plot holes from the audience and putting forth a ‘bait and switch’ tactic of character backstories. You have that with quick backstories of Harley Quinn and Deadshot. As the film progresses from the first to second act, it convoluted further by going back and forth between its main and secondary plotlines. Instead of trying to build upon the idea of the ‘villain squad fighting for good’ through the potentially good characterized approach; it mounts a shallow layer of ‘point A to B’ threads within a web of storylines. The characters just move from one scenario to the next. Between these scenarios, there is slight comical and witty banter, expositional filler and forced foretelling of things to come (in future films). On top of this, the action is so predictable that every ‘encounter’ becomes an afterthought. Once we are at the final act, it falls further into the void of its convoluted nature. The climax becomes a lackluster version of the ‘save the world’ scenario against terrible CGI, horrible acting (minus Smith and Robbie) and B-Style action. There are times when you do have to suspend disbelief in any kind of fantasy, comic book or sci-fi film on the big screen. Even if you do this, the ideal to comprehend what you’re seeing needs to be provided on the basic note of reasoning why it is happen. With the direction having convoluted the storyline, wasted characters and put convenient devices and elements to force things along, there is no real comprehension of why or what is the purpose of the ending. The semblance of believable thought is thrown out the window just to ‘wrap it up’. The epilogue becomes a montage of the aftermath; with the obviousness it is leading into the next DC film (Justice League).
The visuals are terrible. The CGI bleeds obviousness on screen through the creation of the villains and there ‘army’. The action is hidden through dark camera techniques and super quick edits to ‘force’ fight and powers on screen. On top of this, the editing of time transition and scene application is horrible. This adds to the convoluted nature of the direction where scenes become oddly placed. The score is forced saturation of modern tracks. There is no real connection between the music and the scenes they are used in other than make it seem ‘cool’.
Suicide Squad had a lot of potential, but falls flat hard. Outside of the four characters that were marvelous portrayed, the rest of the film just boils down to unwatchable. If you’re a fan of DC, I say maybe at an early showing. For everyone else, skip this for a better film this weekend.