Summer may be over, but its movies will be coming out to Blu-ray and DVD soon (and possibly RLO movies, but we’ll wait and see). This series will cover all the movies you may have missed over the summer, so you can figure out which ones to see.
This week, it had to be done. Yes, we’re looking at Suicide Squad, DC’s newest edition to its largely unsuccessful chain of films. (Sorry, I’m a Marvel fan, so yeah, there’s a bit of bias here.) The film got a whopping 26% on Rotten Tomatoes, which fans went into an outrage over by trying to shut down the website, but I’m unfortunately on the team that agrees with the scathing reviews. The film was bad, for a number of reasons that I hope to cover here.
One of the biggest problems the film had was that it tried to profile way too many characters in one film. It introduced a whole team of people who have never featured in another DC film before. As a result, nearly all the characters didn’t get development. I will give an exception for Deadshot and Harley Quinn, who I think were technically the main characters and got decent profiles and background. Even then, they still felt like fairly flat characters.
The plot also could have used some work. The characters seemed to go from hating each other to considering each other family, but there was no writing that indicated why they had gone through that transition. Additionally, they chose an overpowered villain that I had trouble believing the Suicide Squad could have actually beaten.
Even with those flaws, I was generally indifferent on the film. Then I got to the ending. I won’t spoil it here, but I will say that I’m particularly angry at the positive portrayal of abusive relationships. The Joker and Harley Quinn have a classic abusive relationship, with the Joker insulting her and physically causing her injury. The film also showed his mental manipulation of her, but instead of showing that as problematic they ultimately romanticized it.
The good parts were definitely the acting of Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn and Viola Davis as Amanda Waller. Robbie captured Quinn’s bubbly but slightly off personality with her deep feelings of caring. Viola Davis was a brutal and cold military-like woman, and she rocked it. The CGI was also good, but what superhero movie doesn’t have good CGI nowadays?
So my recommendation is to save your money, unless you’re looking for a good, cringy laugh. Then it might be worth the $7 ticket. You decide.
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