I’d like to start this review out with an apology: This is not the Fifty Shades Darker review. That one I’m still trying to write. But I saw the movie, so it’ll be out soon!
So, the Oscars have come and gone, and there were definitely some shocks (Steve Harvey, eat your heart out!) and upsets (Casey Affleck is a sketchy guy, but, damn, was he good), but something that I was most shocked and upset by were winners for Best Makeup: the talent behind Suicide Squad.
Yes, Suicide Squad now has more Oscars than The Shawshank Redemption, Reservoir Dogs, The Shining, Scarface, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and several Marx brothers films. Hell, a lot of those movies weren’t even nominated. And, yes, Suicide Squad only won for the makeup (which was alright), but I don’t care. It won. It won something that wasn’t a Razzie.
Some people LOVE this film, and will defend it no matter what. I’m not kidding. Look at this change.org petition that came out around the movie’s release:This has got to be the dumbest thing on Earth. A petition to “The Audiences” asking them to have their own opinions but also to not listen to the opinions of others because they’re wrong and you’re right…It’s a total trainwreck, but it shows how fiercely loyal people are to this waste of talent and money ($175 million budget). So, as an audience member and as a critic (in context, not actually), I’m going to voice my opinion.
Also: SPOILER ALERT! Although I don’t recommend watching this…
I remember when The Dark Knight came out. It was really good and not JUST as a superhero movie, but as an actual thriller. And, I liked the characters, and I liked the acting, and I liked the plot. After Batman v. Superman (*grimace, shiver, cringe*), I was hoping Suicide Squad would redeem DC’s cinematic universe to its glory days. Instead, this movie is so all over the place that I don’t even understand it. It’s depressing. It’s not even fun to watch, it’s just awful. The DC cinema franchise is proof that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is true; all things move toward more disorder.
I’ll start with the characters
I probably won’t refer to most of the people in this film with their character’s names, because I forgot them or because they’re stupid. Sorry, Captain Boomerang.
Jared Leto plays a bad Joker. And, yeah, it’s hard to compete with Heath Ledger’s adaptation, but Leto just does a shit job. Not only is it bad, it’s cringey. Ledger got into his character by sitting in a restaurant and imagining all of the ways he could kill the people around him. Leto? He sent a dead rat to Margot Robbie. I really don’t know how to respond to that. Fortunately, he wasn’t in the movie enough for me to actually critique him.Margot Robbie plays an oversexualized, confusing Harley Quinn. Her accent is all over the place, her backstory a shamble (it should’ve been the best one of the movie), and her clothing is barely there. I mean, sure, be sexy, but it shouldn’t be her only selling point. That is the only reason people like her. I can’t tell you anything about her character, nothing; but I could talk for hours about her ass. Margot Robbie is a sexy but also talented actress (see: The Wolf of Wall Street), and I’m sad to see her put into a role that a blow up doll could do.
Will Smith plays Will Smith. He cracks cheesy one-liners and every expression he makes is so unthreatening, I almost want to hug him.
I mean, look at that face! He looks both sad and jaded. And, his character trait is that he can shoot things pretty accurately, but he could easily be replaced with 20 or so Finnish snipers. I’m not very impressed.
Viola Davis plays some sort of U.S. government official whose motives and schemes are so random and based on luck that I think she was playing roulette, or D&D. She also eats a steak for like 20 minutes. Her acting is only decent, though $10 says she didn’t perform because she knew this movie was more beneath her than the Earth’s core.
Jai Courtney plays Captain Boomerang, and I don’t care, even though this was one of the better performances of the entire movie. He’s just a dick, and I love it. Also, I don’t understand how his boomerangs work. He throws one with a live video camera on it during one scene, but instead of seeing a recording on a monitor that’s just spinning (since that’s what boomerangs do and anything attached to a boomerang should also spin along with said boomerang), the recording is perfectly clear and straight. It’s not really a boomerang, more like a video drone.
Jay Hernandez plays a literal flame God named Diablo/El Diablo/Whatever. Sorry Ozai, but this is the true Phoenix King. This character was so overpowered that he makes the rest of the characters seem useless. He could’ve done everything by himself, but instead he doesn’t want to hurt anyone, and he’s scared he’ll lose control, and he’s too passive, and huh?
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (cool name) plays a man playing a Killer Croc (not as cool of a name). All of his movements are really exaggerated; he’s overdoing it to a T. He also embodies more black stereotypes than one of Gabriel Iglesias’ racist gift baskets.THIS IS KATANA. SHE’S GOT MY BACK. SHE COULD CUT ALL YOU IN HALF WITH ONE SWORD STROKE JUST LIKE MOWING THE LAWN. I WOULD ADVISE NOT GETTING KILLED BY HER, HER SWORD TRAPS THE SOULS OF ITS VICTIMS.
Cara Delevingnegnegnenene [sic] plays the Enchantress and Dr. June Moone. JUNE MOONE. I thought “Killer Croc” was bad, but that name takes the cake. She’s also evil, and also a terrible actress. Sorry, she is. Hated her in Paper Towns, hated her here: she’s just not good. I mean, for someone who isn’t an actress, she’s great. And she looks great. I liked her makeup the best (I wouldn’t expect anything less from her), but she was not a cool villain. At least Viola Davis did a good job with what what she had, but Delevigngnengngngngnngngggggene (sp?) just doesn’t perform. Her acting wasn’t the worst, to be honest, but the only reason I’m critiquing her the most is because she’s debatably the most important character.
Other notable characters are: Rick Flag the babysitter, Griggs the asshole, The Man Who Can Climb Anything (Wikipedia does him a favor and calls him a “specialized assassin,” but he dies pretty quickly anyway), and Ezra Miller and Ben Affleck as The Flash and Batman.
Let’s take a moment to think about this: Ezra Miller and Ben Affleck play superheroes in this movie. Wait. Superheroes. There are superheroes in this movie. They show up, they arrested the Suicide Squad members, they exist. Keep this in mind.
Let’s go to the plot:
After 30 minutes of introduction (which felt like several trailers put together—OH WAIT), Cara Delevginnnnennggeee (was I close?) who has been possessed by an Enchantress, decides that humans are being controlled by machines and that she needs to build a machine to destroy all of humanity. Um, OK. Is this a metaphor?
So, Viola Davis decides not to call for BATMAN OR THE FLASH, but to assemble her group of psychos together, which include a guy who throws boomerangs, a sharpshooter, a Man Who Can Climb Anything, a ninja, and an insane woman with a baseball bat.Look, I’m skimming over a lot right now, the plot is a little more in depth than this, but it’s pretty hard to follow. The team’s existence is a little more justified (Superman died and the gov’t needed expendable people to do high-risk missions) and Enchantress has a bit more of a motive (she was trapped in a statue by humankind and she wants revenge), but it’s still full of MacGuffins (for example: part of Viola Davis’ plan was to have Rick Flag and Enchantress fall in love, but that doesn’t really make sense).
I forgot about Diablo and Killer Croc, but you did too, so… who cares?
Anyway, the Enchantress needs her heart (cuz she doesn’t have it) to complete the machine (even though she’s so powerful already) and long story short, she gets the heart; but then the Suicide Squad saves the day. They also had some half-assed bonding moments but they were pretty forced and contrived. And, Leto shows up and saves Harley Quinn. K. That happened. At this point I was happy to see the movie end.
And don’t get me started on the backstories.
This movie had a big task of introducing a lot of new characters, yet it fails to do any of them justice. Deadshot’s and Diablo’s pasts are more basic than a pH of 750 (and the kid who plays Deadshot’s daughter is also terrible at acting). Jai Courtney doesn’t really have one, except that he stole a bunch of diamonds and got caught. Harley Quinn is an interesting person, and her relationship with the Joker is even more interesting, but it’s totally glossed over. I forgot about Killer Croc and Katana’s, but they were rushed and I just. Don’t. Care.
There was so much there. I mean, there was a part (and by “part” I mean half a second where there’s text on the screen) where Harley Quinn is revealed to be Robin’s murderer. In one of the flashbacks, Batman has a moment with Harley Quinn where he gives her mouth-to-mouth after rescuing her from underwater, but there’s a shot where he stares at her right before reviving her, where he’s clearly considering leaving her to die. I didn’t catch this the first time around because it was so rushed, but that pause was supposed to be meaningful; Batman didn’t want to revive her because she killed his sidekick (not because she was evil or because it’s weird to essentially kiss her). I rewatched that scene over and over, and it’s really good; it shows a lot about Batman and his past, and all I wanted in that moment was a Robin story. But nah, fuck that, let’s talk about Jai Courtney next! Ugh.
The music is unacceptable.
Not the songs that made the actual soundtrack album, but the additional music that was in the film. What kind of movie has “Sympathy for the Devil,” “Seven Nation Army,” “Superfreak,” “You Don’t Own Me” “Without Me,” AND “Bohemian Rhapsody” in it? WHY? Some of those songs were played back to back!
Some notable quotes:
“What are we, some kinda Suicide Squad?” -Will Smith. Eyeroll.
“I want her to go to college… And if she can’t cut it, and her grades start slipping, then I need you to White People that thang. You know how y’all do.” -also Will Smith. What…?
“Let’s just say I put him in a hole and threw away the hole.” Viola Davis. I don’t understand this line.
“Ames, if this man shoots me, I want you to kill him… and I want you to go clear my browser history.” -Griggs. Ew.
“She had a mouth.” -The Man Who Can Climb Anything.
“In a world of flying men and monsters, this is the only way to protect our country.” -Viola Davis. Oh, is it now? Has Bat been sick? Is the Flash off in Aruba, maybe?Honestly, the best part of the movie was when Viola Davis refers to the Joker and Harley Quinn as “the king and queen of Gotham,” because that unintentionally makes Will Smith the Fresh Prince. I hope that was on purpose.
Since this movie was a desperate attempt to copy Marvel’s success with The Avengers, I’ll end the review with some comparisons: The movie wants to be either Deadpool (a comedy) or Guardians of the Galaxy (more of a character drama), but instead it’s just Andrew Garfield’s Spiderman 2 (a disaster).
I had really high hopes for this, but it just falls so flat. I rate this 30/100 Men Who Can Climb Anything.
Image Credit: Feature, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6