Let's Go Out To The Movies: "Suicide Squad": One, Two, Three Strikes They're Out

Directed and Written
by David Ayer 

(PG-13 - Warner Bros. - 2 hrs, 10 mins)

Alo Party Peoples.

It's an improvment over Batman v Superman, but that doesn't make it good.

I need to get that out there right off the bat because, like most of DC Films' output, Suicide Squad is the kind of bad movie where what went wrong is kind of fascinating in its own right and it can't help but attract an audience based off of that. And when you add in the rabid fanboyism that surrounds comic book superheroes, saying anything remotely critical will rouse the usual suspects to start shouting it down. So let me be clear, Suicide Squad is a mess; the tone is all over the map, the script is consistently overstuffed yet underwritten, a great cast has absolutely nothing to work with - the only reason that this is better than the train wreck that was Batman v Superman is because it simply isn't trying as hard.

Yet it's more disappointing because, while Batman v Superman proudly telegraphed "This is going to suck, get ready for it." from its inception, Suicide Squad was actually shaping up to be a good time. David Ayer knows his way around an ensemble cast, and the base premise of "Hey, let's take a bunch of C-list supervillains and use them as a government black-ops team." is a clever one. I'm surprised no one's used in the movies before. And when that first trailer hit, looking like a lean, tight palate cleanser. Like it would be perfect after the bloat and posturing of the last film, striking the same groove as Guardians of the Galaxy, I thought to myself "Hallelujah! I can finally get behind one of these things!" I was looking forward to this, and most of the people that trashed Batman v Superman were too. But, even if you managed to avoid the gossip surrounding the production, you can clearly tell that the studio stepped in and mandated a drastic shift in tone once critical reception of Batman v Superman hit. You can picture the post-it notes pasted up around the editing bay's monitors, most of which say "Make it more like a Marvel movie!" from the constant on-the-nose needle drops to the forced pandering to hardcore comics fans.

Case in point, Jared Leto's Joker has no reason to be in the movie. Granted, any actor following Heath Ledger in this role was going to have their work cut out for them, and the idea behind him isn't that bad; taking him from being just a serial killer in clown makeup back to being a gangster... but a decidedly modern skeevy, drugged out, blinged up archetype of "gangster" that rides around in a custom purple sports car. It at least differentiates him from prior incarnations of the character... but he just can't pull it off. He's trying so hard to be edgy and different that he just comes across as lame, and half the time he's onscreen I expected him to get into a rap battle with Die Antwoord and the Insane Clown Posse. And for all the focus that the marketing has put on him, he's barely even in the movie; his screentime tops out at nine minutes, and he easily could have been cut out with little to no impact on the rest of the film.

The only thing keeping Suicide Squad from being totally disposable is the rest of the cast being pretty damn good when they get to perform, and with a better script to work with it could have been something special. Will Smith brings his signature charisma to Deadshot, a hitman trying to convince his daughter that he isn't a horrible person. Margo Robbie as Harley Quinn is just as amazing as she looked in those trailers. Jay Hernandez as Diablo, former gangbanger with fire powers who's sworn off using them after accidentally killing his wife lends much needed humanity to the piece. And Viola Davis as Squad architect Amanda Waller is the kind of antihero that would feel right at home in a better version of this movie. I'd gladly watch a movie about Deadshot, or Harley Quinn, or Diablo or Amanda Waller, but this movie about all of them is just too overstuffed to function.

I really wanted to like Suicide Squad. I wanted to see Will Smith, Jay Hernandez, Margo Robbie, Jared Leto and Viola Davis click the same way that Chris Pratt, Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista and Vin Disel did. I wanted to see what the gleeful anarchy side of the "X-TREEEME" Ninties aesthetic that DC's cinematic universe looked like in constrast with the self-serious brooding of Man of Steel. I wanted there to be a good installment in this universe to finally shut up the people lobbing Disney/Marvel conspiracy theories at Rotten Tomatoes. (Don't think that I'm thrilled that the only outfit consistently good at making superhero films is a Disney subsidiary) But they've swung and missed yet again. One. Two. Three strikes, they're out.

Have a nice day,

Greg.B

FINAL RATING: 2/5