Suicide Squad (2016)

Director: David Ayer

Cast: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Margot Robbies Ass, Viola Davis

Review Author: Tony

Rating: 2.5/5 cans of Guinness

If there is one trait I possess which I pride myself on, it’s my ability to write-up reviews in a timely manner…….My God, I’m hilarious. I have to apologize for my lack of output this month, I promised myself I wouldn’t let this happen back in November last year yet its nearly been a full month since my last review. I don’t want to make excuses but I’ve gotten a new job so I’ve been busy with the transition, also Stranger things happened but I won’t apologize for that. However, I have seen a few films this month so I have a few reviews in the works even if they are a tad late.

Summer is now coming to an end and what a disappoint its been. Summer has traditionally been blockbuster season with many of the top movie studios big budget films going head to head to get their hands on our money, however, this year has been a disaster. Most of the summer films have barely broken even and many are set to take huge losses. But I’m going to shed no tears as these failures rest solely on the shoulders of the studios. The overall quality of the films I’ve seen this summer is abysmal, just overblown spectacle pieces with bare-bone plots. Thankfully cinema goers have recognized this and aren’t taking this shit anymore. An interesting point I came across is that big Hollywood studios are churning out these generic, by-the-numbers movies in order to capitalize on the Chinese market which has become a massive source of box office income.

Suicide Squad is perhaps the most bitter pill to swallow for me to me as I foolishly fed into the hype (another one of my traits is I never learn), The marketing was phenomenal and I remember praising the fact that I knew so little of the actual plot of the film. Well cheers Warner Bros for making a mug out of me, the reason so little of the plot was revealed is because of how piss poor it truly is. What we have here is a continuation of the trend of all blockbuster films having a giant doomsday laser coming from the sky which leads to another dimension that threatens to tear the world apart. This has to be the laziest fucking trend in Hollywood right now and we’ve seen it three times as the final act of three different movies this year alone (Ghostbusters, TMNT 2 and now Suicide Squad)… Fuck Me.

The pinnacle of superhero movie third acts.

I’ve let some films away for similar stuff this year like X-Men: Apocalypse and Warcraft because I didn’t really expect much from them and they both shaped up to be entertaining albeit forgettable popcorn films, but I really expected better from Suicide Squad. The villain is pretty much Apocalypse 2.0 with the exact same motivations and if I’m being honest the idea of a world ending scenario was too ambitious for this film. Suicide Squad needed to dial it back and give us a less powerful villain and a more grounded plot. They had The Joker, the greatest of all villains in the history of comics, they cast a great actor willing to immerse himself fully into the role, they put a new spin on the character unseen before and yet they fucking squandered him. Jared Letto is rightfully furious considering he’s become the latest victim of DC film editing, claiming huge portions of the scenes he filmed are missing, but it still doesn’t matter as the joker only amounts to a glorified cameo here.

I’m not going to say the film is terrible as there are flashes of greatness spread throughout and a strong first act elevates the film to a higher standard than Batman Vs Superman. For the most part, the team are great with Margot Robbie, Will Smith and Viola Davis turning in some great performances, hell even Jai Courtney was great but too many of the team are sidelined to secondary roles. It’s frustrating considering many films have ensemble casts yet give each character their due screen time but here characters like Katana never really get to display their purpose let alone usefulness.

The first half of the film has that wonderful madcap high energy feel that the trailers sold us and each team member gets their own entertaining and hilarious introductions. The tone is great here as it bounces from humorous with the Squad members to sinister every time Viola Davis is on-screen as the ruthless Amanda Waller. The film works best when it’s keeping your focus off the plot.

Unfortunately, the second half is a drag, somehow the film forgets everything that made it interesting and becomes a run of the mill get from point A to B, save the world and redeem ourselves bore-fest. The last thing I expected from this film was to be bored.

Suicide Squad was number three on my list of the top 5 most anticipated films for the second half of 2016 and I really feel duped by this movie. Why squander such an interesting setup and cast for such a bland story, and why edit the film this manically, at times I felt entire scenes of dialogue were skipped. This is the third time this year I’ve been let down by a poor quality release from DC and all I can hope for is that the newly appointed president of DC Comics Geoff Johns can get his input and help bring a better quality and standard to these films because the fans deserve it. Suicide Squad is not the worst film this year, in fact, I’m sure there are many who have and will enjoy it, yet I believe it’s by far the most disappointing film for me this year.