Suicide Squad was written and directed by David Ayer. It stars Margot Robbie, Will Smith and Viola Davis along with many others and tells the story of Amanda Waller's (Viola Davis) Task Force X or Suicide Squad and their forced cooperation with the Government. When Amanda Waller loses control over one her assets she is forced to call in the Suicide Squad to come clean up the mess. To avoid any spoiler for those who haven't seen it that's about as in depth as I'll go with the plot.
When I saw that David Ayer was both writing and directing this movie I was genuinely excited as he's done great work before like Training Day, Fury and End of Watch. All movies I thoroughly enjoyed. I was also extremely excited because it was going to bring to life some of my favorite heroes and villains from the DC universe like Deadshot (Will Smith), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Waller and many more. The marketing for this movie was fantastic and I had every expectation that this movie was going to be wonderful.
Boy was I wrong.
I didn't enjoy this movie that much. I saw it twice to make sure I was being fair. I was excited to see this movie because as a kid I grew up with these characters. I just thought that it was a cluster from beginning to end and it really didn't deliver on what the trailers were promoting.
Of course every movie has positives:
1. Deadshot- Deadshot was fantastic in this movie. I loved everything about this character. Will Smith did an excellent job with his performance and was really the stand out in this movie. He was better than the other leads on screen. By far. It was fun to see him have his moments of humanity that got me truly caring about what he is doing both on and off screen. He had the funniest lines and some of the best action. Well done Will Smith.
2. Tone- DC has been given a lot of smack because they've been too serious in the past. They definitely tried to get away from that with this film. While some of the jokes didn't land for me, I still greatly appreciated the attempt. There was a solid tonal shift in this movie that proves to me DC is listening to their fans. I am looking forward to seeing if DC continues on this fashion.
3. El Diablo- I fell in love with this character. El Diablo (Jay Hernandez) was my second favorite character in this movie. I really felt like he was one of the most fleshed out characters and it was fun to see him turn from his pacifist ways to protect people. I enjoyed his back story and his human side.
The Cons:
1. Enchantress- Enchantress (Cara Delevingne) played a much bigger role in this movie than I originally expected.. and to me that was a bad choice. She was easily my most hated character. In the 3rd Act (I'll get to that later) she did this weird dance that was annoying and had the worst ADR (Additional Dialogue Recording) voice out there. It barley fit the character Cara was playing. I didn't respect the character as a member of this movie. When she was Dr. Moone she felt out of place. There was nothing about this character I enjoyed. None of this is disrespect to Cara Delevingne because I genuinely love her as an actress. I just hated the portrayal of Enchantress.
2. Underused Characters- This movie was such a disappointment to me in this department. The movie felt like it was nothing more than a setup for 3 villains. Joker (Jared Leto) Harley Quinn and Deadshot. Everyone else was just there so they could have the Suicide Squad name. They had really awesome characters to use like Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), Slipknot (Adam Beach), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) and Katana (Karen Fukuhara). Instead of taking the time to introduce these characters properly I felt like they were just there to fill space on promotional art. I wanted to see these characters really be utilized but they weren't.
3. The Music- Yes, I know this movie had a great soundtrack. I loved the songs that they chose to use for this movie. Like genuinely loved these song choices. But when the soundtrack is used to hide behind I have a problem with that. In the first 10 minutes of the movie we have four different songs played. In every trailer there was a mix of song choices. This movie relied way too heavily on their songs to bring out excitement. Look at a movie like Deadpool or Guardians of the Galaxy. Both of those movie had fantastic soundtracks that enhanced the movie.. it didn't steal scenes from characters. Suicide Squad at times just felt like a music video featuring DC characters.
4. The Action- This movie was a mess left and right during the fight scenes. There was barely any direction and I often felt like I wasn't sure what was going on. There is like 30-40 minutes of this movie on the editing room floor and it's all action. There was no clear direction and it was all cut together super quick. It didn't allow me anytime to observe what was going on. It just felt jumbled up.
5. The entire 3rd Act- At one point during this movie my friend leaned over to me and said "Man, they're reaching" and that is exactly what the 3rd act felt like to me. The reason no one knew what this movie was about in the trailers was because this movie didn't even know what it was about.. It was a bunch of scenes used to introduce Harley Quinn, Deadshot and Joker loosely tied together by a plot. So when it came time to pull it all together with an ending- they had nothing to go on. The last fight scene in this movie was like 90 seconds of slow-mo fighting and it felt forced. It had me laughing in disbelief that this is how they chose to bring it all to conclusion. With cliche'd endings and a laughable fight scene there were characters that just appeared like nothing had happened to them and Killer Croc was just hilariously bad. This movie fell flat on it's face during the 3rd act.
Overall, I did not enjoy this movie. It had two beginnings which was hard for me. The second being better than the first. I hated the action, was disappointed in the lack of characters used, the entire 3rd Act was just bad and it hid behind a soundtrack. This was a classic case of putting the best moments in the trailer with a good song. And some of the best moments of the trailer weren't even in the movie.. I was all around disappointed with this movie. Deadshot and Diablo though... Well done DC.
I give Suicide Squad a D+.
When I saw that David Ayer was both writing and directing this movie I was genuinely excited as he's done great work before like Training Day, Fury and End of Watch. All movies I thoroughly enjoyed. I was also extremely excited because it was going to bring to life some of my favorite heroes and villains from the DC universe like Deadshot (Will Smith), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Waller and many more. The marketing for this movie was fantastic and I had every expectation that this movie was going to be wonderful.
Boy was I wrong.
I didn't enjoy this movie that much. I saw it twice to make sure I was being fair. I was excited to see this movie because as a kid I grew up with these characters. I just thought that it was a cluster from beginning to end and it really didn't deliver on what the trailers were promoting.
Of course every movie has positives:
1. Deadshot- Deadshot was fantastic in this movie. I loved everything about this character. Will Smith did an excellent job with his performance and was really the stand out in this movie. He was better than the other leads on screen. By far. It was fun to see him have his moments of humanity that got me truly caring about what he is doing both on and off screen. He had the funniest lines and some of the best action. Well done Will Smith.
2. Tone- DC has been given a lot of smack because they've been too serious in the past. They definitely tried to get away from that with this film. While some of the jokes didn't land for me, I still greatly appreciated the attempt. There was a solid tonal shift in this movie that proves to me DC is listening to their fans. I am looking forward to seeing if DC continues on this fashion.
3. El Diablo- I fell in love with this character. El Diablo (Jay Hernandez) was my second favorite character in this movie. I really felt like he was one of the most fleshed out characters and it was fun to see him turn from his pacifist ways to protect people. I enjoyed his back story and his human side.
The Cons:
1. Enchantress- Enchantress (Cara Delevingne) played a much bigger role in this movie than I originally expected.. and to me that was a bad choice. She was easily my most hated character. In the 3rd Act (I'll get to that later) she did this weird dance that was annoying and had the worst ADR (Additional Dialogue Recording) voice out there. It barley fit the character Cara was playing. I didn't respect the character as a member of this movie. When she was Dr. Moone she felt out of place. There was nothing about this character I enjoyed. None of this is disrespect to Cara Delevingne because I genuinely love her as an actress. I just hated the portrayal of Enchantress.
2. Underused Characters- This movie was such a disappointment to me in this department. The movie felt like it was nothing more than a setup for 3 villains. Joker (Jared Leto) Harley Quinn and Deadshot. Everyone else was just there so they could have the Suicide Squad name. They had really awesome characters to use like Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), Slipknot (Adam Beach), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) and Katana (Karen Fukuhara). Instead of taking the time to introduce these characters properly I felt like they were just there to fill space on promotional art. I wanted to see these characters really be utilized but they weren't.
3. The Music- Yes, I know this movie had a great soundtrack. I loved the songs that they chose to use for this movie. Like genuinely loved these song choices. But when the soundtrack is used to hide behind I have a problem with that. In the first 10 minutes of the movie we have four different songs played. In every trailer there was a mix of song choices. This movie relied way too heavily on their songs to bring out excitement. Look at a movie like Deadpool or Guardians of the Galaxy. Both of those movie had fantastic soundtracks that enhanced the movie.. it didn't steal scenes from characters. Suicide Squad at times just felt like a music video featuring DC characters.
4. The Action- This movie was a mess left and right during the fight scenes. There was barely any direction and I often felt like I wasn't sure what was going on. There is like 30-40 minutes of this movie on the editing room floor and it's all action. There was no clear direction and it was all cut together super quick. It didn't allow me anytime to observe what was going on. It just felt jumbled up.
5. The entire 3rd Act- At one point during this movie my friend leaned over to me and said "Man, they're reaching" and that is exactly what the 3rd act felt like to me. The reason no one knew what this movie was about in the trailers was because this movie didn't even know what it was about.. It was a bunch of scenes used to introduce Harley Quinn, Deadshot and Joker loosely tied together by a plot. So when it came time to pull it all together with an ending- they had nothing to go on. The last fight scene in this movie was like 90 seconds of slow-mo fighting and it felt forced. It had me laughing in disbelief that this is how they chose to bring it all to conclusion. With cliche'd endings and a laughable fight scene there were characters that just appeared like nothing had happened to them and Killer Croc was just hilariously bad. This movie fell flat on it's face during the 3rd act.
Overall, I did not enjoy this movie. It had two beginnings which was hard for me. The second being better than the first. I hated the action, was disappointed in the lack of characters used, the entire 3rd Act was just bad and it hid behind a soundtrack. This was a classic case of putting the best moments in the trailer with a good song. And some of the best moments of the trailer weren't even in the movie.. I was all around disappointed with this movie. Deadshot and Diablo though... Well done DC.
I give Suicide Squad a D+.
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