Suicide Squad, 2016.
Directed by David Ayer.
Starring Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Jai Courtney, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Cara Delevingne, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jay Hernandez, Adam Beach, Jim Parrack, Ben Affleck, Karen Fukuhara, Common, Ike Barinholtz and Scott Eastwood.
SYNOPSIS:
A secret government agency recruits imprisoned supervillains to execute dangerous black ops missions in exchange for clemency.
Suicide Squad is a welcome addition to the superhero genre that quite frankly, should be a better movie than it already is. I don’t know if the movie is supposed to be DC’s answer to Guardians of the Galaxy or Deadpool or an answer to something else entirely, but the resulting film is definitely something of a mixture of the above, alongside its own refreshing elements that honestly do make for one of the more enjoyable movies of its kind – and going one step further, one of the better summer blockbusters of the past few years.
Writer/director David Ayer (Fury, End of Watch) is clearly reveling in the fun of playing around with super villains positioned as heroes, most evidently when not even 10 minutes into the movie viewers witness a scene of Will Smith’s Deadshot (an assassin well-versed in firearms) being beat up and captured in front of his daughter by none other than Batman (Ben Affleck). It’s a fairly emotional scene that somewhat will make moviegoers dislike Batman (to be fair, Zack Snyder kind of did that already with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), because it is clear that Deadshot is not necessarily a terrible person (he seems to be assassinating other criminals if anything) and does live by a moral code of not harming women or children. Still, he is a criminal, which also makes it understandable why Batman is going about business as usual. However, with that one scene, it does set up that Suicide Squad is thinking outside the box and trying to do something different; we’re here to celebrate super villains as anti-heroes.
Continuing along with the rest of the dangerous incarcerated villains poised to be heroes for hire by the government, there’s Margot Robbie portraying Harley Quinn in her long-anticipated live-action debut in a DC comics movie, and she takes that trademark baseball bat of the character and hits a walk-off home run with an expected slightly psychotic performance. Remember that the sole focus of the movie is on the ragtag group of unlikely heroes, so while Harley Quinn is here alongside her puddin’, clown prince of crime boyfriend The Joker (played by Jared Leto), not too much of their complicated relationship built around what feels like desired emotional manipulation and physical abuse is gone into with much detail, but there is assuredly enough here to whet the appetite. One of the flashback sequences towards the end of the film is absolutely brilliant; to be fair, anytime Margot Robbie and Jared Leto share the screen together, they have dynamite chemistry and a strong working knowledge of the characters they are representing. The duo give knockout performances.
Specifically speaking about just Harley Quinn for a moment, David Ayer lovingly enjoys feeding her a wide variety of nutty dialogue and weird things to say within his script. He’s having fun bringing the character to life, while Margot Robbie delivers each line not just with a twisted sense of bubbly enthusiasm, but with an accent in her voice that sounds like the character comic book fans around the world have come to know and love from various DC cartoons. Margot Robbie looks the part, acts the part, and is also physically capable of holding her own during many of the film’s extended action sequences, often nabbing some of the most stylized kills of the entire film.
As previously mentioned, Jared Leto is given less to work with as The Joker, but that’s again because this isn’t necessarily his or Harley Quinn’s movie (The Joker sees far less screen-time than the other major characters). However, Leto is one of the most talented actors on the planet and knows how to make his limited screen-time count; just like Margot Robbie, he gives a performance showcasing that he is off his rocker, scarily intimidating due to his absolute mental instability, and knows how to make the complicated relationship dynamic come to life properly on screen. If by some miracle Mr. Ben Affleck is reading this review, here is how you print money: take the Batman movie you are writing and cram in as much as possible on exploring the love between these two. That is what people want and something that realistically could save the DC Extended Universe, because let’s face it, I am part of a small minority vocalizing praise for Suicide Squad. Regardless, hopefully the box office numbers reflect a success.
It’s not just the core characters that make Suicide Squad such an engaging film to watch however, as even the majority of the characters that I had never heard of before coming into this thing managed to make a fairly good first impression. El Diablo (played by Jay Hernandez) most definitely comes to mind, as does Rick Flagg (he’s basically in love with a woman that can transform into a possessed demonic witch played by Cara Delevingne). What’s most thought-provoking about Suicide Squad is the numerous ways that love is sporadically thematically explored, ranging from loss, to something more evil involving abuse, to acceptance, and more. It also helps that this universe will not be holding back on some of the more dirty and messed up details of The Joker and Harley Quinn’s partnership.
Did I mention even Jai Courtney gives a decent performance in this movie and actually plays a character? It’s true, he is a loony Australian that loves robbing banks and looks and acts like he is hopped up on meth for the entire movie. Maybe that’s the secret to getting more good performances out of Jai, just give him drugs.
The rest of the characters are honestly pretty forgettable. Killer Croc has a couple cool moments and unexpected funny lines, but everyone else barely registers, and to be honest, I couldn’t even tell you much about them because the movie itself doesn’t really care either. Less is more probably would have worked here, but realistically getting over half of the characters right is most definitely a win for the movie.
Clearly, Suicide Squad seems to have nailed most of the characters it is presenting, but one of the major flaws with the picture is that the story does leave a lot to be desired. Without spoiling too much, the titular suicide squad basically respond to a supernatural disturbance, fighting a bunch of CGI looking monsters that do pave the way for some entertaining action sequences, but in the end what we are left with is a movie about villains that has a terribly motivated and generic true villain. Most of the story surrounding the true antagonist doesn’t even make much sense, but it’s easy to roll along with because the actor and character work from Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Jay Hernandez, and Viola Davis (she plays the ruthless straight-faced top secret agent putting the band together) is very strong allowing a number of emotional moments to resonate. Again, it just would have been nice if they weren’t up against CGI atrocities that should look far better than they do considering the reported $170 million budget on this thing.
Briefly, I do want to touch on that David Ayer does seem to have taken a music video approach to Suicide Squad, bombarding viewers with dozens of popular licensed songs spanning multiple eras and genres of music. It’s never really distracting and frustrating, but admittedly the power of playing such popular songs in a blockbuster movie does lose its appeal when you consistently do it every five minutes. Nevertheless, the movie does have a fairly serviceable original soundtrack too, with some very good pieces utilized during the more emotional moments.
Being around these anti-heroes truly is a blast, but the story does need to be better. The approach to spend the first 30 minutes or so introducing each individual super villain one by one most definitely works (it is very nice knowing some things about each character by the time they are reintroduced into the movie), but that really isn’t my gripe. Suicide Squad simply shouldn’t be a movie about saving the world like every other superhero movie; the characters are far too interesting and entertaining to be stuck in something so cliché.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder – Chief Film Critic of Flickering Myth. Check here for new reviews weekly, friend me on Facebook, follow my Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
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