Mediocre Movie Month 2016: Some Thoughts on "Suicide Squad"

Insert Hot Topic joke.

Suicide Squad (2016)

Directed by David Ayer
Produced by Charles Roven, Richard Suckle
Written by David Ayer

Starring Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cara Delevingne

Budget: $175M

Let's talk a little bit about Deadpool. After wallowing in development hell for just over a decade, Ryan Reynolds finally managed to drag Fox Studios, kicking and screaming, towards one of the most successful box office releases ever, with an insane return securing it as the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, high-grossing X-Men film of all time, and the first Marvel film nominated for Best Musical or Comedy.

That's insane, especially for a character who was, until the movie released, primarily known from those gifs of people dressing up as him at conventions and goofing off.

And when I say Reynolds dragged Fox into making the film, I almost mean it literally. Reynolds was a massive fan of the 'Pool and after the disaster that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine, he was determined to see it done properly. None of this PG-13 lowest-common-denominator garbage, he pushed and pushed until a proper film was made, and delivered one of the best superhero movies of the decade.

Of course, that kind of success breeds imitation, and imitation almost never rises to the occasion.

Jobs like rescuing imitation Messiahs.

The proper Suicide Squad team from the comics seems like the perfect fit for a low-to-the-ground gritty superhero film: a squad of low-powered supervillains is recruited by the US government to carry out wetwork various covert operations. They're outfitted with brain-poppers so if they go off-script they can be disposed of easily, and the fact that they're villains means they're really easy to disavow.

Well DC seemed to have shot themselves in the foot with this, because not only does the logic not work, the movie falls apart pretty much immediately. Blame this on the supposedly large-scale reshoots post-Deadpool, blame it on the supposed numerous rewrites and edits made to differentiate the film from Batman v Superman, blame it on the fact that seemingly none of the people involved in this movie's production understood why Deadpool worked.

Here's a short summary of the movie: government...person Amanda Waller doesn't like that Superman could level a city with a flick of his wrist, so she decides to collect a bunch of bad people with powers to serve as an insurance policy. Considering Superman is impervious to bullets and really freaking strong, she only goes for the best of the best, like a guy who can shoot good, a fire-bender, a guy who throws boomerangs, and a woman with a baseball bat.

Also, she recruits the world's worst archaeologist, who turns out to be an ancient demon-witch. She breaks out, starts up a doomsday weapon, and shoots a beam of light into the sky. The heroes slaughter a bunch of faceless CGI goons so we don't have to feel compromised about rooting for a band of murderers, there's some forced sentimentality, and you leave the theater with a bad taste in your mouth.

The Good
There's some redeeming qualities about this film. For the most part I thought the acting was fine where it mattered, particularly with Will Smith and Jae Courtney (I know, I can't believe it either). Courtney in particular was actually pretty fun as Captain Boomerang, and I thought his introduction scene where we see him get caught by the Flash was a nice little universe-expanding moment.

Personally I thought El Diablo was the highlight of the film. While Smith's Deadshot has some minor development where he loves his kid, El Diablo has a full-on character arc with actual sympathy behind it. Plus, when he goes full-on Aztec Fire God at the end is actually really cool.

Aside from that some of the other design work was neat. I was actually a fan of the Enchantress look before she leveled up into her CGI costume (it's all CGI, but the bright blue is far more obvious).

BUT
The rest of the movie falls apart pretty quick once you apply any logic to the situation. I don't know what Amanda Waller thinks these people are going to do (except for Enchantress and El Diablo) but considering she's 100% responsible for the movie's disaster I can't find a whole lot of sympathy. While those two get some development that almost works, the rest of the Squad is kind of glossed over. Sure, Smith loves his daughter, but when he's shown his deepest desire it isn't living a peaceful life with her, it's killing Batman. Katana hardly speaks until she starts crying at her sword about her dead husband.

3-2-3-4, 4-2-3-and!

While some of the design is fun (I'm all for unorthodox portrayals of spellcasting) some of the decisions might have been...a bit much. Of course, I'm talking about the Enchantress's dance number.

Otherwise the movie is too dark, too grungy, and doesn't justify its excessive pop-culture sound track. There wasn't any reason for the Now! That's What I Call a Superhero Movie list of obvious choices.

The Joker
Jared Leto's Joker is really bad. That is all.

Verdict
I thought it was at least more coherent than Batman v Superman. While that's not high praise, we can always hope DC will learn from their mistakes, because Marvel needs some competition that isn't X-Men.