The Suicide Squad (2021) Review

Time: 132 Minutes
Age Rating: Graphic violence, offensive language & cruelty
Cast:
Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn
Idris Elba as Robert DuBois/Bloodsport
John Cena as Christopher Smith/Peacemaker
Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag
Sylvester Stallone as the voice of Nanaue/King Shark
Viola Davis as Amanda Waller
Jai Courtney as George “Digger” Harkness/Captain Boomerang
Peter Capaldi as Gaius Grieves/The Thinker
David Dastmalchian as Abner Krill/Polka-Dot Man
Daniela Melchior as Cleo Cazo/Ratcatcher 2
Director: James Gunn

The government sends the most dangerous supervillains in the world – Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Peacemaker (John Cena), King Shark (Sylvester Stallone), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and others — to the remote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese. Armed with high-tech weapons, they trek through the dangerous jungle on a search-and-destroy mission, with only Col. Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) on the ground to make them behave.

I enjoyed the first Suicide Squad when it came out, however looking back on it, it was a bit of a disappointment to say the least. The follow up Suicide Squad film has been in development, eventually it was James Gunn, director of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, who ended up helming the project. Honestly I wasn’t that excited for the movie, first of all while I enjoy the GOTG movies, I’m not a massive fan of Gunn and his style. Second of all, the trailers weren’t that good, and didn’t do a great job at getting me interested in watching it. Nonetheless, I still decided to check it out. The trailers really didn’t do The Suicide Squad justice, it was better than expected. I still have some issues with it, but on the whole, I enjoyed it.

First and foremost, you don’t necessarily have to have seen the first Suicide Squad to get into this new Suicide Squad. While it works as a sequel, it is more of a reboot. I will say that as a movie about the Suicide Squad, Gunn’s version does succeed more than the Suicide Squad movie from 2016 (speaking as someone who doesn’t generally read comic books). In these Suicide Squad comic books, there’s usually a large cast of characters, and by the end most of them are dead. Whereas the first Suicide Squad really only had two members of the Squad being killed off throughout the entirety of the movie, The Suicide Squad has a larger amount of people dying. The tagline “Don’t get too attached” is certainly apt. Gunn certainly delivered a lot of deaths, almost to the point of going overboard, but more on that later. The plot like the 2016 movie is pretty straightforward. I do think that it gets a little weirdly complicated at points, with the time jumps, perspective changes, and the like. I was able to follow it fine enough, it was just a bit jarring how it jumps from place to place at points. The movie even surprisingly has too much going on at times. The plot is familiar to a lot of other comic book movies and doesn’t break new ground, but I don’t think it really needed to. The first act starts off pretty well, as it introduces the main characters. The second act is where plotwise I have most of my criticisms, it slows down quite a bit. The movie is long at nearly 2 hours and 20 minutes, while I don’t have a problem with longer comic book movies, The Suicide Squad is one where occasionally you feel the length, and you especially feel it in the middle section. There’s also a section involving Harley which I really didn’t like for the most part, even though it does pay off by the end of it. The third act actually does a lot at making this movie work as well as it does. It is very reminiscent of other comic book movie climaxes with large scale threats that the main characters have to deal with, but of those examples, The Suicide Squad is among the best executions of them. There’s also some surprisingly emotional and impactful moments involving the characters. I would say that it’s worth watching the movie for the climax alone. It is worth noting that there are two credits scenes worth staying around for, the second of which is especially worth watching.

One of my main two predictions going into the movie was that the humour would be my least favourite aspect, and that turned out to be true. It is strange because although I don’t find the Guardians of the Galaxy movies to be hilarious, they are funny, and are certainly funnier than The Suicide Squad. For every witty line and joke that’s actually funny, there’s a back and forth lines about “an island of dicks”, or a 69 joke. Somehow the R rating actually made the jokes less funny, and most of the time they attempted humour, at best it doesn’t leave much of an impact, at worst it’s annoying. However, if you watched that first red band trailer and found the jokes in that to be funny, you’ll probably have a good time with The Suicide Squad. Effectiveness of the humour aside, another issue with it is that sometimes it undercuts dramatic or emotional moments, something that also appears in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. The movie gets surprisingly dark at times, whether it be with characters, or the deaths that occur. With that said, there is a general feeling of Gunn trying hard to be edgy. This was a feeling I had ever since the trailers proudly announced that The Suicide Squad was “from the horribly beautiful mind of James Gunn”, and that feeling was in the movie itself. I don’t have a problem with the violence, gore, etc. However when it feels like it’s being done to get a reaction out of the audience, it does get annoying, and unfortunately The Suicide Squad slips into that at points. Some of it is the violence, which might be surprising and shocking in the first act, but by the halfway point it loses its impact. Some of it was the deaths, specifically who is chosen to die. I mentioned earlier that I thought the movie had killed off too many of its named characters. There were two deaths that I downright hated in this movie. The first was in the first half of the film, it was partly because of how quickly it was executed, and it seemed rather unnecessary outside of it being done for shock value. The second was in the second half of the movie, and it was mostly the nature of the death, how it was done without having any weight to it, and feeling like a joke despite the death being for a major character that we are meant to care about (and do care about).

Some of the highlights of the movie were the cast and characters for me, and they shared great chemistry between each other. There were two standouts for me. One is Bloodsport, played by Idris Elba, who is essentially the main character. Immediately there have been a lot of comparisons between him and Will Smith’s Deadshot from the first Suicide Squad. However, Bloodsport is his own character and he’s a great character, from his action scenes, to Elba’s performance. The other standout is Ratcatcher 2, played by Daniela Melachior, who is essentially the heart of the movie. One of the new main characters is John Cena as Peacemaker, a character I was very curious about given that even before the movie was released, it was announced that he would be getting his own spin off tv series. I haven’t seen Cena in a lot of movies but this is definitely the best performance I’ve seen from him, he handled the humour, the action scenes, and even the emotional and dramatic moments really well. I’m not sure that he’s interesting enough to lead his own spin off but I am curious to see how it plays out. Another new main character is David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man, and it really is a credit to the movie that they can make us like a character as ridiculous in concept as him. Another of the main characters of the Squad is King Shark (who’s basically just like a giant humanoid shark), and the second of my main two predictions was that I would really dislike him, mostly because he looked like he would be treated as a mix between Groot in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies and any other ‘funny animal character’. However I was wrong, he’s not one of the best characters in the movie by any means, but I didn’t mind him and I surprisingly liked him. Joel Kinnaman returns as Rick Flag and although he basically has the same role as in the first movie, I do like him more in this movie.

Another major returning Suicide Squad character is that of Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, one of the biggest standouts in the first Suicide Squad, who had her own spin off with Birds of Prey last year. I do like Harley in this movie, although there were some decisions involving her I wasn’t such a fan of. There is a segment with Harley in the second act which I particularly take issue with. With that said, it does lead to one of the standout action sequences in the movie. In fact I really liked the action that she was involved with. She is more of a supporting player compared to her past appearances, but I didn’t necessarily mind that, as Suicide Squad in concept is more of an ensemble piece, and she does play off other characters quite well. Another returning Suicide Squad character is Amanda Waller, played by Viola Davis. Waller serves as the same purpose in the first movie as the person making the Squad take on this mission, and Davis as usually delivers her part at the top of her game as always. The character is made way more over the top in this movie, but my main issues with her lie in the third act. In that section, the way she acts, the decisions she makes, and her motivations just made no sense. Her character is really the one part of The Suicide Squad where I preferred the 2016 version more. Other cast members like Peter Capaldi also delivered, as well as the other Suicide Squad members who don’t get that much screentime.

The movie is directed by James Gunn, and it certainly feels like it, while still feeling different from the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. It does have a distinct visual style and it is well shot, from the camera movements, to the colours, the costumes, and the production design. Even the CGI is pretty strong throughout. The action scenes are one of the highlights of the movie, all very entertaining, bloody, well shot, and great to watch. The third act is particularly done well, and the final enemies managing to be effectively threatening despite the initially absurd concept. The Suicide Squad also handles its music a lot better than the first movie. In 2016’s Suicide Squad, there was a good score from Steven Price but most of the music that we hear is a ton of random song choices slapped together in so many scenes, and it was just a mess. In The Suicide Squad, we get both a great score composed by John Murphy, as well as a good lineup of pre-existing songs that are utilised well throughout the movie. There are some effective needle drop moments, even if they aren’t as memorable as in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

The Suicide Squad has its issues. The humour which mostly doesn’t work, some of the characterisation, and some of the plot decisions (especially in the second act) do linger in my mind as parts I really didn’t like. However, I did find myself enjoying it, and what it gets right, it really gets right. The cast and characters for the most part are great and they have great chemistry between each other, the visual style is strong and distinct, and the action is enthralling to watch. The Suicide Squad is also a reminder that the DCEU movies really are at their best when Warner Bros lets their directors deliver their visions, and it would be great to see them learn this from how well their latest movie turned out (not that I’m counting on that happening). Even if you dislike the first Suicide Squad movie, this second version might be worth a look.

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Run All Night (2015) Review

Time: 114 Minutes
Age Rating: Contains violence, offensive language & drug use
Cast:
Liam Neeson as Jimmy Conlon
Joel Kinnaman as Mike Conlon
Ed Harris as Shawn Maguire
Common as Mr. Price
Vincent D’Onofrio as Detective Harding
Boyd Holbrook as Danny Maguire
Bruce McGill as Pat Mullen
Genesis Rodriguez as Gabriela Conlon
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra

Professional Brooklyn hitman Jimmy Conlon (Liam Neeson) is more commonly known as THE GRAVEDIGGER. Jimmy was a mob hit-man, who was best friends with his boss Sean Maguire (Ed Harris). But when Jimmy’s son, Michael (Joel Kinnaman), is marked for death by the mob, Jimmy must go up against Sean to protect Michael at all costs. Together, he and Michael must avoid corrupt cops, contract killers and the mob to survive the night.

Run All Night was a movie that interested me because of Liam Neeson’s involvement, but having actors like Ed Harris and Jaume Collet-Serra (the director of Unknown and Non Stop both pretty good Liam Neeson movies) did help as well. Out of the three movies that the director and Neeson had worked on (that I’ve seen, I haven’t seen The Commuter yet), this film is probably my favourite. It felt more placed in the real world (in comparison to the director’s previous movies), the action was great, the cast were quite solid in their roles and it really kept my attention all the way through. It’s not a fantastic action movie but it is an entertaining movie that is worth watching if you have the time.

The mostly story takes place all night (as you can probably tell from the title) and it does well in making it really feel like it. The plot is straightforward enough, not complicated but not mindless either. It’s got some little surprises which are some good surprises. It also felt relatively grounded compared to previous collaborations between Neeson and Collet-Serra (especially Non Stop). The pacing was done well, though it really picks up after Neeson’s character kills Harris’s son’s character. The movie does get better as it moves along more. There’s not much to really say about the plot to be honest.

Liam Neeson is really good, granted he could play this role in his sleep. I like the fact that he’s not playing a very moral character like in some of his other action movie roles. He’s a drunk, he’s a criminal and that was very refreshing to see, with it not just being a rehash of Liam Neeson – Action Hero. Ed Harris proved to be a great antagonist, he like a lot of his other villains has real motives and he makes everything believable and not cartoonishly evil. Both Neeson and Harris seem like they have a history, which was important to capture as that comes into play a lot in the movie. Joel Kinnaman was also really good in his role. He shared great chemistry with Neeson, and really seemed to have an estranged relationship. I also really liked Common here, he plays an assassin that Ed Harris hires at a point in the movie. I do feel like he was underused, he was only in a few scenes of the movie but he was good when he was on screen.

I liked that Run All Night decided to go with an R rating, considering the last 2 Neeson and Jaume Collet-Serra collabs have been M/PG-13. The overall direction of Run All Night overall was quite good, the movie has a good look to it. The action scenes are great and quite violent at times, which really worked with the dark and realistic tone that the film was going for, but at the same time isn’t trying too hard to make the movie completely realistic, it still knows what type of movie it is.

Although the film isn’t a must see and isn’t one of the all time best crime thrillers in recent years, I do recommend checking it out. The action is solid, the cast are good in their roles and it does keep your attention and is entertaining from start to finish, it’s not a simple action flick with no substance but it also knows what type of movie it is. If you like a lot of the Neeson flicks, I have a strong feeling that you’ll like it as well.

Knight of Cups (2015) Review

Time: 118 Minutes
Age Rating: Sex scenes, offensive language & nudity.
Cast:
Christian Bale as Rick
Cate Blanchett as Nancy
Natalie Portman as Elizabeth
Brian Dennehy as Joseph
Antonio Banderas as Tonio
Wes Bentley as Barry
Isabel Lucas as Isabel
Teresa Palmer as Karen
Imogen Poots as Della
Armin Mueller-Stahl as Fr. Zeitlinger
Freida Pinto as Helen
Cherry Jones as Ruth
Nick Offerman as Scott
Dane DeHaan as Paul
Thomas Lennon as Tom
Joel Kinnaman as Errol
Jason Clarke as Johnny
Katia Winter as Katia
Nicky Whelan as Nicky
Shea Whigham as Jim
Ryan O’Neal as Ryan
Joe Manganiello as Joe
Michael Wincott as Herb
Kevin Corrigan as Gus
Director: Terrence Malick

A writer (Christian Bale) indulging in all that Los Angeles and Las Vegas has to offer undertakes a search for love and self via a series of adventures with six different women.

I remember waiting for this movie for a long time. I wasn’t sure what I was going to think of it as Terrence Malick is a very polarising filmmaker but after watching and liking Tree of Life (which was quite unconventional as a film), I thought that I had a good chance of enjoying it. I recently watched Knight of Cups and… I really don’t know what to think of it. It is beautiful looking and it has a lot of great actors in it but otherwise it really didn’t do anything for me.

Describing the movie is hard. The basic structure of Knight of Cups is split into segments where Bale interacts with particular people. I’ve only seen 3 of Malick’s movies, Tree of Life, Badlands and now Knight of Cups and I liked the last 2. Even Tree of Life, for how unconventional it was I liked it but most of all, I could actually somewhat understand parts of it. I’m not even sure what Knight of Cups is supposed to be about, I couldn’t connect to it. So with that connection to whatever Malick is going for being gone, it takes away so much from the movie. When I’m just watching all these talented actors just internally monologing some deep poetic speech while the camera just follows them and I don’t understand what its supposed to mean, you can see how I would find it frustrating and pretentious. Don’t get me wrong, Terrence Malick no doubt had some idea of what he was filming, he wasn’t just filming nice looking stuff and calling it art. But whatever he was going for, I didn’t get it at all. The film drags consistently and constantly, at times its borderline a parody of a Terrence Malick movie with how self indulgent it is. I find it very difficult to recommend Knight of Cups to anyone, unless you are a die hard Terrence Malick fan.

There’s not really much to say in terms of acting, whereas most of the characters in a film like Tree of Life had some sort of character, from what I can tell all the characters in Knight of Cups represent ideas or something. Christian Bale here is pretty much like Sean Penn in Tree of Life, except he’s the main ‘character’ and appears from start to finish. He doesn’t really at any point become a character and just feels flat, Bale barely gets to do anything to leave an impression. Supporting actors include Cate Blanchett, Wes Bentley, Antonio Banderas, Natalie Portman and Imogen Poots and while they are good in their ‘roles’, they don’t leave too much of an impression either. Some actors involved were straight up cameos with Jason Clarke and Joe Manganiello, and supposedly Dane DeHaan and Joel Kinnamon was in it as well (I have no idea where they were though). The only performance that really stood out to a degree was Cate Blanchett but even then she’s not in the movie that long.

This movie is shot beautifully like all of Terrence Malick’s films. The locations, lighting, colouring, all of that was great and was probably one of the only things I liked in the whole film. That’s honestly is the only thing that I can guarantee you’ll think with Knight of Cups, that it looks great. The film also seemed to have a dream-like feeling to it, and the score by Hanan Townshend also played a part in that.

Having finally seen it, I can see why Knight of Cups was so divisive. I’m not entirely sure I actually like it myself. And it’s not that I don’t like Terrance Malick as a director, I liked Badlands and Tree of Life, and the latter was very unconventional. I guess I just connected a lot more with Tree of Life than Knight of Cups, which is why with KOC, it really didn’t work for me. I guess the movie is beautiful looking and that’s somewhat enough for me to call it somewhat above average but only just. If you flat out don’t like Terrance Malick’s other films, you’d probably hate Knight of Cups. I’m going to try watching Song to Song sometime soon, and I’m just hoping that Knight of Cups was the most Malick film he ever made.

Suicide Squad Extended Cut and Retrospective Review (2016)

Time: 134 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence, horror & cruelty
Cast:
Will Smith as Floyd Lawton/Deadshot
Jared Leto as Joker
Margot Robbie as Harleen Quinzel/Harley Quinn
Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag
Viola Davis as Amanda Waller
Jai Courtney as Digger Harkness/Captain Boomerang
Jay Hernandez as Chato Santana/El Diablo
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Waylon Jones/Killer Croc
Cara Delevingne as Dr. June Moone/Enchantress
Karen Fukuhara as Tatsu Yamashiro/Katana
Adam Beach as Christopher Weiss/Slipknot
Director: David Ayer

Figuring they’re all expendable, a U.S. intelligence officer decides to assemble a team of dangerous, incarcerated supervillains for a top-secret mission. Now armed with government weapons, Deadshot (Will Smith), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Captain Boomerang, Killer Croc and other despicable inmates must learn to work together. Dubbed Task Force X, the criminals unite to battle a mysterious and powerful entity, while the diabolical Joker (Jared Leto) launches an evil agenda of his own.

My initial review of Suicide Squad.

I loved Suicide Squad when it came out. It was something different and unique and despite all its flaws, I still really liked it. It’s been many months since I saw this movie for the first time and after many months of thinking about it and especially after watching it again (the extended cut) … let’s just say that my thoughts on Suicide Squad have changed quite a bit. I still like the movie but it’s clearly got a lot of issues.

Now I think I should get a brief review of the Extended Cut out of the way. How much new Joker footage is in the extended cut? Well there is a extended flashback scene with Harley and Joker in Arkham, as well as a new Joker and Harley flashback. That’s it. That’s literally it. So don’t expect the extended cut to be ‘Suicide Squad: Joker Edition’ as you might think it is. This is a real shame, as we will probably never see even half of the Joker footage which was filmed. The extended cut’s new footage mostly consisted of more interactions with the Squad, which is what the movie needed more of. That’s really it. The new footage doesn’t change the movie in a huge way. The extended/director’s cuts of Batman v Superman and Watchmen really added a lot and improve the movies greatly. With Suicide Squad, the extended cut is better than the theatrical cut, but not by a huge amount. If you watched the Theatrical Cut and didn’t really like it, the Extended Cut isn’t going to make you change your mind.

Now, to the retrospective review. There are many problems that I have with the film now after thinking about it for many months. There were particularly two major problems that really bug me. The first was with the editing and the cutting of the scenes. It’s practically become infamous with how much footage from the trailers didn’t actually make it into the movie. Even the Extended Cut, which had 12 minutes of new footage even came close to showing all the footage shown in the trailers. Joker, despite being promoted heavily in the film, is only in the film for about 9 minutes in the theatrical cut, and maybe a minute more with the extended cut. It can be shown in both behind the scenes footage and trailer footage that there was a lot of his footage that didn’t make it into the film. This ultimately made Joker feel out of place, it felt like he didn’t exactly belong, especially in the present day sequences where he’s trying to rescue Harley. Granted, he wasn’t implemented that well in the movie overall, but if he was in the movie more he would’ve been less distracting, and plus we would’ve been able to get a better idea of what his Joker actually is. But it’s not only Joker that the cutting of the scenes affected. Certain scenes seem out of place and feel like there were supposed to be more scenes there. The film tries to hide this sometimes, such as the Harley and Joker Flashbacks, where certain parts have these weird coloured filters which were really out of place, and quick sudden cuts (especially shown during the Arkham sequence), and so it felt really awkward. Now I have no idea if the entire direction of the film was changed by Warner Bros or what happened, but it’s pretty clear that Warner Bros did cut a lot out and interfered with the editing of the film. At least with Batman v Superman, the Ultimate Edition restored the footage to Zack Snyder’s cut. Suicide Squad however, not the same case.

The other major problem I have was the direction that the film was going in. What really bugged me was that Enchantress was the main villain of the film. And my problem with that wasn’t so much the execution of Enchantress (though I definitely had problems there), it was the fact that the Suicide Squad were put up against a godlike character. This is disappointing in many ways. First of all, Suicide Squad (the film) was looking very unique amongst all the other comic book movies, with it having villains as the main characters. It was getting everything right but then the film ultimately turned out to be just another ‘save the world’ movie. Also Enchantress’s powers weren’t handled well. She’s a godlike character who caused a lot of damage but because she was so powerful, the film needed to depower her otherwise the Squad wouldn’t stand a chance against her. Really, none of the Squad stood a chance against her, only perhaps El Diablo was capable, that’s it, and of course he died during the fight against Incubus, Enchantress’s brother. That’s another thing, Incubus was utterly pointless in the movie (not to mention that the CGI started going into Gods of Egypt territory). As a result, the film culminated in an underwhelming fight. The film would’ve benefited a lot more if it was crime based. That’s where David Ayer excels. Perhaps if the Squad was put up against the Joker it would’ve worked more. If the Joker would’ve overshadowed things, than maybe put them up against some other crime based character, just not Enchantress. It’s not like the only issue of the film was the editing, the writing by David Ayer could’ve been better, whether it comes to the story, character motivation and the dialogue (yes, a lot of the dialogue did not work). But we can’t really blame him a lot for that, he only had 6 weeks to write the screenplay (another failing on Warner Bros’s part). Other gripes with the film was that aside from their introductions, all the members of the Squad were more anti heroes than actual villains, and it is possible for them to be villainous protagonists. Only Amanda Waller and Enchantress actually felt like villains.

Now, to some more positive stuff. The characters are great and are what carries the movie. However, there are still some issues there, I do have at least one problem with each of the characters, Deadshot felt a little too heroic, Harley Quinn was inconsistent, Rick Flagg was just fine, El Diablo could’ve had a little more depth, Katana and Killer Croc don’t have a lot of development and are just sort of there, Boomerang is entertaining but doesn’t have a lot to work with. And Slipknot… well he served his purpose, a random person to be killed at the beginning of the movie. As for The Joker, the major issue was really with the editing, and plus the writing for him could’ve been better. I loved what Leto did with the character but The Joker didn’t really fit well in the movie. As for Enchantress… she could’ve been a lot better, however I will say that I liked her more on the second viewing. I found that it was mostly the dialogue that worked against her. She was a ‘take over the world’ villain, which could work (I love Apocalypse), but her dialogue just made it hard to take her seriously. However, when she was in both forms when she was just using magic and carrying out her plan, she was great. To put it simply, I like Enchantress when she doesn’t speak. The best character of the film for me was Amanda Waller, Viola Davis played her excellently, I can’t wait to see more of her in the DCEU. I do like all the characters despite their problems. They are fun to watch, and the actors do play them quite well. The action is good, if forgettable at times, the first action sequence was the best (especially when Deadshot was on the car). The soundtrack is good but inconsistent (like every scene would have a new song, way too many songs were used). The score by Steven Price is criminally underrated. I liked Ayer’s overall direction of the film (except when it came to dealing with the cut scenes), it was entertaining and worked mostly well.

Overall, I still like Suicide Squad quite a bit but like with Captain America: Civil War, I noticed more flaws in it as time went on. There’s definitely some problems as stated up above. Even though Suicide Squad is disappointing in retrospect, I wouldn’t consider it bad. We can only hope that Warner Bros learns from this and Batman v Superman, letting the director’s handle their own cuts is a much better idea. It’s honestly a miracle that this film got made with all the random decisions that were made. I’m sadly not really hyped for a Suicide Squad sequel. I will give Suicide Squad credit for introducing many characters into the DCEU but I feel that they could’ve done it a lot better. Now, it was announced recently that director David Ayer would be directing Gotham City Sirens (which will have Harley Quinn, Catwoman and Poison Ivy). He’s not writing it, instead it’s written by Geneva Robertson-Dworet (who’s not really written anything, so we’ll have to see how she does), so there might so there’s potential for the movie to be quite good. The direction (aside from the editing) of the movie was quite good so we’ll just have to see what happens. Overall to me, Suicide Squad is still enjoyable, just disappointing looking back at it.

Suicide Squad (2016) Review

Time: 123 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence and Offensive Language
Cast:
Will Smith as Floyd Lawton/Deadshot
Jared Leto as Joker
Margot Robbie as Harleen Quinzel/Harley Quinn
Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag
Viola Davis as Amanda Waller
Jai Courtney as Digger Harkness/Captain Boomerang
Jay Hernandez as Chato Santana/El Diablo
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Waylon Jones/Killer Croc
Cara Delevingne as Dr. June Moone/Enchantress
Karen Fukuhara as Tatsu Yamashiro/Katana
Adam Beach as Christopher Weiss/Slipknot
Director: David Ayer

Figuring they’re all expendable, a U.S. intelligence officer decides to assemble a team of dangerous, incarcerated supervillains for a top-secret mission. Now armed with government weapons, Deadshot (Will Smith), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Captain Boomerang, Killer Croc and other despicable inmates must learn to work together. Dubbed Task Force X, the criminals unite to battle a mysterious and powerful entity, while the diabolical Joker (Jared Leto) launches an evil agenda of his own

My updated thoughts on Suicide Squad.

Suicide Squad was one of my most anticipated movies of 2016. It has a unique premise and its part of the DCEU, which I’m loving so far. Having finally seen the movie, I have to say that I am quite satisfied with Suicide Squad. I will admit that it does have its noticeable flaws but I still do think it’s really good. It’s a lot of fun, the characters are handled well, it was a very enjoyable movie.

The story is very straightforward and simple, aside from the bit about criminals working for the government, it’s a pretty standard save the world type story. There’s not a whole lot of surprises in the movie. For me though it was the characters and their interactions that drove the movie. The humour was incorporated well into the movie, it’s funny when it needs to be but doesn’t feel out of place, it still maintains a reasonably dark tone. And yes, before many people ask, this movie is ‘fun’. Some have criticised the first act, it’s basically all the backstories of the main characters. I personally really liked it, even though there are a couple of flashbacks during the rest of the film, by establishing most of the characters’ stories at the beginning of the film it got all of it done earlier, no need for constant flashbacks throughout the rest of the rest of the film. I liked the other 2 acts in general as well plotwise. There is a mid credit scene which ties into other movies in the DCEU so be sure to stick around to the end. I pretty much enjoyed this movie from start to finish, I was interested in what was going on but once again it was the characters that were the highlight of the film.

Most of the main characters got at least one moment to shine, and there was something memorable about all of them. Margot Robbie IS Harley Quinn, she was absolutely fantastic in the role, she’s one of the most entertaining characters to watch in the film. Will Smith as Deadshot surprised me, I didn’t really know what to expect from him but he was one of the showstealers, he had charisma, he was nice to watch, he was believable in the role, he was great. Another surprising performance was Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag. That was a role that could’ve just been a generic soldier character but Kinnamon did a great job and elevated the role, he and Smith really played off each other and was one of the most entertaining dynamics of the film. Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang was great, he was really the comic relief of the movie and was absolutely hilarious. He finally found a role that worked out for him. Another stand out was Jay Hernandez as El Diablo, who was also a surprise for me, he is given quite a bit of depth and probably one of the most likable characters in the film. There is a scene involving his backstory which was done especially and incredibly well. The other squad members, Katana (Karen Fukuhara), and Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Abaje) are also great in their roles. And the final member Slipknot…. well there’s not much to say about him, not spoiling anything.

In regards to Jared Leto’s Joker, he’s not in the movie a lot, he’s on screen for like 7 minutes max. I liked what Jared Leto did with the character though, you can’t compare him to Ledger’s Joker because for one, it’s a completely different kind of Joker and two, there’s not enough screen time given to Leto to judge. I do think that we should’ve gotten more of him, and a lot of his footage shouldn’t have been cut (but I’ll address all that later). It was a decent taster of what’s to come for his character in future movies. His relationship with Harley does differ from the comics, here he actually somewhat cares for her, and that will divide some people, I’ll bring it up later on. But I’ll say that I have mixed feelings about how they decided to portray their relationship. The main villain, which I won’t reveal for those who don’t want to spoiled (not really a spoiler though) was kind of weak. The person who played the villain did put a lot of effort into it, and I think the effects for the character were great, and there’s something intriguing about the concepts of the character (especially at the beginning) but the writing wasn’t good for the character, especially the dialogue, which is pretty much clichéd taking over the world villain dialogue. It was a shame because if they gave more depth to the villain and have more development for the character in general, the villain would’ve worked better. However, I will say that despite this, Suicide Squad still has a great villain with Viola Davis’s Amanda Waller (yes she counts as a villain), she was absolutely fantastic. Intimidating and cold, she was also a showstealer (and perhaps gave the best performance in the whole movie). I can’t wait to see her interact with other characters in the DCEU. I think that’s the biggest takeaway I had with these characters, they played so well off each other and made huge impressions that I’m excited to see them in other films. While I’m at it I should mention that the cameos were handled quite well, it makes the DCEU feel even bigger.

Direction wise I think the film is very good, David Ayer is a very talented director. The film definitely feels more real in its locations, costumes, etc, which makes it quite fresh and new for a comic book movie. The film does have quite a lot of Easter eggs that I won’t spoil in case they haven’t been spoiled for you yet. The action scenes are good and very enjoyable to watch, though the action isn’t really very memorable. Also while I liked the third act and the action during it, the fight with the main villain at the end was honestly underwhelming, wasted potential, like the treatment of the villain in the film. The only effects that were iffy for me was for one of the villains (not the main villain), it looked really out of place and fake, borderline Gods of Egypt CGI (I’ll review that movie soon by the way). The rest of the CGI was fine. While I was questioning the modern day soundtrack before seeing the movie, I thought it worked well. Composer Steven Price’s score also was good.

Now onto the editing. The editing has been getting a lot of criticism. Personally like with Batman v Superman I was generally fine with it, I was able to watch and follow the movie. But for me the one problem I had with the editing was the fact that they cut a lot of footage, there’s a lot of footage that’s in the trailers but not in the movie. This happened quite a lot with The Joker. I felt like Warner Bros cut some things out because they were too scared to show them, for example they cut out a scene which showcased Joker and Harley’s abusive relationship, but I have a strong feeling that this worked against them. Even though Batman v Superman’s original cut had editing issues, I felt like Suicide Squad suffered from this problem more, at least in terms of the scenes they decided to cut. I don’t know who’s to blame for the cut footage but I do think it was a mistake for them to make this decision. Despite this being a problem for me, the film still works quite well with the scenes that are still included.

With this film branching off into different DC characters never seen before on the big screen, I can say I’m loving the direction the DCEU is going in. Suicide Squad had a lot of great characters, it’s very fun and entertaining and its something we’ve never seen before. Even though I have listed a lot of problems with the movie (mostly due to the villain and editing and especially the cut scenes), it’s pros really do outweigh the cons. Amongst audiences this film is quite divisive, about as divisive as Batman v Superman. Don’t use that film as an indicator of whether you’ll like Suicide Squad or not, they are very different types of films. I’m not sure if you’ll actually like this movie. But I do think it’s worth seeing for yourself.