Just ask Angel, Daniel, and Julius. I really wanted this film to be good. I really wanted DC to do good. The trailers had me hoping but when the review embargo wouldn’t lift I got nervous. When I started seeing this:
This was before it dropped even further…
I got even more scared. I still went in with hope but it turned out to just shatter my dreams.
IF you liked this movie, power to you. You were capable of enjoying this film unlike me. Let’s get started with the review.
What I liked about this movie:
- The characters were for the most part solid. You’ll get to sympathize with Deadshot and appreciate the humor that each character brings but in the end with the exception of Deadshot, Harley Quinn, and Rick Flagg, everyone else in this film is useless or so uninteresting you really can’t care for them. You can tell they wanted to make the only good guy in this movie the focal point and capitalize on the star power of Will Smith and the popularity of the Harley Quinn character. Everyone else looked cool but they either do things that are outrageous or just flat out dumb (you’ll see what I mean when you watch the film).
The squad in all it’s glory.
- As I said before, the comedy is great. It definitely takes the light hearted approach that DC desperately needed.
- As seen in the trailers, you see pretty good cameos. That was a highlight.
- The soundtrack was good. Classic rock is right up my alley.
What I disliked HATED about this movie:
- The story is so muddled. I hated the tone shifts of this movie. It jumped from happy to sentimental to camaraderie to world ending without any proper transitions. The movie, although funny, tried WAY too hard to shoe in humor when it could’ve used that time to actually develop the characters properly as opposed to just having them say one-liners and drive the nonsensical plot forward. Things just happen out of NOWHERE. Talk about total Deus ex Machina in a movie…
- The villain in this film was absolutely atrocious. You really don’t understand why Enchantress was doing all the crap she was doing. The story just uses her as that classic “doomsday” scenario but it seriously falls flat. It takes a tired trope and does nothing new with it, she had a lot of potential in the film but it was so wasted.
- The Joker was useless in this movie, his parts in the film take you away from the already muddled and jumbled story. He makes the movie worse as opposed to being a high light. I disliked this interpretation of the Joker, so much hype with Leto and his amazing ability as a method actor (and the creepy stories we’ve heard him do on set)… It just wasn’t good. The laugh was cheesy and sounded like a guy with asthma trying to bust a gut. His version of the Joker was just creepy for creepiness’ sake. There was no heart and soul to this iconic villain like Nicholson, Ledger, and even Romero brought to it. All I saw was a creepy weirdo, not a lunatic clown prince of crime.
I was on the hype train, but the hype train has crashed and burned…
- The action scenes were sparse and anti-climactic. There’s no sense of urgency nor any sense of danger in these fights. The stakes are there yet they’re so underwhelming and just downright silly at some points.
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David Ayer is a great screenwriter and director. I love his work and the cast boasts a lot of talent with Viola Davis (which did good as Waller yet the story does NOTHING for the character), Jared Leto, Will Smith, Margot Robbie, and a smattering of others in this ensemble cast. How could this have turned south so quickly?!? I really want to know what’s going on? The trailers were SO promising and everything looked great? How could this have failed?!?
Something happened during the production of this film. Needless to say, I am terrified of Justice League and the Wonder Woman film coming out. DC trailers have been phenomenal and while JL and WW look great, I’ve been fooled not once (Man of Steel)… not twice(BvS)… but THREE times already. Now that is absolutely ludicrous.
I’m saddened as a hardcore DC fan that this movie sucked. I’m saddened that the DCEU can’t be just as good or even better than Marvel. Marvel has been at a handicap since day one of their MCU and still they can produce excellent and amazing films (Civil War, Winter Soldier, Iron Man, The Avengers 1&2, and many many many more).
I love both Marvel and DC, but DC has a really special place in my heart and it is really terrible that their film universe is lacking. I’m hoping after this they can really TRULY step up their game and make something excellent… PLEASE…
I give Suicide Squad a 5.5/10. So promising but turned out to be a muddled mess of a movie.
This is how I felt after watching this movie. My heart ripped to shreds 😦
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