FLY Review: Suicide Squad

B

atman V Superman was supposed to be the gem of the DC extended movie universe but it sadly didn’t live up to the hype. Fans and critics slammed the movie calling it a cinematic mess as DC is trying to get on pace or come relatively close to Marvel. DC fans and myself shifted all of our hope on Suicide Squad praying that this film about a rag-tag team of DC’s most vile villains will save the day. The million dollar question is, did it? Well step into this review shall we?

*Mild Spoilers Ahead*

Now here’s the basic run down of the film, Suicide Squad follows Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) a hardcore, ruthless and tough as nails patriot. With the emergence of Superman and other meta-humans she decides she wants to put together a team of “special” individuals who could give them a chance and take on missions that regular soldiers just can’t do. Plus if they failed they could just blame it on these special individuals cause they are the bad guys duuuh. Ladies and gentlemen I introduce to you the Suicide Squad!

The team is composed of The Joker’s (Jared Leto) psychotic girlfriend Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), half-man, half-crocodile Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), the boomerang throwing burglar Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), marksman/assassin Deadshot (Will Smith), the ancient witch Enchantress (Cara Delevingne) and the deadly assassin Slipknot (Adam Beach). Now you didn’t think Waller would just let this group of villains run around unsupervised did you? That’s where Wallers right hand man Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) and Katana (Karen Fukuhara) come into play.

 

They are there to make sure the villains don’t go rogue and complete the mission, it also helps that each of them have bombs implanted them that can be detonated at the first sign of any trouble or if Flag somehow is killed during the mission. Now what’s their mission, well one of the gang goes rogue and it just happens to be the one with the magical powers. They must somehow find a way to unite and work together as a team to stop the world from ending. A job once tailor-made for Superman but we know what happened to him.

 

VERDICT

I went into Suicide Squad with extremely high hopes that this will be the film that would put DCEU on the right track. Unfortunately that was not completely the case in the end. David Ayer successfully managed to make a better movie than Snyder’s lackluster Batman V Superman film. To be honest that’s really not saying all that much though at all. Let’s point out the positives first shall we? I absolutely loved Viola Davis as Waller, she absolutely nails the character and will have you saying wow at some of her brutal actions in the film.

Will Smith was very good as Deadshot and at times the film felt like it was his own standalone film, and his action scenes were absolutely on point. Margot Robbie shines as the psychotic Harley Quinn and absolutely nails Harley’s use of “puddin” and “Mr.J”. At times it’s absolutely ridiculous to see her hold her own against super natural forces with a baseball bat but she makes it work. Killer Croc, Katana and El Diablo manage to hold their own in the film each showcasing their skills and what they bring to the team. It takes sometime for DIablo to engage but when he does he owns his scenes.

The pacing in this film was extremely better than the jumbled mess that was Batman V Superman. It immediately does a great job of gauging your interest in the film with the introductions to each of the characters. The brief cameos from Batman (Ben Affleck) and The Flash (Ezra Miller) in the beginning of the film were perfect and worked extremely well. Not to mention the score for this soundtrack is amazing and I guarantee will have you nodding your head a few times while watching the movie.

Now here’s where the film starts to lose me, the characters on-screen chemistry just doesn’t click at all. At times it seems like the squad is painfully trying to show they can co-exist  but in the end they just fall flat. There is one particular moment where the squad worked perfectly. It’s a well written bar scene where they all just take break from saving the world to grab a drink and Harley hops behind the bar and starts serving drinks as they discuss among each other if they want to continue the mission or not. But that’s it unfortunately for the cohesiveness.

Another problem with the film is there is just not enough Joker.

The movie will leave you feeling as if you were cheated out of Leto’s Joker whom he went to great lengths to get in character for.We get small doses of him in the film but it’s just not enough and will leave you wondering if in fact Leto can even hold a match to Ledger’s Joker from The Dark Knight.

The Joker is at his best when he is paired with Harley on-screen in the film as they put on display the chemistry these two can bring in future films.

Cara’s Enchantress is supposed to be one of the most powerful characters in the movie but ends up being one of the most lackluster characters.

lNot even the love story between June Moone/Enchantress and Flag can save her character in the film.

Captain Boomerang and Slipknot are easily forgettable almost immediately in the movie and don’t truly show their potential.

While the film’s cast was made up mostly villains it wasn’t as dark as Batman V Superman which brings us to the humor aspect of the film. The one liners in the film were just flat and had more of punch in the film’s many trailers. The biggest disappointment this film shares with Batman V Superman is its main villain and climax. The final battle will have you asking more questions if anything trying to figure out exactly what you just witnessed.

 

Now don’t get me wrong Suicide Squad is enjoyable but that’s as far as my admiration goes for the film as whole. A film this big is supposed to great but it’s just barely good and continues DC’s current wave of mediocrity with their films. Maybe I’m asking for too much, but in the end I just really wanted this film to be absolutely amazing. We deserve it! Hopefully 2017’s Wonder Woman can help alleviate the disappointment from this film. We got a long time till that day comes though.

3 out 5 (Barely)

Suicide Squad hit’s theaters August 5th!

PHOTOS: Warner Brothers 

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