Suicide Squad: Movie Review

-Spoilers-

Let’s be honest, boys and girls, DC has been fucking up pretty hard lately. Batman V. Superman was trash, pretty much every other trailer for their films look mediocre, and Batman now fucked Batwoman in The Killing Joke. The only thing they really had left was Suicide Squad, the vibrant, weird villain pow-wow about villains being villains and being forced to do good things for even worse people. It’s been getting slammed in the review department, but how is it really?


Well… it’s ok. I don’t really get what the fuss was about. My main concerns were twofold: 1, that Harley Quinn would be an annoying scene girl, and 2, that this movie wouldn’t try and make everyone in the squad a hero rather than a villain. Most of that is accurate here.

My first main concern is that the editing in this movie is atrocious. So much of this films structure is just cracked. After 3 lead squad members are introduced (Harley, Deadshot, and Diablo) the editing goes from heavily stylized to rushed. It just tries to squeeze in so much, then once it’s in there, it really does nothing with it, the result is a film with such good intentions but is trying so hard to fill a checklist instead of working with what they had.

For instance, Killer Croc is in this movie, but he says something like 3 lines all of which are just zingers for the camera, and his body looks more like a weekend weightlifter rather than a 600 pound crocodile. It absolutely sucks considering that while I don’t hate his design, his personality is pretty rock solid, you know, what’s left of it, and his voice shakes the fucking theater every time he speaks. That’s a cool addon. Boomerang is there, but he also only really has joke lines and only exists to be a tension breaking character here. Katana is there, introduced last and has no lines. The only thing we know about her is that she traps the souls of her enemies in her sword, which is badass, but again, goes nowhere.

And let’s be honest here, Jared Leto has The Joker was the worst miscast since Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. He doesn’t break the movie or anything, but his performance is just so lifeless, which is weird considering all the on set bullshit we’ve been hearing about for the last year or so. And I don’t think I’ve ever said bullshit faster than when I saw his helicopter crash about halfway through the film. Fuck you movie. I know you’re not ballsy enough to kill off The Joker in what is supposed to the second movie in the DCEU.

But all that being said, I felt this movie has a lot going for it. The action scenes were pretty fun, and seeing each character fight with their own weapons and style was very fun. As for the characters we do spend time with, Harley Quinn was very entertaining, and Will Smith as Deadshot was a ton of fun. It really felt most of the crew had fun making this film, and half of it is missing thanks to the piss poor editing. My only gripe with either of the main characters is that Harley Quinn gets multiple introduction scenes, which was unnecessary, and they tried really hard to make Deadshot sound like a good guy by shoe-horning in his daughter, cause god forbid Will Smith seem like a bad guy whilst playing a goddamn hit man.

In addition, the soundtrack was just fun. Lots of third party tracks such as Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” and The White Stripes “Seven Nation Army”. Every time a track started playing, it was hype. It just burst through the noise and made several scenes feel like a music video. Just a great soundtrack.

Give Suicide Squad a try. It’s not as bad as everyone is making it out to be.

TL;DR It’s kind of a dumb action movie, but it doesn’t take itself to seriously, has some cool action, and lots of comic book goodness. Give it a chance.

5/10