Suicide Squad Review

Suicide Squad


Just over one year ago at Comic-Con, a trailer for a movie was leaked that had everyone talking. That trailer was for Suicide Squad and it looked fantastic. It was pretty grim and a definite contrast from future trailers that tried to give it a sense of fun with music from Queen and Sweet.

I was just about as excited as I was for the Force Awakens release. Finally I was getting another film with my favourite character from all fiction, The Joker, and now we finally had the long awaited big screen debut of Harley Quinn.

So now the movie has been released worldwide and there has been some mixed critical and fan opinion, mostly leaning towards the negative side. I don't think the movie deserves as much of critical panning as it did receive (worse than Fant4stic and Green Lantern, are you freaking serious) but at the same time I don't think it deserves a huge amount of praise it has been receiving from certain outlets and fanboys. I know I myself would count as a fanboy but I wouldn't go as far as to start a petition to close a review site because it gave a movie I liked bad reviews.

Anyway as someone who has grown up with a few of these characters and has read many of their stories through the comic books (including the New 52 Suicide Squad issues which are awesome) I thought I'd throw my two cents in.

Don't worry I won't spoil anything.

I do have to admit that the first twenty minutes of the film are a ton of fun, and I did enjoy the way they introduced most of the squad members. We learn about these characters through Viola Davis's great performance as Amanda Waller, the director who brings the squad together. Through some flashback scenes we get a little background for the bad guys, with most of the attention being paid to Harley Quinn and Deadshot.

My favourite scene from the movie is around this point. It doesn't last very long and it's the one we see at the end of the trailer with Batman chasing down Joker and Harley through the streets of Gotham. It totally reminded me of the amazing Batman animated series and I'd love to see more of just this; Batman taking on The Joker. Hopefully we'll see some of this in the Batman solo movie in a couple of years time.

The best thing about the movie has to be the squad itself, made up of a crew of individually interesting characters. The only problem I have is that we only seem to focus on the bigger names and characters like Katana, Killer Croc, and Captain Boomering just feeling like filler to bulk up the team. I'd have loved more than a two sentence explanation for their backstories and why we should care about them.

The main team members do knock it out of the park though. El Diablo worked well as a character who seemed to be living with some major regrets and a dark past. Deadshot was played well by Will Smith and this is the first time I've enjoyed him in a role in a long time. He plays it with the usual Smith swagger and succeeds in putting a bit of humanity in the hitman.

Margot Robbie totally steals the show as Harley Quinn and proved that she was the perfect choice for the role. Any fan of the character can definitely put their mind to rest as she was just as captivating as the Harley we all know and love from the animated series and comics. I've heard there may be a solo movie in the works for her and I would love to see this.

And that brings us down to the one everyone was waiting for. Jared Leto as The Joker. How was he? Well I for one thought he knocked it out of the park. I always enjoy the different interpretations of Joker and this one was done brilliantly. Just as quickly as he took some of the goofiness of Mark Hamill's Joker he could quickly turn as violent and terrifying as Heath Ledger's. This is the Joker to me. A mix of a clown and psychopathic serial killer.

This also brings me to one of my major disappointments of the film. The last few trailers featured quite a bit of Leto's Joker but he's in the movie for what feels like less than ten minutes. Most other reviews say he has around 25 minutes of screen time, but I have no idea of what movie they were watching because it definitely wasn't anywhere near that. What makes it even worse is that he was pointless and didn't actually need to be here which does piss me off a bit. If he wasn't in this, nothing would have changed in the story.

This also brings me to the main villain of the plot that I won't reveal as it's apparently a spoiler, but they were awful. Barely any build, a flimsy excuse for what they're doing and just not threatening at all. I hate to bring the comparison to the awful Fant4stic, but the finale did feel a lot like that one, and the villain just as bland.

I know I've not really mentioned much about the plot, but honestly that's because there isn't much of one. It's basically just getting the squad together and then getting from point A to point B and beat the baddies for the entire runtime.

I would say overall that the first half is good but it does take a bit of a nose dive as it goes on towards the forgettable final act. It feels like it's trying to be The Avengers but without any previous efforts towards building the characters or the stakes. It is a bit better than Batman vs Superman, but honestly not by much. DC still have a long way to go until they can figure out how to make great movies that don't feature Christopher Nolan. At least we know any future movie featuring Joker and Harley will be worth watching out for. It's not as bad as most critics are saying and a lot of people will probably love this. In my opinion, it's only average.


Rating: C