Suicide Squad

Suicide Squad at first was not a movie I was incredibly interested in. When I heard about a team movie centering around Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Killer Croc (or King Shark, it wasn’t clear) and no real headline heroes, I was a little bit worried. However, when the first trailer dropped for Suicide Squad, I was on board one hundred percent and was getting excited for this movie with everything that came out promoting it. And what I also liked about this movie was that, while it gave a lot of things away in the trailers, you still didn’t have a real idea of what the story was going to be until the movie came out. You knew there was going to be a threat that would require Amanda Waller to form the Suicide Squad, but you didn’t know what that threat was and what the end result would be. So right up front, I do have to give the movie some credit, I wasn’t totally sure what the plot of this movie was going to be from the start.

Suicide Squad starts with a government agent, Amanda Waller (played by Viola Davis) trying to get the green light on forming a team of “very bad people who can do some good”. This team consists of a handful of minor DC villains who Waller has locked away on a secret island prison. This team include Harley Quinn (played by Margot Robbie), Deadshot (played by Will Smith) and some other minor characters.

I put it that way because the reality is, this movie is centered on Deadshot and Harley Quinn. This is their movie. Which makes sense, because if they’re going to make spinoffs of these characters, it’s not going to be a spinoff movie on Captain Boomerang (played by Jai Courtney), its going to be of either Deadshot or Harley Quinn (or both). Side note though, I didn’t hate Jai Courtney in this movie.  I didn’t think he was really good, but I didn’t think he was bad. I got a couple of laughs out of him and I didn’t walk out of the movie thinking, that movie would have been better if Jai Courtney hadn’t been in it, which I have done before (Terminator: Genisys).

But anyways, a team made up of criminals like Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, El Diablo (played by Jay Hernandez), Killer Croc (played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and Slipknot (played by Adam Beach) come together, under the supervision and leadership of Rick Flag (played by Joel Kinnaman), to be the team the United States uses to fight the growing threat of meta humans. Some other characters who play interesting roles in the film include The Enchantress (played by Cara Delevingne) and Katana (played by Karen Fukuhara).

First and foremost, the thing I will say to best describe this movie is, it’s a really good video game movie. I say this because you have a few quick cut scenes, introducing the “playable” characters, and then they are thrown into action very quickly and with little explanation. They fight through waves of faceless bad guys until they get to the boss. They even throw in a mini boss here and there and a secondary boss before the big boss to complete the game.

Now a movie structured like a video game is not exactly an Oscar winning movie and that is definitely not the case with Suicide Squad. Suicide Squad is streamlined, getting your into the action and not really wasting time with real in depth character or story development. This is both good and bad. Its bad because you have a lot of under developed characters and suddenly when characters start making decisions that have weight to them, it doesn’t exactly make a lot of sense why they would do those things. Now, some directors can develop characters like this in a short time and some need more time, I would say that David Ayer somewhere in between. And this movie is somewhere in between. Sometimes it’s enough, sometimes it isn’t.  The good part about the streamlined nature of this movie is that it can make for a very entertaining movie. This movie has a lot of issues and maybe its not the cleanest movie I’ve seen in a long time, but damn was it fun.

And it also doesn’t hurt that this is a really fun cast. I was skeptical of how Will Smith was going to play with an ensemble cast and he actually was one of my favorite parts. I was also skeptical that Deadshot was the right choice for an actor with the star power of Will Smith. Deadshot is a B-list Batman villain and Will Smith was a really good choice for him. And I think the part that sold me on

his character was the moment when I felt like he was playing a hitman in Gotham City. You feel the universe they are trying to create with this film and its done in a really organic way. When I saw Deadshot, a hitman in Gotham instead of Will Smith playing Deadshot, I knew I was going to like this casting choice. And luckily, that happens pretty early on. 

Margot Robbie, on top of being incredibly attractive, as per usual, did a really good job with the character of Harley Quinn. So much that I now want a standalone film with her. She probably gets the most character development out of the entire cast and I really had fun watching her. You really do believe that she is crazy and in love with the Joker, two quintessential elements of Harley Quinn's story line. Going back to the idea of creating a world with these villains in it, Harley and the Joker's relationship is really fun to see play out in the criminal world. Again, I actually want to see a movie either focusing on Harley Quinn and The Joker, or I want to see a Batman film where those two are the main antagonists because Margot Robbie is just having a grand old time with this character and it would be a shame if this was the only outing she had. 

I actually want to talk about The Enchantress a little bit. Cara Delevingne has never really stood out to me as being an incredibly good actress. She has never impressed me is all. The Enchantress is a fun role because its got a duality about it. On one hand, she is an archaeologist in Dr. June Moone but she is able to turn into the Enchantress, an ancient being with supernatural powers. I think Delevingne did a lot of good things with the role but also made a couple of... interesting choices. I mean, Dr. Moone kind of falls into the category of a lot of the other members of the squad as her character is not really developed and barely has any lines. But The Enchantress is a more interesting and powerful character. The one gripe I have with her is that whenever she talks, she sways like she's belly dancing and it just looks awkward at times, especially when she's saying something very serious. I think The Enchantress was marketed very cleverly. I'll talk more about her role in my spoiler review, but I think her character was fascinating. While I had doubts about Cara Delevingne in this movie, I actually enjoyed her quite a lot in this film. 

I liked Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag a lot more than I thought I was going to and he was actually more developed as a character than probably 75% of the rest of the cast. I liked how he interacted with the rest of the cast, especially Deadshot. There's a point where you see the relationship change between Flag and the rest of the team and its a pretty genuine moment.

Overall, I thought the entire cast was pretty good (with an exception or two). And while I thought characters like Killer Croc, El Diablo, and Captain Boomerang were underdeveloped, I think the actors did a good job with what they were given and again, since it was so streamlined, I couldn’t help but be entertained by the action they provided and what they brought to the team.

Now you may be asking why I haven’t talked too much about the Joker (played by Jared Leto). I think everyone is curious to figure out how Jared Leto compares to previous Jokers, and for a lot of people my age, how he compares to Heath Ledger’s Joker.

I kind of want to do an entire post on Jared Leto’s Joker and where he falls in the grand scheme of Jokers and how he compares because there is a lot to talk about. However, at the same time, there is not much to talk about because The Joker is really in like 3 or 4 scenes in the movie. He’s more of a wildcard in the movie trying to rescue Harley Quinn. Going back to the video game analogy, he’s like

the mini boss that you fight in the middle of the game just to get another fight in. He’s not the main villain, he just pops in every once in a while. Now I think he was utilized in the story really, really well and he popped up right when he needed to.I also think that he peaked my interest about the character. While he was utilized very little in the film, I'm now excited to see The Joker be the main villain in a future Batman movie.

 I just can’t say with a precise answer whether or not Jared Leto’s Joker is good or not because there wasn’t enough of him to really say yes or no to that question. There were elements I liked about him, and there were elements that I didn’t like about him.

Again, I'm planning on doing a whole post on Jared Leto's Joker to explain the good and bad parts about him in depth. But if you’re going to this movie just to see The Joker, you’re going to be a little bit disappointed with how little he is in the movie. 

There's a couple other things worth mentioning about this movie. The editing I feel was a little bit off at times. For example, there's a part where Harley is looking down a staircase and suddenly she's randomly in a flashback with little to no transition. This movie does have a couple of flashbacks that are quick cuts and coming from a limited background of how movies are edited, if a regular audience member can be set off kilter by the editing choices, then you're doing something wrong. It doesn't have to be pretty, I mean you could have had Garth and Wayne going across the scene to set up a transition and it would have been better than some of the transitions in this film.

The last thing I will talk about is the universe expansions made in this film. i mentioned it a little bit with my thoughts on Harley Quinn and Deadshot, but what this movie did really well was creating an environment of the criminal underworld that Batman and in a larger sense, The Justice League, will be fighting against in future movies. There are a couple of good cameos in this film that were a lot of

fun to see in live action, especially with how absurd these characters can be. The DC cinematic universe is going to be a little more absurd and little less realistic than the Nolan Universe and I think that's something that people can get excited about when they see Suicide Squad. 

The one caveat is the environment already created in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman. I love Man of Steel and I probably like Batman v Superman more than most people do. However, one part about these movies is the fact they have created a more realistic, gritty superhero universe. Yes its not as realistic as the Nolan Batman movies were, however its trying to inject wacky superheroes into our world as well as trying (I'll concede, not very well) to bring in ideas. For example, in Batman v Superman, the big idea is: what would the world be like with a Superman? This includes long winded explanations of what the government response is, senate hearings, and lots of exposition. And I don't really mind exposition and I don't mind ideas, but Suicide Squad showed how those things can hinder a movie like this. 

The whole set up of Taskforce X is a really good example of this. There's so much bureaucracy and explanation as to why this group needs to form. And in a way they bring up an interesting point, would the government support a covert team like Taskforce X if it meant protection from people with powers, or meta humans? But when it all boils down, those questions and exposition about the ethics of that team don't matter. We want to see this in action and we want to have fun with them. And that's something Suicide Squad did well. They didn't beleaguer the movie on too many ideas and drown out the fun, they just form the team, give them all the background, and then the action comes. 

I'll talk more about this in my spoiler review, but I thought the Suicide Squad started to break the mold DC has created for itself in getting too bogged down in world creating and just having fun with wacky heroes, anti-heroes, and villains in the DC universe. Use the comic books, and have fun!

Last note: Really fun music all around. 

I do think there is enough in this movie to really have some fun. As long as you don’t think too analytically about this film and embrace the absurdity David Ayer and the rest of the cast is embracing already, I think Suicide Squad is a good time despite some of the technical issues that go along with it.

But those are my thoughts on Suicide Squad. I’m definitely going to be doing at least one spoiler review (it might be a two parter actually based on my thoughts on The Joker) but what did you think of the film? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as sending me requests for movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I’ll leave you with this. Speaking of the good music, here is Panic at the Disco playing Bohemian Rhapsody from the soundtrack. I personally love it, what do you think? Enjoy!