Suicide Squad Review: DCEUs Great Hope Falls Well Short

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We’ve all heard about the beleaguered path to the big screen for DC’s latest installment into their Extended Universe franchise of films, Suicide Squad. A rushed script development, multiple edits, Deadpool appeared on the scene causing Warner Bros to second guess their approach to Suicide Squad causing reshoots and another round of edits. One has to wonder if writer/director David Ayer had been left to his own vision and devices if the end product and this review would have turned better or worse. Personally I would have found it hard to imaging it being worse.

Suicide Squad should have had everything going for it – a colorful collection of bad guys (and gals) to tear up the scenery and generally providing a great time for comic fans. Rather than giving us a more sinister version of Ocean’s 11, we get something not nearly as fun. Warner Bros is so hyper-focused on the successes of Marvel and trying to play catchup but they miss the general goal that Marvel still tends to hit more often than they miss – Marvel’s writers and directors seem to “get” the characters and vibe of the comics, while Warner Bros either doesn’t get them, or feels the need to retool them at the drop of a hat. There’s zero reason for the patently weird take on the Joker courtesy of actor Jared Leto, I feel I gave him an honest try, but after seeing him in action he’s nothing more than an overly sadistic gangster. Joker has always has a certain level of flare and style, where Leto’s Joker has neither.

The only interesting characters in the film are Will Smith’s Deadshot and Margot Robbie’s take on Harley Quinn. The rest of the cast really are barely touched on cyphers. Karen Fukuhara as Katana might have been interesting, but they gloss over her being there to the extent that she’s barely given anything to do. She has a sword that drinks souls. That’s mentioned and sounds cool, then never does anything with it.

Various edits throughout the film are so rough that certain shots during action sequences don’t line up at all, and during the final battle, the feeling is one of “we’re showing lots of SFX, so just go with it.” SFX isn’t why Deadpool was so successful, it was because of the characterization and delivery – and because the film captured all of the irreverent aspects that made the original character so beloved. There’s deeply frustrating moments in the film; one notable case is when Harley takes off one of her collars and looks at it with a deep sadness, her face suddenly losing it’s quirky and ditsy set to be serious and lost. Then the rest of the gang catches up to her and she blinks and her mask of persona reappears. That briefest of moments was one that expressed there had been depth and thought along the way, but it was all but eliminated.

As it goes, DC fans will probably enjoy it well enough, after the ungodly mess that was Batman v. Superman this will certainly seem like an improvement. At least for a while; once they get home and have time to think about it, they’ll likely realize that this still wasn’t the film they’ve been hoping for.

Now it’s the long wait until Wonder Woman as the DCEU’s next attempt to get over the bar.

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