Yet SUICIDE SQUAD is ultimately a stylish and fun romp, and the kind of entertainment the DC Extended Universe desperately needs to sustain interest outside of existing fan circles.
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Jared Leto couldn’t have been a better actor to carry the torch.
Well, for the most part.
The continuing box-office success of Marvel’s Avengers movies finally motivated DC Comics to follow suit and start building an interconnected cinematic universe featuring characters from their own huge library of comic-book heroes.
Such is the fatal error of Suicide Squad: this failure to put together a “squad” in sincerity. You don’t really need to know their names, they don’t do anything much these broad descriptions.
Thankfully, the saving grace of the film is Robbie’s Harley Quinn, who stands out as the fan favorite female sidekick to the Joker (who was relegated to basically a cameo appearance).
Leto’s embodiment of an iconic arch-villain remains in the shadow of Heath Ledger, while Davis makes limited impact as a ruthless woman of tattered moral fibre. But there are a couple of times, as there were with Ledger’s portrayal, when he drops most of the insane and enters the room just as a bad, bad man. Read our Suicide Squad spoiler-free review after the jump.
Harley Quinn has become so popular within the pages of DC Comics it is easy to forget she actually made her debut in the ’90s classic cartoon “Batman: The Animated Series”. Harley Quinn is the ideal comedic relief, acting sort of like the voice in all of our heads as we watch a super hero film. But even with all the stars vying for attention, no one pushed things further than Margot Robbie. Yet the boldness of David Ayer’s film comes from it being DC’s first live action team film, Watchmen and Vertigo’s The Losers notwithstanding, taking a leaf out of Guardians of the Galaxy’s book by dancing on the antihero side of the disco.
The pre-release buzz was nearly overwhelmingly positive, with praise going to its uniquely psychedelic day-glo art style, a great action-packed trailer set to Queen’s rocking Bohemian Rhapsody, and Jared Leto’s full-on, freakishly unhinged transformation into Batman’s iconic villain the Joker. My audience laughed at how ridiculously clunky it felt.
Ambitious US government agent Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) fears the arrival of another meta-human like Superman. Since Quinn has been caught by Batman (Ben Affleck) and taken to a maximum-security prison, the Joker has been trying to get her back.
I also enjoyed the movie’s soundtrack.
Overall I enjoyed the pace of the film, with the team coming together (no surprise there) in a timely fashion, and the final battle is pretty epic. It’s tough to say if the shortchanging of the eponymous motley crew’s remaining members is more or less significant a problem than its narrative chaos, largely because both missteps cater to the same result: a lack of understanding of how we’re supposed to feel at any given time throughout the movie.
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My final verdict: I give it two thumbs up.
