Suicide Squad

[H222G981]

Is anyone going to see this when it comes out?

 

I don't know how I feel about Will Smith taking on the role of Deadshot though. I'd prefer the original actor from Arrow to play as him. I was sort of disappointed by that. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKQ6-TT9DEw

[Guyver1]

I'm not really sure. I don't know that I care enough to see it in the theatre. Might wait for it to show up on Netflix or something. Meh.

[Salkafar]

Just back from New York. Watched it in the cinema.

It wasn't very good. Spoilers, obviously.

The thing about the 'Avengers' series - the most successful superhero franchise - is that they took the time to assemble the characters beforehand, just like what happened in the comics. Avengers was an ensemble book, and so the movie. We knew these characters, we knew their background and their idiosyncrasies and we could look forward to them working, or not working, together.

'X-Men' did it differently, by starting with focusing on one person we could identify with and then gently pulling back the camera, introducing us to new characters one by one by having them interact with the people we already knew.

With 'Suicide Squad' we're simply tossed into the pool and we have to float or sink. We're told "Here is this character, he does this" or "Here is this character, here is why she should make you feel something". Most of these characters have no public resonance whatsoever; nobody but a card-carrying comic book geek would know or want to know who Captain Boomerang is, or Killer Croc, or Slipknot - or Katana. These are all C-listers, if that. The exceptions are of course the Joker and, perhaps, Harley Quinn - although even Harley, who is one of the two main characters in this movie, has little public presence. Deadshot, the other main character - recently known best for his presence in the excellent pre-Flashpoint version of 'Secret Six' - is played by none other than beloved Hollywood star Will Smith and is therefore made more sympathetic.

That brings us to the problem with the format. 'Suicide Squad' is not a novel concept in comics - the current version of the concept, namely employing captive supervillains as expendable soldiers to perform super-dangerous covert operations in return for sentence reduction, stems from 1987 (The original Suicide Squad was from 1959, but that version consisted of heroes). But that was a comic book. A comic book offers options a movie does not. A movie dictates its own tempo. It emphasizes emotions with music and motion. A comic book does not have these, but it can use thought balloons and captions. A comic book is also typically a monthly, serial affair; a movie is about two hours.

This offers you time and methods to flesh out the characters in ways a movie simply is not afforded. It gets you to feel along with characters even if they are not likable, or even good people, or even somewhat decent individuals. This is really important for Suicide Squad, because they are villains. And not nice villains like Catwoman, or anti-heroes like the Punisher - actual evil people. That's the whole point - if they get killed, no big loss. But why the hell would you root for the villains? Or even care about them a little bit? Here is Deadshot, a professed, unrepentant, unapologetic multiple murderer; in fact he is a hitman, he murders people for money. We are basically told we should like him because he doesn't kill women and children, and because - aww - he has a little daughter (whom he apparently is already teaching to become like him). Here is Harley Quinn, a psychotic who kills not for money, but for fun, and who is madly in love with an also-psychotic mass murderer. Apparently we are also supposed to like her. The thing is, I don't. These guys are a-holes.

(The one exception is Diablo, who did monstrous things, drunk with power - but unlike the others, he regrets what he did and indeed ends up sacrificing his life to save other people's lives.)

In the comics, especially aformentioned 'Secret Six' (highly recommended) it made you feel for people who were undeniably very, very bad, and also usually very, very messed up. Without spoiling to much, the entire comic led to an appropriate ending; something also messed up by the 'Suicide Squad' movie with its saccharine "Hurray, the people we're supposed to like survived"-conclusion. The group did not live up to its name; everybody but fly-by-night Slipknot and Diablo survived, even as many, many other people died. (Kind of a cowardous move, given that the concept was based on 'the Dirty Dozen', of course). Seriously, the only people in the movie who are not morally reprehensible are June Moon and, arguably, Rick Flagg.

Ahh, and the nominal villains... the nominal villains are cookie-cutter material and so utterly uninspired it boggles the mind. This is 2016. DC was doing stuff far superior to this in Teen Titans in the early eighties. The Big Bad barely has any speaking lines and absolutely no personality whatsoever.

I literally considered walking out halfway through. I won nothing by staying.

On my flight home I watched 'Deadpool'. The contrast was very shrill. It is unsurprising that the 'Suicide Squad' trailer was adapted after 'Deadpool' came out to make the movie seem more like that - an irreverent, postmodern superhero parody movie that actually grabs you instead of what it is - something that really belongs in the Nineties.

DC is fighting yesterday's war in the theaters. I don't think this is for fixing.

[Matt Bellamy]

The movie that Suicide Squad was attempting to be like, was of course Guardians of the Galaxy. IE take a quirky group of "Villains" and make them into "Good Guys".

Their first big mistake was trying to be like anything at all. They should have done something original instead of trying to copy/cash in on an idea. That's what those B-Movie studios are for. WB is a big studio and shouldn't be trying to pull that kind of stunt.

This was a movie without a point or purpose cinematically ( other than trying to cash in on the Quirky Team movie "trend"), as it may tie in somehow with justice league, but it is very unlikely it will be mentioned at all.

Then of course comes in the studio meddling... Which WB needs to stop. For the most part, Marvel/Disney do their nitpicking before their movie starts filming, and so far it's turned out bad once, and still ended up in an excellent movie ( Ant-Man). WB are trying too hard to make a movie that "Everyone" will like, and end up failing. Marvel makes "Fun but flawed" movies and just hopes the majority of people like them, even with their flaws.

Suicide Squad should have been a simple premise, driven by quirky characters and one liners. Not some convoluted mess with betrayals and such, and only really focus on a couple characters... Should have just been a " Really bad Dictator needs to be taken out, but legally we cannot. Send in the Suicide Squad." and let the characters personalities and actions speak for them. Sure, the villain would be probably a little weak... but when you are trying to establish a cast, it matters little ( see Guardians of the Galaxy and Ronan... You know, the guy with the hammer? No not Thor, he wasn't in this movie. Blue face with stupid black paint and dressed in all black? No? See, forgot already). Everyone remember that Suicide Squad trailer with Bohemian Rhapsody playing during it? You could have thrown the plot I just mentioned into the movie that the trailer was hinting at, and it would have been a perfect trailer for a nice little action movie with fun characters. But nope.

I still can't believe WB and DC keep failing this hard in terms of quality. Sure it made some money, but fans will pay to see any crappy comic book movie, AND defend them because they don't want them to all go away... But these movies do need to stop... As the only thing they are doing is making Marvels movies look better when the obvious comparison happens.

[xfool]

It was ok until the ending fight with the Enchantress and her bro, the suicide squad should never be able to deal with those kind of powerful supervillians. It also doesnt make any sense for Enchantress to get their allegiance after her bro was destroyed by them. Lastly the way she is defeated is simply ridiculous.

[Salkafar]

Waller being basically a murderer on government pay did not sit right with me, either. How many of her own people has she killed? And how is that a sustainable business model?

[H222G981]

Honestly it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Only thing I didn't care for was Jared Leto's joker.