(ACTION/FANTASY)
1.5 out of 4 stars
Directed by David Ayer
Starring: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cara Delevingne, Karen Fukuhara, Adam Beach, Ike Barinholtz, Scott Eastwood
Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action throughout, disturbing behavior, suggestive content and language.
123 minutes
Verdict: With poorly directed action, a conflicted tone and a flat-out bad script that leaves its colorful cast out to dry, SUICIDE SQUAD is an incredibly frustrating disappointment that squanders its potential with reckless abandon.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN SUICIDE SQUAD IF YOU LIKED:
BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE (2016)
DEADPOOL (2016)
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (2014)
SABOTAGE (2014)
FOCUS (2015)
Aw, man. After the angsty, self-serious misfire of MAN OF STEEL and the even worse bloatation of BATMAN V SUPERMAN, SUICIDE SQUAD looked like a good opportunity for the "DC Extended Universe" (DCEU; Warner Brothers' and DC Comics' answer to Marvel Studios' "Marvel Cinematic Universe") to readjust its bearings. It had a killer cast, an interesting director and a promising premise, and then the candy-colored, anarchic trailers accompanied by "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Ballroom Blitz" came out, and the messy, brightly schemed posters came out, and I was genuinely excited. So it gives me no pleasure to say they've shat the bed again.
The concept is basically THE DIRTY DOZEN done with DC's bad guys, but the movie is striving in vain for something along the lines of last February's superhero smash-hit, DEADPOOL, but within the confines of a PG-13 rating (seriously, what would DEADPOOL have been with a PG-13 rating?), and Marvel's off-kilter team movie, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, but with none of the confidence or joy. In the end, it all runs into a slog of weirdly generic CGI blockbuster battles, a ridiculous and dull main threat, and a whole bunch of half-baked ideas carried by a devoted cast left out to dry.
Each of the characters in the ensemble is introduced individually with backstories that range from thin to pointlessly basic, making it unclear as to why they don't just introduce them when the team comes together or just jump right in from the start. There's Floyd Lawton, better known as Deadshot (Will Smith), an expert marksman and assassin who Batman put in the joint for murdering witnesses against the mob, but who also loves his daughter. There's Dr. Harleen Quinzel, better known as Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), a former psychiatrist who fell madly in love with Gotham City's top crime boss, the Joker (Jared Leto), and became a match for his psychotic criminality. Slightly lower on the bill are skeazy burglar Digger Harkness, aka Boomerang (Jai Courtney), the hideously deformed Waylon Jones, aka Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and the repentant flame-wielder Chato Santana, aka El Diablo (Jay Hernandez). The team is assembled under the instruction of shadowy government official Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) to be led in the field by no-nonsense black ops soldier Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), and with explosives planted in their necks should they try any funny business, the rogues are offered reduction of their sentences in exchange for taking part in high-stakes missions with low survival rates, not that they have any choice in the matter. Such a mission comes up when Flag's girlfriend, archeologist June Moone (Cara Delevingne), becomes possessed by an ancient and powerful entity called Enchantress, a force that Waller tried to control but went rogue and is now laying siege to Midway City.
By now, the buzz around this movie is clearly negative and was when I saw it, but at least at first, it didn't seem that bad. It didn't seem that good either, but it gets a lot worse as it goes on. Thankfully, it's half an hour shorter than BATMAN V SUPERMAN, but the script isn't a lot better. Ayer, who's previously directed FURY, SABOTAGE and END OF WATCH, among others, also wrote the script, which feels rushed, hurried and does no favors to the best of its cast. Smith's Deadshot is the closest thing to a focal point for the ensemble, and it's his first time trying to do something fun in a while, but any effort at motivation, backstory or sympathy is laid on a thin and hackneyed relationship with his daughter, while he has no apparent qualms about laying someone out for money. More disappointing is the treatment of Harley Quinn, a fan favorite character played by the talented and painfully attractive Robbie, slumming it in a pair of barely-there booty shorts. She has a lot of fun with the indulgent craziness, biting her lips with a wide-eyed blend of excitement and curiosity, but she's shortchanged in midst of so many characters, and then there's her relationship with the Joker, which, while clearly unhealthy, doesn't make a lick of sense. Throughout the movie, "Mr. J" is making attempts to free her, and we get occasional scenes of their burgeoning relationship from before, something that Ayer appears to be invested in without ever bothering to let the viewer in on why these characters are invested in each other. Leto's Joker, despite being somewhat over-designed, is a perfectly decent interpretation of the character, but this is the wrong story for him. He doesn't seem capable of anything as human as devotion or sex, and Leto's strongly homoerotic twist on the character suggests that if even he had any interest in a sexual partner, it wouldn't be with a woman.
The characters have little to offer, but the plot has even less. A large portion of the early half of the film is devoted to fairly straightforward exposition, and when Enchantress' takeover of Midway starts, Ayer obscures that plot development in service of a pointless reveal to come later, so it isn't even clear until later that this mission is supposed to be the main story. When it does become clear that this is the main story, it's really disappointing. The action is generic at best, pitting the squad, dubbed "Task Force X," against a series of literally faceless drones created by Enchantress that can survive a shot to the head, but just what it is that finally kills them is unclear. That's nothing compared to the climactic action, which is so awkwardly staged with confusing geography and curiously stylish lighting, while the characters spout wildly unearned platitudes declaring their team a "family," in a ridiculous and overwrought drama.
In the aftermath of the negative critical and fan response to BATMAN V SUPERMAN, which focused heavily on that movie's dour tone (hardly the root of that movie's many problems, but it certainly didn't help any), SUICIDE SQUAD attempts to lighten the mood through a lot of post-production choices and eye-rolling one-liners (one suspects some of these were added in re-shoots), with a soundtrack overstuffed with rock songs, some original and some classics, included one or two previously used by GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, drawing unflattering comparisons. Much of it seems to be aiming for a dark and dirty tone, one at odds with these supposed tonal fixes, while neither tone stands a chance against the pitfalls of this script.
It sucks, because a lot of people put a lot time and effort into this movie, as is the case with a lot of bad movies, but it's not like anyone sets out to make a bad movie (the Syfy channel and The Asylum excepted, of course). And yet, the cast and the filmmakers can repeat that they "made it for the fans" until they're blue in the face, and it's just a bad movie that they made for the fans. This was a movie that could have been really good, and it looked like it might be really good, but for some people who simply wanted to see a movie featuring these characters, that part never mattered much. We all deserve better, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment