Suicide Squad Review

Suicide Squad is a DCCU film starring Will Smith, Jared Leto, and Margot Robbie's ass in hot pants. Despite awful reviews, it got a higher box office in its first week than Fake Ghostbusters did in its entire theatrical run to date, because - surprise! - Margot Robbie's ass in hot pants gets more people into theaters than Melissa McCarthy's flab in a boiler suit does.

Pictured: marketing at its finest

Yes, it turns out that human beings still have a sex drive. Someone tell Paul Feig. No, seriously, it is actually of utmost importance to the human race that this film outperform Fake Ghostbusters by a zonktastic margin - as of this writing that margin is about $200 million - and that Hollywood actually notice.

Aaaaaaaaaanyway... As you may know, prior to this film's release I was scratching my head as to why Watchmen and Sucker Punch director Zack Snyder had gotten the Superman films instead of this one, this one appearing to be more up his alley. (I think I figured out why I felt that: Snyder's magnum opus is the insanely unconventional and uncommercial Sucker Punch, and going from that to a straightforward superhero film kinda seems like a sellout,) I have a feeling that, had Snyder directed this, there would be slightly fewer gratuitous shots of Margot Robbie's ass in hot pants, and slightly more gratuitous slow-motion shots in better-photographed action sequences. (I am rapidly approaching the opinion that Snyder and the Russo Brothers are literally the only directors in Hollywood who should be allowed within ten feet of an action scene.) Not saying Snyder's against fanservice, mind you - Wonder Woman has a panty shot in Batman v. Superman, for crying out loud - but I did find myself thinking yes, Margot Robbie is one of the most sexually attractive women in the business, now CAN WE PLEASE GET ON WITH THE MOVIE? at one point.

I will say that massive props are due to DP Roman Vasyanov, who somehow manages to ape Larry Fong's lighting and color style from Batman v. Superman in order to help make the DCCU look like a more cohesive whole.

Now, while this film is better paced than Batman v. Superman (I hereby declare that no film shall be longer than 140* minutes - Suicide Squad clocks in at 123, whereas Batman v. Superman is a whopping 151 in the theatrical cut), it does suffer from character bloat. Killer Croc, Katana, and Captain Boomerang don't actually bring anything to the film (well, Captain Boomerang being Australian** brings an excuse to put AC/DC on the soundtrack, which is always welcome) and, really, the film could have just focused on Will Smith's Deadshot, Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn, and... uh, some-guy-you've-never-heard-of's El Diablo.

*Number picked because that's the length of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, obviously. (Runs to Wikipedia) okay, good, The Prestige is 130. Whew.

**An Australian character, that is; Margot Robbie is Australian, and you're likely to notice in a couple of places, but Harley Quinn is supposed to be American.

Oh, Cara Delevingne is there, rocking a metal bikini and later what looks an awful lot like bodypaint as the villainous Enchantress... she spends the film writhing around casting a spell to build a "machine" that then unleashes some destruction in some other places that aren't Places Our Heroes Are, which is rather underwhelming. Still, she's arguably the closest thing to a Modern Action Movie Villain That Doesn't Suck in anything not made by the Russo Brothers. Low bar, but still an accomplishment. Not acting like a coked-up millennial snot helps.

EDIT Enchantress is often called out as a weak link even by people who otherwise like the film. Eh. Sure Delevingne is a supermodel rather than an actress, but she's not called on to do all that much. And this may just be a matter of preference, but I prefer "I am a god, now die" to whatever the Hell Jesse Eisenberg thought he was doing in Dawn of Justice. /EDIT

There's a bit near the end that I wish had gone on longer where she seduces the key members of the Squad with fantasies. Of course, since one of her powers is teleportation, I had to suspend my disbelief pretty thoroughly in the final battle, since really she should have just warped a bomb into their midst and then popped off to the other side of the planet.

Come to think of it, Viola Davis's Amanda Waller is pretty damn villainous too, although she is fantastically outplayed by the Enchantress at the start and never fully recovers.

You'll notice I haven't said anything about Jared Leto's performance yet. I'm not too sure what to say. This Joker is actually in love with Harley and seems to have a fairly low body count... but then, he's not the main villain and apparently a lot of his scenes were cut. I don't really know why he had to be in the movie, actually, and the trailers kinda set him up as the villain. All told he has about seven minutes of screen time and those seven minutes are mostly devoted to either flashbacks of him seducing Harley or his attempts to rescue her. Still, he's entertaining during the brief snippets he occupies, unlike Jesse Eisenberg's pathetic take on Lex Luthor in Batman v. Superman, and he doesn't outstay his welcome the way Eisenberg did either.

Ultimately I liked it, but that might be because I kind of knew what to expect and rolled with it. I doubt this will be the magic bullet that saves the flagging DCCU, but it is a solid entry in that franchise.