Suicide Squad - Will Smith, Margot Robbie & Jared Leto

[Scribblor]

I saw it on Tuesday with my wife and her work colleagues. It was one of their birthdays and he wanted to see it. I went along because none of my friends want to see it - they've seen the reactions online - but I still fancied it.

 

It was better than I was expecting, having read reactions here and elsewhere. But it was still an utter mess. You could definitely see where the studio panicked after BvS and the trailer that everyone liked and did reshoots to crowbar 'fun' into it, with very limited success.

 

The threat was too big for the team. Most of them didn't actually have special powers, despite how they were billed by Amanda Waller. They were just good at what they did. Flagg is a soldier. Slipknot could climb, apparently. Deadshot is a good shot. Boomerang can throw boomerangs. Harley's nuts. Killer Croc's ugly and strong, but they don't give him any more info than that. He can presumably hold his breath for a while. Diablo has powers and so does Katana (or at least her sword does); but that's a dreadful team to go up against the threat.

 

Spoiler

They're supposed to go into situations where the government want deniability. But rescuing Waller isn't one of those situations - she works for the government. This is a situation where you'd send in actual special forces to rescue her. Okay, they did that, but why send the Suicide Squad in too? Other than for plot convenience, I mean. Their mission wasn't to tackle the Sorceress. They decided to do that on their own after Waller was captured.

 

The Sorceress didn't know what her own plan was, and had the flimsiest excuse for doing it anyway. "Hello brother, we've been asleep for thousands of years. Humans have forgotten about us, so I'm going to destroy them all." And then when her spell was complete, all of a sudden she was only attacking military targets. And somehow Flagg knew this, despite being in a subway with no communication to the outside world.

 

And they killed the Sorceress' brother will a small explosion, but millions of bullets didn't harm him, having his arm chopped off with a sword that steals souls didn't bother him, having his chest melted by Diablo only slowed him down for a moment. But a small bomb under the floor? Yeah, that did for him, obviously.

 

I can't even remember how they got the Sorceress' heart out of her, I was so disengaged by that point. Harley pretended to join her and grabbed Katana's sword, then... something. Can't remember.

 

 

 

Ugh. Actually, now that I think about it properly, it's even more of a mess.

[DarhkFox]

The film is a bit of a mess. But is it enjoyable? Yes. 

 

I think i'm suffering from comic book movie fatigue. The past few i've seen have been sub standard and even Marvel is losing it's touch. I'm hoping Dr Strange will change that though..

 

I do laugh that Jared Leto spent all this time "becoming" the joker but he wasn't in it long. Sure i know they cut a lot but still (and yeah technically he shouldn't even be in it).

 

I still think it's an average film, certainly not as terrible as some critics make it out to be. I really liked the enchantress but i do agree that part of the storyline later on messed up.

 

[Chadruharazzeb]

What exactly were all these antics that Leto was getting up to then? 

[DarhkFox]

19 minutes ago, Chadruharazzeb said:

What exactly were all these antics that Leto was getting up to then? 

 

sending used condoms and anal beads to his fellow cast, sending a rat to margot robbie, apparently spent months reading up on psychopaths and meeting them etc.

 

bit fucked up really, not really a joker trait anyway.

[Lorfarius]

A lot of actors do this crazy stuff but.... does it actually make any difference to their performance?

[Doomguy]

Never liked the look of Letos joker. He looks like he's from some shit metal band. Plus he's all gymed out on protein powder and TRT. It doesn't really go with the wiry clown 'I don't care' attitude the joker is supposed to have. 

 

I did hear someone say though (might have been on tesd) that this isn't for us anymore. It's aimed at the generation who grew up in the emo / scene era not with the 80's films or 90's animated series. Maybe there's some truth to that. 

[Tofu]

21 minutes ago, Stevedave said:

 

I did hear someone say though (might have been on tesd) that this isn't for us anymore. It's aimed at the generation who grew up in the emo / scene era not with the 80's films or 90's animated series. Maybe there's some truth to that. 

The Bruce Tim and Paul Dini  Batman series is the pinnacle and standard to which the franchise should compare and adhere to. I don't understand how they can mess up so badly worth so much material to use. 

 

[MrPogo]

I went into this knowing nothing about the franchise (had never even heard of Suicide Squad before they announced the movie) and basically felt it had way too many characters who were mostly left severely undeveloped, and like I'd been kind of mis-sold what it was about. I'd been under the vague understanding the Joker was going to be the main character in the film rather than part of an irrelevant sub-plot, based on him being what all the press I saw was about in the run up to the film.

Also they used the same plot as all the worst episodes of Doctor Who; some weird creature wants to wipe out the human race for no particular reason, and has to be stopped. The focus needs to be kept smaller and with specific and logical motivation!

[Doomguy]

12 hours ago, Tofu said:

The Bruce Tim and Paul Dini  Batman series is the pinnacle and standard to which the franchise should compare and adhere to. I don't understand how they can mess up so badly worth so much material to use. 

 

 

I agree. You can veer off slightly and add or subtract (nolan films, a few animated features) but the dini version is the gold standard. The Joker we got in this looks more like a member of slipknot. 

[Rev]

16 hours ago, Stevedave said:

I did hear someone say though (might have been on tesd) that this isn't for us anymore. It's aimed at the generation who grew up in the emo / scene era not with the 80's films or 90's animated series. Maybe there's some truth to that. 

Like I said:

 

On 11/08/2016 at 14:23, Rev said:

My opinion was dismissed by the people we were with because obviously people who read comics won't like it. What.

 

 

I get it, I guess, but I don't really know why you'd make comic book films if they're nothing to do with the comics. Expendables/Fast and Furious clearly show that you can make a similar success without the comics, so why not build a cinematic universe from scratch?

 

[Alex W.]

They've got to justify whatever ludicrously fat cheque they paid to DC back in the day?

[Rev]

24 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

They've got to justify whatever ludicrously fat cheque they paid to DC back in the day?

 

DC bought Warner Bros. Effectively.

[sandman]

Maybe it was just low expectations, but I loved this, particularly the first hour which was brilliant. So much better than Bourne and Star Trek with a great cast and never a dull moment 

 

My my daughter like it even more than me -her movie of the year so far!

[Meh]

Fucking HORRIBLE film. The jokes all fell utterly flat in a packed cinema, and I was so glad it was over.

[sandman]

Also, why on earth was it a 15??

[Kelthink]

Terrible. Worse than Batman vs Supes, somehow. A rushy mess with no consideration for nearly anything. Like the film could have pretty much started as

 

 

Team Skwad were entering the city in the chopper. It's at this point that things are paced properly, the film is given room to breathe, we can actually learn a little about the few characters with backgrounds, let alone development; everything before is thrown in your face.

The character introduction section at the beginning was garbage. It was like multiple showreels sped up x10. We're supposed to have emotional reactions to the likes of Deadshot getting arrested or Flameman giving up on life, but there wasn't even any time for the character-viewer attachment to blossom.

 

The ending was shite, but that was obvious given the rest of it.

 

 

It was also very poorly lit in some action scenes; good stark contrast to the film's supposed neon off-colour thing it was selling itself as.

 

These films might be good if they got the basics right. But they never will. Not a chance I'll see Woman and Aquadude.

[lordcookie]

For some reason I chose Suicide Squad to be my first cinema visit in seven months. I should have waited another seven months for something vaguely decent. 

 

What a shower of shit this was. Admittedly I'm completely apathetic towards comic book movies these days but it is a complete mess and, perhaps most criminal of all, tedious from start to finish. The characters are utterly forgettable, the plot non-existent and the action repetitive. It did provide a few laughs but they were all unintentional.

[Liquid Myth]

Alright, but nothing outstanding. Good/bad stuff:

 

Good

- Margaret Robbie was really, really great as Harley Quinn, and pulled off a much better costume than the mess that the character had in the recent Arkham games. Her desires are as confused as herself, and I thought the Enchantress dream sequence was the best characterisation of the film.

- Viola Davis' Amanda Waller was a great villain, and a decent symbol of the wanton corruption in governmental forces that doesn't need the iffy shit that Marvel films suffer from. I was expecting them to go with the awful "rebooted" Amanda Waller that suffocated DC's "New 52" line, but better for them to go the other way.

- Leto's Joker was pretty decent and worked in consideration to Harley's character, but I did expect to see more after all the build-up. I'm not particularly fussed about seeing a new director's cut for it, and if this is going to be the trend for future DC films then fuck that.

- Some of the intro sequences, namely for Harley/Joker and Deadshot, honestly looked like they could have come straight out of the old B:TAS cartoons, only with more guns and knives.

 

The In-between

- Smith's Deadshot did not really sell me the idea of being a bad guy, despite however many times he says that bloody phrase. The only action we see of him killing is that of a mobster, instead of more morally grey figures like politicians or others like that. The costume and mask looked very poor as well, like forcing a square peg through a round hole.

- Jai Courtney's Cpt. Boomerang was a bit all over the place; what's he supposed to do? He has knives and a boomerang, and a toy that distracts him from everday horrors. I suppose the fact that he runs away a lot before slinking back is where the "Boomerang" bit comes from (I literally just worked that out).

- Enchantress started off pretty good, with the nifty supernatural bits and displaying Waller's true intentions, but later she becomes a weird badly dubbed monster lady who has two boss forms, because she's the final boss. The dream sequences were good, the variables in her powers -- which is something I would normally hold my tongue on -- were nonsensical.

 

Bad

- Slipknot appearing, and then being dead, with nothing in-between. I think somebody mentioned that he was supposed to be a serial rapist, and as grotesque as it sounds, such a line might have worked in relation to the metaphorical F&F-esque family theme that the film pushes throughout, framing him as an absent piece-of-shit father who nobody cares about when they die.

- Katana was nothing more than a plot device, with a magic sword that was the final boss' weakness (along with everyone else's because it was a sword). Not that I have any particular interest in the character that I've never heard of, but it all started looking a bit like the United Colours of Benetton by the time she gets thrown into the fray without so much of a word before.

- The Joker's crew, who at best were vaguely recognisable whenever they appeared, but otherwise had no particular story to tell themselves. Like, halfway through the movie, we get a guy down on gambling debts who... gets brought into the Joker's fray? I honestly cannot remember.

- Relatedly, the number of times we get Checkov's Gun set-ups that go nowhere, or resolutions to set-ups that don't exist, is far too much, and again feel like they've been buried in some kind of editing war gone mad.

 

Overall, it's okay, but the balance is an almighty mess.

[Spacehost]

23 hours ago, Stevedave said:

 

I agree. You can veer off slightly and add or subtract (nolan films, a few animated features) but the dini version is the gold standard. The Joker we got in this looks more like a member of slipknot. 

And not one of the ones who sings or plays a real instrument either, the one who stands at the far end of the stage occasionally hitting an empty beer keg with a baseball bat.

[Rev]

9 hours ago, Liquid Myth said:

Not that I have any particular interest in the character that I've never heard of, but it all started looking a bit like the United Colours of Benetton by the time she gets thrown into the fray without so much of a word before.

 

...

[MDY]

Takings took a steep nosedive.. 80% revenue drop from last Friday..

[Hexx]

80%!

[Harsin]

When no one was looking, Suicide Squad

dropped eighty percent. It dropped eighty percent.

That's as many as eight tens.

And that's terrible.

[Sabreman]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows dropped 84% on the opening week by the next Friday. These numbers are completely irrelevant when movies are so front-loaded. Look at the drop-off of any blockbuster that's not Avatar, Star Wars, or summer kids' films. They're all in a similar ballpark:

 

Avengers 63%

Ultron 74%

BvS 81%

Jurassic World 64%

Civil War 74%

Deadpool 65%

 

I'm not mounting the Suicide Squad Defence Force, I'm just pointing out how... pointless that particular stat is when shooting down a big budget movie.

[Alex W.]

Yeah, I made this point in the Ghostbusters thread, you have to put it in the context of how much money the movie is already making. A film that drops 50% on its second week after making half its budget, and a film that drops 50% on its second week after making all the money, are very different things. 

 

That number might be cause for concern for WB though, they supposedly had really high expectations and doing Deadpool money might not have been enough for them. Same as BvS.

[Mr Cochese]

If there's even a 1% chance of an 80% drop then we must treat it as a 100% certainty.

[Festoon]

What it really shows is that most of these comic book movies are being watched by fans only, and it's a rarity one breaks out into the mainstream. 

Studios, as they have in the past, will start spending a little less if the big bucks don't come in.

[JohnC]

1 hour ago, Festoon said:

What it really shows is that most of these comic book movies are being watched by fans only, and it's a rarity one breaks out into the mainstream. 

Eh? Surely the amount they are pulling in shows the exact opposite? Several have gone over a billion. Shitloads of people who don't follow comics are going to them.

[Mr Cochese]

Deadpool totally drew in a load of people who'd never even heard of him.

 

These things are the mainstream action movies now, just as the Westerns once were. But with capes for hats.

[Lorfarius]

Just imagine if they had capes AND hats. Madness.