A hot mess

Rating: 4/10 (4 August 2016)

For the last 12 months it has been almost impossible to dodge the juggernaut of a film that is 'Suicide Squad'. It really has been everywhere. The trailers appeared to pretty much give away the entire film, and I was hoping that I was wrong and it still had a few tricks up its sleeve, however this was not the case. If you've seen the trailers you almost know the entire basic story line. This was very disappointing. Also, almost every clever one-liner (barring a few exceptions from 'Harley Quinn') was included in the trailers. Bring back the good old days of 'The Dark Knight' where the trailers were unbelievably epic, and yet gave away almost nothing of the plot.
The movie itself it also a bit of a mess. There are so many characters, yet none of them are that strong. Quantity over quality never works, especially when it comes to movie characters. A breakdown of a few of the characters:
Harley Quinn - undoubtedly the star of the show. Margot Robbie really impressed me in this role. She was far and away the best written character and a terrific performance made her an absolute winner. She alone pretty much carries the film and keeps some quality about it.
The Joker - one of the greatest characters of all time, almost completely wasted. Did the writers understand absolutely nothing about what makes The Joker great? He's not supposed to be telling jokes, but he is certainly meant to make you laugh. Jared Leto does his best, but this part of the movie was a complete miss. Never once did he make me laugh, and never once did I find him overly menacing. A horrendously mishandled chess piece that goes a large way towards why this film is so bad. Heath Ledger must be turning in his grave.
Deadshot - yuck. What an awful waste, of an already one-dimensional and useless character. His power is that he is an accurate shooter? Are you kidding me? Could there be anything more boring? Then add in that Will Smith is still trying to come across as the hero/good guy the entire movie and you have another horrible element to this film. I was really hoping Smith was going to take a leaf out of Dicaprio's book when he did 'Django Unchained'. Sadly, it's nothing like that and is simply annoying.
These are the only characters really worth mentioning. The rest are purely there as filler. The DC universe is in real trouble at the moment, after the abomination that was 'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice', and the reason is simple: they aren't hiring the right people to make these films. What made 'The Dark Knight' so unbelievably powerful and successful? Christopher Nolan was at the helm. Now not every film maker is capable of the standard Nolan can produce, but what irks me is that nobody is seemingly even trying to imitate what he achieved. These films are so far from what he was producing that it's ridiculous. 'Suicide Squad' has almost no story. That's unfathomable in this day and age. DC has a lot of films coming up in the near future, and unless they get a film maker on board capable of turning the tables around, they're all going to be equally as dreadful as this. It's now or never for change, but I fear they have no intention of changing.