Mediocre

Rating: 3/10 (28 August 2016)

If you've seen this movie you might find "mediocre" a rather generous review word. When you compare the movie to what it appeared to want to be, a highly stylised anti-hero movie full of the joys of pop icons on a roller-coaster of cool, it comes out pretty mediocre.
The script was not well written or delivered, the whole thing was full of holes too glaring to dismiss, the whole anti-hero thing didn't work at all because they just tried to make them heroes... Whereas if they were kick-ass villains doing their villain thing a lot more the film could have worked on the premise it set out.
SPOILERS: The fact that the government woman getting attacked was the satisfying bit... Just shows how confused the good guy bad guy thing was.
OK so we could have complex bad-guys who are good intentioned or driven to evil etc. But none of that was pulled off well. Harley Quinn is supposed to be crazy but in order to spit out an easy generic piece of smeg script, her and all the others have pretty normal emotional responses despite being supposed psychopaths. Harley says she's crazy but about the only crazy she actually acts out is going along with story elements because OK.
The final villain fight was set up like a lame ass video-game, dread the video-game if there is one. Everything cool that could have happened was always taken away just to allow Harley the victory and make the team useful for their individual input. This really isn't the dream team, they don't have to function well together, they're villains, not working well together can be their downfall ready for when they face the justice league. Stop making this a superhero movie! It's meant to be a bad guy anarchy movie...
They showed us the witch stuff straight away then insisted on a half-arsed flash back to show "what happened" who was that for?? We the audience had already seen it! If you want to show us the flash back to reveal some twist, keep us along for the ride; in the dark. If that would leave us confused as to what's going on and you have to show us, then just don't do a reveal montage on top of that, that reveals nothing!
The whole 'I can give you what you want' thing was ridiculously executed whereby they clearly weren't being fooled they were just dreaming pretty much. If the things they were experiencing were happening in the actual location they were at they'd be sucked in, but no they were sucked in by a complete fantasy (except when deadshot sees his daughter telling him not to shoot) and only reminded by fire guy at some point.
A positive point here. At least when boyfriend guy has to take the action to kill his dream of having his girlfriend back finally tied together that whole 'get what you really want' thing. That could have left us with a really sad and informative reason that these guys are bad guys never getting what they feel they need in life and being all bitter and that. But no, they had to spoil that too with a happy ending that makes Harley smile like she has normal human emotions, yet again!
What else. The machine of floating garbage that never forms but can zap stuff when she's a witch who could just do that anyway. The dumb-ass bomb thing that I already scraped upon for combining different character's skills. Basic as all flying frig. The only reason for that explosion to cause everything to come back in (unless I'm missing a specific skill of this bomb) is if it killed the witch or damaged her enough to reverse her magic somehow. In which case it would be thrown at her not the clouds that is her magic machine above her.
Why all the massive holes. Why all the simplified elements. Was this made for 8 year olds? Because the certificate here in England is 15. For a 15 those generic 'we can cut them up because fantasy' enemies could have been a lot more person-like. Character introduction at the beginning of the film was the simplest possible, and hung unfairly on Harley. I know she's the one we're really interested in, but don't be a dick to everyone else in public, that's just not on!
All these bad plays could have been glossed over if they at least came off as constant bad-ass villains with well written and performed lines of script and fast paced iconic poses and action. But no. Mediocre. Having written vaguely about just some of the things that make this film crap, the word seems generous even to me. But no, I won't give it the satisfaction of calling it a terrible bad movie. It is what it is... Just a shame it isn't.
Mediocre.