Suicide Squad is a meh movie saved by its cast

Rating: 6/10 (8 August 2016)

Suicide Squad suffers from the same disease as last year's Fant4stic: it's a lackluster movie that had the potential to be mind-blowing.
Although the visuals are great, the directing sucks. Much like Batman v. Superman, the first act is hilariously overedited, feeling awkward and disjointed, like a huge hour long trailer for the film. There's a bunch of montages to introduce all the members of the squad except for like two, who straight up appear out of nowhere. The second act feels generic and uninspiring, but the endgame finally feels kind of adequate, despite its' random use of slow-mo in the final battle. Other problems I had with the directing was that a major sacrifice really lacked weight to the point that I thought said character was going to come back in the end (so basically just like Quicksilver in Age of Ultron) and that the movie was just filled to the brim with flashbacks, sometimes even unnecessarily repeating them, like Batman v. Superman did, and puts them in some pretty weird places. That last problem might be very much a consequence of introducing a whole lot of characters with large backstories that haven't starred in previous films before.
The plot was also pretty lame. Suicide Squad/Task Force X is supposed to go on deep cover black ops missions, but this film just put them on the generic "defeat the villain/save the city" type deal, which is highly disappointing. The villain was also pretty disappointing, and had no depth (despite the studio's desperate attempts to inject depth into it). Also there's a whole lot of scenes that would be kind of cool on their own, but feel completely out of place when inserted into the actual plot. Another problem with the writing in general is that this movie is one of those that tell all the good jokes in the trailers.
The best thing about this movie by far is its cast, but like the X- Men franchise, not everyone gets a chance to shine. At some points, it just feels like the Harley/Deadshot show. Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn is fantastic, and gets the character really well. My only problem with her is her interactions with Joker, but I'll get to that later. Will Smith's Deadshot is also one of the best characters in the film, getting a lot of screen time and great lines but he feels just like your standard smartass Will Smith character, lacking the true moral grayness of Floyd from the comics. Other outstanding cast members are Jay Courtney's Captain Boomerang, who despite being utterly useless compared to the other members of the squad is a great source of comic relief and fantastic character in general, and Viola Davis' Amanda Waller, who is probably the most comics-accurate character out of all the cast. The rest of the cast is either completely reduced to the background like Katana and Killer Croc, who gets only a couple of good lines in between the occasional snarl, or attempt to give the film some ethos but fall short due to mediocre storytelling, like El Diablo and Rick Flagg. The worst character by far is Cara Delevigne's Enchantress, who probably was the most inadequate out of all the main cast in terms of both acting and writing.
Then, there's Jared Leto's Joker. I was honestly scared that he was going to steal the show away from the rest of the cast, but he literally does the complete opposite. He's featured so very little in the film, that I honestly can't get a good read on the performance. He also suffers the same problem Spider-Man has in Civil War as in he doesn't really need to be in the movie at all. Another problem I had with him was relationship with Harley is pretty problematic, seeing that it should be a mostly manipulative and screwed up with some occasional beautiful moments of "true love", but in the movie, it's 99% "true love". Jokley should NOT be relationship goals.
Overall, this movie is arguably one of the biggest letdowns of 2016, but definitely still worth a watch.
6.5/10 stars; the best things about it were its cast, costume design, and marketing campaign.