Good for what was given

Rating: 7/10 (3 August 2016)

*Spoiler Free*
Have to start by giving credit to Viola Davis, Will Smith, Margot Robbie and Jared Leto. The poor direction and dialogue given by Ayer is clear, faults which could have been solved during writing or could have been overlooked if it wasn't for the embarrassing editing. Nevertheless, these four actors did they're best with what they were given. There is no doubt in my mind that Viola Davis stole the show for me. Although there were times where her lines seemed corny and lacked the class portrayed by Ms. Davis, her delivery was solid and she was the closest thing to the comic figure that we could have hoped for. Will Smith again showed everyone why he is such a successful actor, strong presence and ability to lead the cast was evident. However, his character plot let him down. Will Smith seemed to be playing Will Smith, not deadshot. There was the witty commentary and one-liners, which we have come to know with Will Smith, but his character did not develop and did not ever push any boundaries to showcase Will's diversity. I expected Margot Robbie to steal the show, but she simply wasn't given her opportunity to.Some of her dialogue,was again,corny. The adverts portrayed her as this strong woman, but quite frankly, she is just depicted as some eye candy and had no real depth to her character. Her accent changed constantly throughout the film and some fight sequences seemed forced.With proper direction from Ayer,Margot Robbie would have been outstanding.My final favorite was Jared Leto's Joker. Although it seemed like he was put into the plot just to have him in the movie, the little that was shown of the Joker was definitely impressive. I was team Ledger, I was not looking forward to the new 'gangster joker,' but overall I was quite impressed for the screen time he was given.Perhaps it was slight weakness' in his performance which caused for so many of Leto's scenes to be cut, but from what I had been shown it was clear that he had put an immense effort into his portrayal. I can't say he was better than Heath Ledger, his character still lacks something which maybe could have been resurrected if he was given the chance, but Leto did a great job in showing his insanity and,in my screening at least, he genuinely made the audience uncomfortable by his actions. It wasn't overdone and it wasn't like anything which had been done before, Leto's intimidating persona was intriguing and sinister.It's a shame that Leto's interpretation clashed with Ayer's. This is the Joker which should have been shown in all his brief appearances, but shout out to David Ayer for forcing Joker,and Harley, to be half of that attached high school couple who couldn't be apart. Jared's commitment and work for being a tortured maniac was pushed to the side for some HarleyxJoker cuteness which wasn't that necessary. The rest of the cast really had no relevance to the story line. The plot was poorly executed and had some stupid mistakes when portraying the villain. I wondered why they even bothered which such a large team as they had no impact on the story or the audience. The only other characters who had some interest to me were Jai Courtney, who provided a comical quality to distract from the plot holes, and Ike Barinholtz, who seemed to derive a stronger performance from those he worked with. Overalll, it wasn't terrible. The cast has such promise but was let down by Ayer's careless editing and use of inappropriate song placement. It's as if Ayer decided lets let the music speak instead of the dialogue (which was fine at times but after awhile we all wished that they would cut off the music). If they had slowed down the film progression, given the characters some depth and actually shown what was in the trailers, then this movie would have been the film of the year. Let's all just hope the extended cut is released and does the cast justice for their efforts. I also hope that Jared Leto and Margot Robbie are picked up for a spin off movie that does justice to their comic book characters and own abilities.