The Minimum Acceptable for a Watchable Comic Book Movie

Rating: 5/10 (7 August 2016)

From the start Suicide Squad has felt like the DC answer for some of the recent Marvel movies with at best questionable "heroes". The easy review for this movie is to call it a poor excuse for a rip off from Guardians of the Galaxy, but it's really not fair to compare the two. Not because they are actually different, but because Guardians is in an entirely different class from Suicide Squad. There are some things in this movie that can give viewers for the future of the DC cinematic universe, but this is not the movie that will truly bring the word "cinematic" to the cinematic universe.
The real reason that this movie is even passable is the strong work of the actors, like all of them. There are some huge character problems in Suicide Squad which i will get more into later, but really none of this is the fault of the actors. Will Smith and Margot Robbie really stand out, as they should being the real star power here. Smith brings a level of humanity to the worlds most dangerous assassin and not only that but makes the character likable, possibly the only legitimately likable character in the movie. Robbie is not just here "for the plot", she is truly mesmerizing on screen. Even with a character that struggles from being basically a female version of a character that is just awful, Harley is certainly a bright spot even though the she is toned down compared to the traditional take.
The plot is fairly dull for the most part, they do make a good effort to realistically explain how a team of super villains fighting for the good guys, but I still constantly found myself wondering why they would not just call Batman or the Flash and avoid a lot of trouble. The movie uses the excuse that if the plans fail, the villains can be blamed, but with the well being of the entire planet at stake I think its time to stop saving skin and call in the professionals.
The biggest flaw of the movie is that it was advertised as a full cast of villains and even some of your favorite heroes, which is partially true, but in the least inspired way. There are basically 5 characters in this movie that get prime spotlight, out of those 2 of them are absolutely terrible misrepresentations of classic characters. If you are a Killer Croc, El Diablo, Enchantress, Slipknot, Captain Boomerang or Katana fan be prepared to feel pushed to the side. The few times that they actually try to flesh out these characters it feels so canned and genuine. Amanda Waller is an interesting character, but honestly in a Suicide Squad movie I have no patience for bureaucrats. Rick Flagg is stunningly dull and brings nothing really to the table other than to push the story forward.
I'm going to give the Joker his own paragraph, because so many things went wrong here. For starters this is not entirely Jared Leto's fault, my only hard complaint with him was that his performance was far too close to Heath Ledgers. From the cadence of his speech to even some of his mannerisms, Leto fails to separate himself from a all time great performance. Other than that the character is fundamentally flawed. This Joker is covered head to toe in gold and tattoos, which I would not have a huge problem with except they were so concerned with showing him off on the outside they forgot to make him an interesting villain. He is constantly playing out of character, from hanging out at night clubs in a sort of drug induced state for apparently no reason to be there at all to crying when he finds Harley has been arrested. Any self respecting portrayal of the Joker would not have him weep over her being taken. The Joker is an established character, and while there is always room for him to be tweaked a bit, but this is not the Joker, at least the one who wants to watch the world burn, he seems much more concerned with the color of his suit jacket.(BTW when it comes to the Joker the answer is purple, always purple, not white, not gold, purple.) For all of its shortcomings Suicide Squad is actually paced pretty well. Things move slowly at times but these were mostly character moments that for the most part were welcomed. Suicide Squad gave me flashbacks to Batman Vs. Superman in two frustrating ways. Surprisingly the action sequences were incredibly average, and not surprisingly the editing is terrible. For some reason the last 2 DC movies have been way behind the times when it comes to action sequences. Characters stand around and watch a fight, no one works in unison with each other. The editing of this movie in my opinion is the dark mark. Not only is it ridiculously sloppy, but severely disjointing at times. I may be a bit of a stickler for these sorts of things but when you are so far behind your competitor these things add up.
Suicide Squad could have been a really good movie. I know there were problems in development but I honestly think it was doomed from the start. This movie held the possible weight of an entire mega franchise on it's shoulders, and it is just not set up to be that movie. Given less pressure to make a blockbuster I think that we would have gotten a much better Suicide Squad movie.