$175 Million Dollar Fireworks Display

Rating: 2/10 (10 May 2020)

Even though this film has been out for a few years, I just recently took the time to watch it all the way through. It was a slog but I'm glad I did as I believe there is a lot to be learned from this movie.
Suicide Squad stops at nothing to razzle-dazzle the audience with extended scenes of destruction, explosions, gunfire and over-the-top f/x. All this despite having very little heart or anything the audience should connect to or care about. There is no time to get to know a character before we're introduced to yet more supposedly badass characters (all with the hokiest setups) until we (or at least I) barely cared about any single one of them. This is a great example of a movie that overstretches itself with the number of characters but just doesn't deliver the emotional connection that better movies can achieve with just a handful of fleshed-out, well-written characters.
The f/x were what you'd expect for a movie with this big of a budget. Some shots I'm sure took many thousands of hours of labor to put together, but at the end of the day they are weightless and forgettable because I was emotionally checked out. I don't mind movies with over the top spectacles of violence and mayhem but they have to serve the story and be meaningful within the context of that narrative. From watching this, it seems the production mindset was more 'just give the people explosions and broad character tropes, they won't taste the difference.'
Overall, I did not enjoy this movie but still think it should be understood and learned from. Compare it to the boiled-down, gut-wrenching Joker and wonder how both these movies could be produced by the same company.