A comic book movie review from a non-comic book guy

Rating: 5/10 (7 August 2016)

This review will possibly be long-winded and rambling. Sorry about that. I will also do my level best to NOT reveal anything about the plot in the way of spoilers, but I am not perfect, you have been warned. I am not a comic book reader. I have friends and co-workers who are so I know the general gist of the major comic heroes (Batman, Spiderman, etc.) but with SS, I really had no idea outside of the Joker.
The challenge here with that, is most comic book movies are written for fans that have at least a passing knowledge of the character, and not for people like me who really don't. In that respect, SS failed to make me care about the characters because they spent too little time telling you not only *who* they are, but *why* they are. The *why* is as important as anything else, because if you don't care what happens to the characters, it becomes difficult to care about the film in general.
This happened (to me anyway) with Age of Ultron, too many characters introduced with little development to them. I honestly thought Vision, when introduced, was Martian Manhunter, because that was the only hero I knew of that had red skin. I'd never heard of Vision and was totally confused as to why a DC character was in the Marvel movie.
In any case, we have a number of "bad guys" whose motivations are highly unclear, whose background is murky, and when whatever happens to them occurs, I don't care.
Sin number 1. You must develop your characters, unless you are aiming for fans only.
Sin number 2. Keep an even keel. This film fluctuates between dark, and comedic. It's difficult to buy into a character's motivation(s) when you can't grasp their purpose. With Ms. Quinn, I got it, she's a loon, so she'll switch between the two extremes with ease, and it works (mostly) but for say, Killer Croc, it doesn't, because comedic doesn't seem to fit with what little the movie gives us about him.
I understand these comedic elements were added after the fact, so they might not all be the director's fault, but it doesn't help the film.
In any event, this film is bound to be (if not already) controversial. We know the critics hated it, the die hard fans loved it, but for the folks on the fence like me? Well I remain on the fence. The movie had great potential, and the actors did their level best with that they had to work with, but sadly that wasn't much and the film suffers greatly because of that.
Two notable points: This is mainly a Wil Smith movie. If you don't like him, you've been warned, he's the lead character.
The Joker is rarely seen, and is mostly a force of nature rather than a character in the movie, which adds a positive point to the film.
So, final words? The film strove to be so much more, and yet failed to reach that goal. A tragedy. Maybe next time gang, maybe next time.