With DC Laughing All the Way to the Bank...Is the Joke on Us?

Rating: 6/10 (9 August 2016)

I tried my best not to get hyped up over the prospect of Suicide Squad, I better than anyone should know that a great trailer doesn't equal a great film & unfortunately that statement is true to a degree.
I think the missed potential of the film is what is killing it with the overall negative professional critic reaction I'm witnessing currently, it's going to truly bring the money in there's no doubt about that, but what I worry about is the fact that this should have been the film to truly kick-start the critical favourability of a DC film property, yet my own personal take on Suicide Squad is that although it certainly isn't the absolute disaster many critics would have you believe it is, yes it's fun to a point but also misguided & messy in equal measure, so it isn't particularly anything to shout home about, simply put there's stuff to like & other stuff to be frustrated by.
So what is there to like? Well firstly a couple of the performances, Will Smith as Deadshot works extremely well if some of his plotted history is a bit on the nose, Margot Robbie certainly makes an impression as the truly troubled Harley Quinn & her bow the Joker played here by Jared Leto in what can unquestionable be described as an extended cameo plotting and hinting at their personal history prior to this film including a gangster style takeover of Gotham (which is in part one of the main problems of the film because I instantly wanted to see that film) a rather surprisingly funny performance came from an actor I have previously derided in the likes of A Good Day to Die Hard and Terminator: Genisys, that actor is of course Jai Courtney playing a character called Captain Boomerang who is probably the most human member of this super-team of bad guys, his wisecracking should have been really annoying & hey it may be to some but I thought it worked rather well.
Another rather great positive was the actual look and feel of the film, so it did feel like a murky world these villains inhabited and my word did they get the costuming spot on, great stuff from that point of view.
It is however inevitable that with a Squad this size there are going to be characters who are completely overlooked or not given any kind of effective use on screen, so principally the characters of Killer Croc & Katana are no doubt interesting but given hardly anything to do and kind of seem there to make up the numbers. On a completely other note the character of Rick Flag played here by Joel Kinnaman is just way too damn boring considering he's leading a team of truly fascinating villains to have any effect on the film and you really do forget he's there sometimes.
Now lets delve into the many layers of the Enchantress character played by Cara Delevingne who eventually become the villainess of the piece although initially it would appear she may be another member of the team, there are kind of three stages to her character & therefore performance, one is inconsequential and merely a steppingstone, one is truly fascinating and is just interesting purely on a stylistic level but also on what her character is able to do in this form yet is quickly pushed aside for them to get to the final stage of her character who in my opinion kind of loses any threat level the moment she starts speaking (sorry but the voice for her was almost laughable considering she's supposed to be incredibly threatening) I also had memories of the villainess of Zuul from the original Ghostbusters film flying around inside my mind as she was performing.
The way also that the plot tends to just plod along without any gusto was a bit concerning and it seems to be playing some particular usual cinematic plotting tropes, going through the motions some may say, one moment has the team coming together in a vain of Guardians of the Galaxy only with less awesomeness as it does feel slightly forced.
There's heavy influences of particular to John Carpenter films with Escape From New York being without doubt a model for the story's structure/plotting and style, well criminals being sent to rescue an individual of high 9mportance...need I say more on than aspect? When it finally comes down to the action set pieces it's surprisingly average and plot serving to a point which is a shame given to array of characters at their disposal and there's a legion of literally faceless bad guys for them to machine-gun down as utter bullet fodder.
So it would appear I'm extremely critical of an awful lot of what the film involves but yet there's still certainly a good amount to intrigue and keep your interest even if not everything works throughout.
It's a complete mixed bag of a film with plenty to frustrate yet then also like and intrigue you and there's no doubt in the fact that this is certainly a film that is placed in a more unique place in our cinematic world right now and that alone makes it worth seeing.