A shame ..........in both senses of the word.

Rating: 4/10 (17 August 2016)

"Watchmen" was a respectable film adaptation of perhaps the greatest comic book and along with "Kick Ass" made the first moves towards a more adult orientated adaptation of a comic book. The first "Iron Man" movie (the horrible simpering Gwyneth Paltrow aside) was a terrific comic book adaptation that along with "Guardians of the Galaxy" showed just how much undiluted fun comic book films could be. Then "Deadpool" ramped up everyone's expectations of what could be delivered in a comic book adaptation. "Suicide Squad", if delivered properly, could have been the next step in liberating comic book adaptations from the world of clichÃ© and the low expectations of the lowest common denominator consumer market. But sadly the film is a badly scripted and pedestrianly directed failure.
What should have been a surrealistic kaleidoscope of chaotic, sexy violence is reduced to a tedious "buddy cop" type movie bonding between the characters of Flagg and Deadshot. Meanwhile the only real successes of the film, Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn and Jared Leto's "Joker", are reduced to occasional side show carnival acts. Harley objectified and only justified psychologically as the Joker's lesser half which denies much of the complexity of the original character. The opportunities for caustic comedy dialogue are missed at almost every turn by the witless script which shows no respect for the intelligence of the audience or craftsmanship in its execution.
Unimaginative direction reduces the film to head shot reactions of the various squad members and very obviously staged medium shot soap opera action scenes â€“ there's certainly nothing here to match the violent poetry and brilliant editing of the opening bridge scene in "Deadpool". The scene where "Deadshot" single-handedly and with lethal precision takes out the horde of rather uninspired pimple creatures could have been jaw dropping but in the hands of Ayer is reduced to formulaic blandly edited mediocrity.
The basic structure of the film falls into two halves. The first is the inevitable and drawn out series of montages describing the origins of the Squad members. Not very well assembled and here, as throughout the film, the makers fail to make a clear decision on how to assign time to the various team members. We then we move into the second half with the core narrative during which the squad take on the character of The Enchantress and her Brother. The motivations and reasoning behind this conflict are muddled and there is no tension because we do not know properly what threat the "enemy" represent. There is no philosophical or ideological differences between the combatants so it's all just a performing puppet show staged between people we don't care about and there is no explanation as to why someone who has existed for 4,000+ years suddenly decides to act at this precise moment. As the film then plods along to it's inevitable conclusion we are reduced to something that closely approximates a poor copy of the original "Ghostbusters" movie, swirling tacky pyro-techniques above a tall building and a pay off of the "love interest" Cara Delevigne, pretty underwhelming in her central performance I'm afraid, being discovered, just like Sigourney Weaver in "Ghostbusters", inside the crust of a dead creature.
I feel very sorry for Margot Robbie and Jared Leto because clearly they both tried their best to invest their characters with the inhabited personality and conviction that they need to bring Harley Quinn and the Joker to life but they may as well have been in another movie to the lumpen action tedium surrounding them. The scene showing Harley's fantasy ideal as being the life of a little housewife locked away in her own kitchen with a couple of kids shows the essentially reactionary nature of this movie, and is consistent with the largely negative representation of women in the rest of Ayer's output. Thus we are asked to believe that someone who started out as an intelligent medical professional, challenged by the idea of chaos and who was drawn to the complexities of the Joker's personality and who then transforms into a sexy super killing machine really only longs for bland domesticity?
There are so many plot, motivation and character holes in the film that it comes across as being made up as it goes along. For example the head of the project Amanda Walker, played by Viola Davis in a thankless role, engages in many ruthless acts throughout the film such as cold heartedly shooting and killing her own FBI agents but then for no real reason allows Deadshot time off to visit his daughter - which bizarrely morphs into being yet another tedious bonding moment between Flagg and Deadshot rather than between Deadshot and his daughter!
The box office may be the end that justifies the means for the clowns in suits who clearly felt this was adequate for public consumption but I'm afraid I don't like to be treated as if I'm stupid and I hate "by the numbers" consumer film making so I won't be returning for another episode of "Suicide Squad" unless the studio execs consign Mr Ayer back to the dumb macho movies that his CV is best suited to and then plead with the team behind "Deadpool" to get involved. But then whilst the cinema going public are all wasting their money on a lazily put together mess like this why would Warner Brothers bother to try and make an interesting, thought provoking quality film? Keep the masses sedated like the inmates of Arkham Asylum!