Flawed But Not Without Merit

Rating: 7/10 (4 December 2016)

After reading so many disappointing reviews since its release I watched Suicide Squad with some trepidation, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I expected. It's above average, but there's no denying it's flawed and parts of it just don't work at all.
Similar to Sin City it's very meta in its approach. It plays up the comic book aesthetic and for me this worked well. It's quite dark with splashes of bright colour that reinforces the Sin City vibe and it looks great.
OK, the good - The cast are mostly excellent, particularly Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, Joel Kinnaman and Jay Hernandez. There's a few neat appearances from Affleck as Batman and a short cameo from The Flash which was fun. Will Smith is decent as Deadshot, but his casting took me out of the movie constantly. I always felt I wasn't watching Deadshot, just Will Smith. I found it hard to separate the actor from the character, maybe they should have gone for a less iconic actor in the role. His acting is flawless though. Margot Robbie is flawless too, but I must say the constant gratuitous shots of her backside were over the top. The character was completely sexualized and if they'd reigned this in a little (or a lot if I'm honest) her character could have really been something amazing. It's a little tough to admire her acting chops or the dialogue she's been given when her backside gets top billing. Horny young teens will love it though...
Sadly there's a lot of bad. The choice of music is either hugely predictable and tired (Spirit In The Sky anyone?) or just awful. The storyline is wafer thin and the big bad, an ancient and powerful witch called Enchantress has zero backstory which removes any sense of urgency to the threat everyone's up against. Her relationship with Kinnaman is also underdeveloped so why should I care, frankly? The Deadshot and his daughter scenes are largely awful and feel out of place, some of the dialogue is poor and the climactic big fight scene fell short.
The most polarizing part of the movie is Jared Leto as The Joker. I've always admired Leto as an actor, he's done some incredible work in the past and had a thankless task following in Heath Ledger's much loved footsteps, but I have to be honest and say it didn't really work for me. He's more like some meth-crazed gangster than The Joker, again his back story with Harley was too short and underdeveloped and his dialogue is largely appalling. I thought Harley had more chemistry with Diablo, which says it all.
I rated it a 7. If you can ignore the flaws there's an enjoyable film to be found here, not a classic by any means but certainly has it's moments.