Somewhere between fine and failure

Rating: 4/10 (5 October 2017)

"Suicide Squad" is an American movie from 2016 and actually among the biggest commercial successes from last year if we look at box office revenues. Still I have a feeling they may have expected more and we will see if it was still enough for them to make a sequel at some point. Writer and director is David Ayer and he had some big Hollywood names in his cast here like Will Smith, recent Oscar winners Viola Davis and Jared Leto as well as up-and-comers Margot Robbie and Cara Delevingne. And as the film also falls into the superhero genre, even if super villain genre would be more accurate, it was somehow guaranteed a crowd magnet. Critics reception, however wasn't great at all, and the film is mentioned by many as the biggest disappointment of the year, which I do not agree with at all as it really isn't that bad. This did not keep the Oscars though from giving it an Academy Award and yes makeup and hair-styling are really among the not too many strengths this film had. The characters' looks, also during the long introduction, early on are definitely something that elevated the mediocre and frequently very generic material. I am referring here to the father-daughter story, the fire villain's fear from causing destruction and other story lines too. They never become as emotional, let alone memorable, as they were intended too.
And then there is Harley Quinn, maybe the film's most memorable character, but I also think that had more to do with the physical side than with the way Robbie played her. Admittedly, I did not find Robbie as bad or forgettable as she was in other roles, so maybe she was just a good casting decision. Still the way they used her character as a trigger for comedy looking at how insane she was did get repetitive quickly. Same goes for the ways in which Viola Davis was treated by all the villains like such a respectable, bad-ass character with so much authority that it was fairly cringeworthy. Besides, the ways in which the film tried to go for comedy like a villain equivalent to Guardians of the Galaxy was rarely successful at all and felt pretty forced most of the time. It's probably just not Ayer's genre. So going for a full gritty and dark approach would have been the better solution.
Finally, a couple words on Leto's Joker. I think he is a talented actor and the character is really epic, but somehow it wasn't working out at all. I would not blame the makeup, but something didn't feel right there. I am saying this as somebody who is not a Ledger fanboy at all, but actually preferred Nicholson's take on the character I think. Let's hope Leto is back to his best with future projects (like the Blade Runner sequel) as he is too talented to appear in so few films only like he did for a while when he focused on his singing career. Here we have a really long film at easily over 2 hours, which is not too surprising for the genre, but sadly the quality is not on par with the quantity. It is maybe worth seeing for the occasional entertainment factor and as a pointless fun film overall, but depth and creativity are almost non-existent here. You won't find anything in here you haven't seen before already and frequently better. That's why I give the final outcome a thumbs-down and even if it was a close call, I don't recommend the watch.