Not a Marvel movie

Rating: 7/10 (13 August 2016)

I just saw Suicide Squad last night, expecting it to be terrible, but loved it. In fact, all of my friends really liked it. In fact, I heard more than a few strangers leaving the theater talking about how it was not nearly as terrible as the reviews. The movie was certainly not perfect, and some critics did point out its real flaws, but if comic book cannon and plot holes don't flip you out then you can really enjoy watching it. Seriously, the perception you get from Rotten Tomatoes does not match reality at all.
I won't repeat what many other reviews here have already stated, but overall this is a really fun movie to see, despite the usual flaws. It is more adult, not because of any sex or violence, but because immature audiences wouldn't get the drama or ideas in the movie. I'm not saying it was great drama nor was it deep or complicated, just compared to other shallow cartoon-depth superhero movies. The action scenes were poorly filmed and not very fun, and while my 11 year old daughter loved it, I can easily see this going over the heads of most kids. The plot is not always clear, but that's not really the point or what you could be enjoying about the movie.
I am not a comic book reader and have zero concern for the whole Marvel versus DC arguments; I only watch movies for their value as entertaining films. I absolutely loved Guardians of the Galaxy (Marvel) and thought BvS (DC) was a confusing mess of a story. However, there is a clear trend with who loves or hates which comic book movies, usually mapping to DC vs Marvel. People who like (and apparently need) the traditional concept of unrealistically-good heroes and unrealistically-evil villains will like Marvel movies. MoS, BvS, and Suicide Squad all touched on concepts from Watchmen – the very antithesis to the superhero concept. In Suicide Squad we are supposed to cheer for the exact same people that were portrayed as the evil villains in the first X-Men film: a government group whose purpose is to counter otherwise unstoppable superheroes. I'm not talking about who is a "good guy" or "bad guy", I'm talking about the concept of who watches the watchmen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes). I thought Avengers Civil War was going to approach this topic, until the lame Iron Man-Spiderman drivel about extreme power *not* corrupting someone.
If you are a die-hard comic book reader who expects to see the typical hero defeating evil story then you will not like Suicide Squad. If you liked reading Watchmen (the book, NOT the movie) then you might like it. If you worship the concept of superheroes or liked any X-Men movie then you will hate this movie. If you are a Marvel devotee, then...why are you even reading this? Your mind was already made up long ago.