What a Waste

Rating: 3/10 (7 August 2016)

Suicide Squad is a total freaking mess. A colorful, yet bleak scattershot of stuff sprayed on a big screen. The movie is like one of those paintings where someone randomly splattered different colors all over a large canvas then called it art.
The movie's greatest disappoint is easily The Joker. Granted that following Heath Ledger's iconic performance was going to be impossible for anyone, Jared Leto's character still fell short of even one's more reasonable expectations.
Leto made some weird choices. Not weird in a good way, just weird. For one, his Joker played as oddly seductive. I suppose the movie had to give us some reason to believe he landed Harley Quinn, but this part of his persona still felt strange. Plus he wore diamond-studded earrings and flashed some bizarre metallic teeth. He looked half like The Joker and half like some unstable rap mogul.
The worst part about The Joker in this movie, and the movie itself, is that he wasn't really necessary. With a small change he could have been removed from the story entirely. The writers just forced him in, probably to appease fans.
Similarly, Leto's performance felt forced. His voice, his breathing, his expressions, they didn't seem totally convincing. Perhaps Leto tried too hard to distinguish himself from Ledger's adaptation. Whatever the case, this Joker let me down.
Incidentally his love interest, Harley Quinn, highlighted the movie. She delivered an impressive performance and an even more impressive sex appeal. That alone kept the movie watchable at times. It's not really what I look for in a bad-ass superhero/super-villain movie, but if you're going to throw Margot Robbie's ass in my face 15 times in two hours, I'm going to watch.
That's all for praise, back to the flaws.
The soundtrack annoyed me greatly. To open the movie, each character is introduced, accompanied by a song that I like by itself but hate in the context of the scene since it doesn't fit. The filmmakers want us to empathize with the characters they introduce. We do not, save for Will Smith's Deadshot because he has a charming daughter to look after. Deadshot turns out to be one of the film's top two most intriguing characters (along with Quinn), thanks to Smith's fine acting. Seeing Will Smith in movies again makes me happy. I missed him. Just throwing that out there.
After meeting the other baddies, we learn about Enchantress, an ancient spirit witch who has lived for over 6,000 years. She is a part of the suicide squad, or maybe she's not. Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), the one introducing the suicide squad, does not make this clear. It's one of many unanswered questions I had at this point of the movie, and still have after now long after the movie ended.
Another, who is Amanda Waller and why is she the one assembling this team? Why did she put the bottle containing Enchantress's brother on her nightstand instead of a secure location? Why did the writers choose to make Killer Croc so uncomfortably racist? Actually, why is Killer Croc even a thing at all? After the intros, Enchantress frees her brother and the two wreak havoc on the city. Cue the suicide squad deployment. Big battle. You get the gist.
Despite immense potential and the occasional epic moment, the movie's sloppiness overshadows the high points. I imagine it was hastily rewritten or re-shot a couple times before final edits, so that probably caused the film's scattered nature and often unfocused plot.
As many flaws as Suicide Squad has, at least it's better than Fantastic Four.