Complete Trash Movie

Rating: 1/10 (29 December 2016)

If you want to read the basic sum up of how I, a general movie-goer who goes to see a good movie and not validate my blind obsession with a group of DC characters (which I feel is why this movie gets its massive levels of undeserved praise), feel about this film then here it is: Suicide Squad is terrible movie whose existence can be summed up as a blatant excuse to overproduce and market edgy merchandise. The film feels like a soulless product.
Let's start with the plot. The government gathers and blackmails a group of villains to fight against a supernatural ghost/witch who is going to destroy the world. That's pretty much it. Any friends of mine who liked the movie and have tried to attribute some deeper meaning to this shallow plot can't really do so without reference to some material outside the movie (such as comic books). That is pathetic. The movie should stand on its own but it simply doesn't.
The terrible plot could be forgiven if the characters were in any way well presented. However, this is not the case. The characters are lazily introduced in the first 30 minutes of the film in short flashback/montage sequences. You are given no reason to care unless you're already a fan who is familiar with the characters. OK, so the plot is terrible and paced in the worst way possible but, maybe the acting redeems the script to an extent.
Nope.
The acting is not good and I don't even know if it's really the fault of the actors since I know Jared Leto, Will Smith and Margot Robbie are great actors. This movie, however, demonstrates how even good actors (be it because of a bad script or poor direction) can give absolutely terrible performances. None of the characters feel like villains. We're just told about the characters in the lazy intro sequences or by other characters (*cough* Katana *cough cough*) but never shown their characters. It's incredibly forced. The Harley Quinn and Joker performances are just on-the-nose and cringe-worthy. Joker is a blatant example of an actor thinking that acting weird and edgy equates to acting insane and Harley Quinn is just eye-candy crossed with awful punchline dispenser (none of which are funny and just sound like they were written to be printed on cheap merchandise).
Again, I don't even feel that I can blame this on the actors entirely since the film is also edited poorly. The first half feels like a bloated sequence of trailers with really distracting music choices, and the second half just feels like one long action scene that blurs into one long mess of characters smashing pathetic enemies before reaching the big climactic fight sequence. It's especially awful that it seems like the editors chose the most cringe parts of Jared Leto's Joker performance that just equate to him acting like a cosplayer who thinks playing Joker can be done by acting eccentric and over-the-top. AKA the most amateur style of acting/worst pick of shots possible. Allow me to speculate as to what this movie was maybe trying to achieve (and failed miserably).
I can't help but be reminded of Avengers while watching this movie. Both have awfully simple yet over-the-top plots with groups of easily recognisable characters who spout comedic one liners between long action sequences. I don't particularly like Avengers movies but I can at least appreciate why they work (and are enjoyable) while this abomination doesn't. It's because the MCU actually has standalone films for the significant characters that establish the universe and their individual characters while the DCCU opts for the aforementioned 2-minute intro montages. This movie might have been worth something if these sequences had been movies beforehand. Hell, I'd have liked to see the Harley Quinn backstory with the Joker as an actual movie before this movie. Same for Deadshot, Killer Croc, Katana, El Diablo etc.
They might have made good standalone movies and would have cleared the way for Suicide Squad to focus on being a good bit of over-the- top fun with a more fleshed-out story rather than also having to cope with introducing these characters and give them their signature personalities (which, as it is, is handled in the worst way possible that just makes them seem shallow and badly written).
In conclusion; this film is the most blatant example of a film produced to sell merchandise to DC fans (who care about the characters regardless of the movies quality) or idiotic kids who want to seem edgy with a Harley Quinn obsession while avoiding the "nerdy superhero comic fan" stereotype. The characters are quickly and lazily introduced with over the top personalities that should be confined to short segments in trailers as opposed to the entire movie. Suicide Squad itself is a bland, stupidly simple sequence of boring, repetitive fight scene after boring, repetitive fight scene held together by the simplest and cliché style of "imminent end-of- the-world" story-line.
This gets a 1/10. Even if I were a big DC fan I'd be ashamed to give this movie any more than a 4/10. In my opinion, real fans should be more invested in ensuring that quality films are made with their favourite characters rather than desperately defending a movie that, if anything, damages these characters.