A poor studio made movie marginally saved by the glimpses of Ayer's direction and wonderful cast

Rating: 2/10 (7 August 2016)

(contains LIGHT spoilers)
In what has to be one of the most disappointing movie of the year, Suicide Squad fails to deliver the basics but ends up having more enjoyable moments than its preceding DC films. The biggest issue this film has is its narrative. Not only do they serve us such a thin and shallow plot & story but also tell the thin narrative in such a disjointed way. The hot topic visuals only cover up for a complete lack of style (which is the complete opposite to BvS' stylistic gluttony but lack of substance). Substance in this movie exists but feels like it has been butchered, redone, and forced back in as plastic re-imagining.
One of the greatest sins this movie has with its narrative is the poor handling of character development. Instead of staying true to their natures, all the villains of this movie have an inexplicable change of heart that is nowhere near convincing enough. There's great chemistry and performances but terrible bonding period. The team suddenly becomes a group of friends inexplicably as the film goes on. In Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, the movie takes its time to bond the characters on-screen. None of that happens here bar the bar scene. We are meant to suddenly feel sympathetic to Deadshot as he refuses to kill someone important in the movie? For what reason does he decide to not pull the trigger?
It's all a shame because the characters, the chemistry, and performances are separately good on their own but as a whole, in this mess of a set-up, fails to make up a good and competent movie. Will Smith and Robbie steal the show as Deadshot and Harley Quinn with great charisma and just general enthusiasm in their roles. El Diablo, Boomerang, and Waller also make up for some really nice scenes and moments (In all fairness, Diablo is probably the only character with good development and believable story-line; so thanks to whoever made the decision to not butcher his story up)! So the main squad and characters actually were good and had a lot of good potential. Every character has at least two good lines of dialogue and the interaction is generally fine. But all we see them do is talk smack and walk around a city participating in lame action scenes and an even lamer finale. Jared Leto as The Joker is a serious missed opportunity. He was great in his performance but there was definitely more of him which was cut out from the movie. He's more of a thug/gangster so that explains his lavish clothing and tattoos but still keeps a creepy and unpredictable vibe. Not much happens with the Joker except he crashes in the party much later than I hoped for.
Ayer has done a great job getting the best out of his actors and making sure everything on-screen worked. So the scenes and individual footages themselves are actually not bad. Clearly, the man had a vision and story he wanted to tell. Yet the film ended up being anything but cohesive, footage after footage with no structure just the bare minimum. We're flashed into the introduction of the characters and how they got there which was lazily done. Deadshot and Quinn deserved entire sections of their own, not flash card introductions and brief scenes. The movie just starts randomly and ends abruptly. All of this just confirms what many of us have feared, that all the behind the scenes drama and panic in WB were true and that they have yet again butchered another movie.
I sincerely hope they learn their lesson this time. Follow Disney's example by NOT interfering with the movies and letting a creative team produce and make the films ala Geoff Johns like Marvel Studios is to Disney. WB didn't even give Ayer enough time to come up with a proper story then script FFS! All because of marketing deals, panic, and test audience reactions.
When will big studios learn? They keep on making these studio made films. They've been doing this forever as well. Most famously "The Other Side of Midnight". Seriously, when will they learn?