A Totally Honest Review: a few too many mistakes but otherwise hugely enjoyable film

Rating: 7/10 (22 August 2016)

Let me begin by stating that I hugely enjoyed this film. Sure, it's no cinematic masterpiece that will walk away with Best Picture come February, and there are some serious inconsistencies and let-down littered throughout the movie, but I want to set the record straight as I feel as though Suicide Squad has unjustly come under fire among critics. What I am about to write is my opinion and only that.
From the first trailer I saw for this film I jumped on the hype train, which may have led some, myself included, to feel slightly underwhelmed while watching the final product. There were around 4 official trailers released, as well as shorter ones focusing on individual characters. This was a mistake as it gave away many of the movie's best bits, to the extent that when watching the movie it almost felt like an extended version of one of these many trailers.
This leads into the next mistake: the trailers gave the impression that the main villain would be the Joker, which sadly was not the case. While I commend Warner Bros for not revealing the baddie before the movie's release, I do feel that the excessive presence of the Joker in the trailers was misleading, especially when the character only appeared in total for about 10-15 mins. Jared Leto's interpretation of one of cinema's most recognisable bad guys has also had mixed opinions. Personally I thought he was one of if not the highlight of the movie, bringing a charisma and prowess I feel was lacking in earlier interpretations. Nevertheless Leto's limited screen-time was a grave error on behalf of the editing team. Leto himself in an interview stated regretfully that many more scenes featuring him had been filmed, but were cut from the theatrical release. I can only hope Suicide Squad takes a leaf out of Batman vs. Superman's book and releases a DVD ultimate edition with these scenes included.
I found, more frequently than should be forgiven, that the movie's editing affected – and at times hindered – the pace. For example the bar scene: it felt awkwardly placed, clearly someone was desperate to squeeze a bar scene in there somewhere and the result added little to the overall plot. The same can be said for Enchantress (Cara Delevigne) who's motivations throughout the movie were never made quite clear, besides the whole 'I wanna destroy the world because I can' attitude. If the film had taken more time to establish who Dr June Moone was and her relationship with Rick Flagg, maybe I would have cared about her character even a little. That being said, although being the main villain, Enchantress features relatively little too.
Rather, the main conflict centres on the squad themselves and their ability to group together and put their differences aside. Here is where the film excelled for me. The chemistry between Smith and Robbie's Deadshot and Harley Quinn was excellent and fun to watch. These two, and possibly El Diablo (Jay Hernandez) carried the movie, rendering the rest of the cast to being their back-up dancers. Harley was by far the most intriguing, her backstory interlaced with that of the Joker in a relationship many fans were dying to see on screen, and were not disappointed. On a separate note the music was great! A perfect mix of original score and soundtrack that was well-suited to each scenario.
From the comments I've given my rating of 7/10 may seem too generous (I'm looking at you Rotten Tomatoes), but thinking back to how I felt whilst watching I enjoyed Suicide Squad far more than many films released in the last year. It left me wanting to see more of these characters and wanting to watch it again, which can only be a good thing. So why so much hate? Perhaps some people think it's cool to hate on summer blockbusters, perhaps some thought this film was too violent (yet I don't recall seeing any blood?) and that is their opinion. Let other people decide their own.