And so, a new review, almost 2 months after my last. I'm currently working on some stuff for the site which is why there is a lack of posts. Anywhoo, Review time. Today i'm taking a look and this years most anticipated comic book movie, SUICIDE SQUAD. To read my review, click the Check It Out button and have a read...It does contain minor spoilers but nothing too big.
Suicide
Squad, featuring a cast of DC's best villains including Diablo,
Killer Croc, Captain Boomerang, Enchantress, Slipknot, Deadshot,
Harlequin and The Joker, should have been a no brainer, but to this
viewer, it more than let me down. I didn't outright hate the movie, I
just felt it was a missed opportunity to make something much more
special. Don't get me wrong, the film has some great moments, but a
few great moments don't make a great film. I'll explain the issues I
had with the film a little further down, but for now, lets have a
look at the plot...
A
top secret government agency puts together a team of the baddest
villains the world has seen to take on the metahuman terrorists that
are on the rise. When an archaeologist gets taken over by an evil
witch called Enchantress, the government find her heart and hold it
hostage, basically forcing the witch to do their bidding, when she
recovers her brothers soul, she sets out to build a machine to
destroy the armies of the world and become the ruler of earth. So
what do you do, you assemble a team of maniacs to take on the big
bad, they include an assassin, the mental girlfriend of the joker, a
man with pyro powers, a man who can climb anything, some dude who has
a boomerang, a human/crocodile hybrid and a bad ass samurai who's
sword collects the souls of the people she kills. They're led in the
field by hardcore spec ops captain, Rick Flagg and calling all the
shots if Government official, Amanda Waller. They're sent out into
Metro city too...blah blah blah, to be totally honest there ain't
much of a plot, just a series of action scenes strung together by a
weak narrative to move the film from A to B.
It's
certainly not a dull movie, the pace is pretty fast and you'll never
find your attention drifting but for a film like this and with I
don't know how many comics to cull a plot from, Ayer really dropped
the ball on this one. I mean the trailers made out that the main
villain was the Joker, but he has what amounts to about 5-8 minutes
screen time, but that's not a bad thing because I absolutely hated
Jared Leto's interpretation of The Joker, it felt like he was
imitating Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson but wrapping it up in the
guise of Tony Montana. His performance was way too over the top,
almost pantomime like. I was never sold on Leto as the joker the
moment his casting was announced.
With
the exception of Leto, I quite liked the rest of the cast. Joel
Kinnerman was pretty cool as Flagg and I felt he'd be pretty cool in
a straight up action flick, the same for Scott Eastwood, one of the
men on Flagg's seal teams. Mr, Eko (I ain't spelling his full name)
was funny and hulking as Killer Croc and had some pretty killer
lines. Jay Hernandez (Hostel) was pretty awesome as the homie with
the fire power, who didn't want to use his powers because people end
up dead when he does (like the Rock and Shotguns in The Rundown
haha). Jai Courtney didn't make me want to punch the TV this time
which a step in the right direction for the Aussie. I usually want to
break something when he appears, he had some of the funnier lines of
the support Squad and he made the role his own even if his character
was a bit shit. Viola Davis owned her role as Amanda Waller, even if
it is the kind of role Angela Bassett can do in her sleep. But then
again, Davis does have an oscar so she does know how to do acting.
But the film totally belongs to Will Smith and Margot Robbie. Smith
shows that he's still got the full on Action chops and his character
came across as a mix of Mike Lowrey and Agent Jay from Men in Black
and really makes me excited for the recently retitled Bad Boys 3, its
now called Bad Boys For Live which is a fucking great title. Ive not
seen Smith having this much fun in a movie in a long time and his
Deadshot is a complete badass. It also helps that he has brilliant
chemistry with Margot Robbie, reuniting after last year's conman
flick, Focus. Then we get to Margot Robbie, completely embodying the
character of Harley Quinn, Absolutely mental, violent, sweet and
insanely hot. It was nice to hear some of Harley's little Harleyisms,
such as calling the Joker Mr J and Puddin'. Robbie proves she can be
the next massive female star to rival the hugely overrated Scarlet
Johannson.
Ayer's
Script, plot wise is a shambles, the tone is all over the place and
some of the characters aren't given much to do. I would like to have
seen more from Adam Beach as slipknot and a tighter more interesting
plot. Dialogue wise, it's pretty on point, none of dialogue sounds
wooden, stilted or boring. So that's a plus I guess.
The
Cinematography is nice but very very dark, sure I know most of it
takes place at night but with all the colourful promotional art,
you'd expect the film, visually to fall in line with something like
Batman Forever, not Batman & Robin though, that was too much, but
no, the film looks like a grimy gritty, R rated film not a colourful
PG-13 movie. This is one of the films biggest issues. It's just too
dark.
I
didn't hate the film but it let me down. I'm a big fan of David Ayer
as both a writer and a director. His war film FURY was one of the
best war films since Saving Private Ryan, he wrote the original Fast
& Furious and Training Day and directed the brilliant cop
thriller, End Of Watch, so it's a let down that Ayer, given $175Mil
to make Suicide Squad delivers such a damp squib of a movie. Its'
still better than BvS but WB need to take a leaf out of Marvel's
book, Leave the dark and gritty at the door if you're essentially
making a PG-13 movie. I'll definitely give it another watch further
down the line but for now, once was enough. It's sadly a half marks
film from this guy.
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