" Suicide Squad" was a totally different direction not just for DC, but for the comic book genre of film in general. Like many people I was nervous going into the film because of it's poor reviews.
If you pump $175 million into anything, you'll get a pretty decent films right?
Well that's what Suicide Squad was to me. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't my favorite comic book movie. And I think for how much money and star power was in this film, it could've been a lot better. However the biggest problem was the film felt cluttered. I feel this issue will be resolved if a director's cut is released. A large portion of the problems with this movie occurred in post production. As the story goes, Warner Brothers saw how good of a reception the trailer got and in response they hired the trailer editing team to edit the whole film. The first 15 minutes of the movie felt like I was watching 6 different trailers honestly.
The soundtrack for the film was absolutely incredible, but it was almost too much music. It was like Warner Brothers looked at Guardians of the Galaxy and went "wow what a great soundtrack! Let's do 3 times as much music spanning over 4 decades of music." There were so many abrupt song and scene changes I couldn't even count.
However the acting in this film was great.
Honestly Deadshotwas the best performance in the film. I could honestly say with the exception of Concussion (because I haven't seen it yet), Deadshot was Will Smith's best performance since I Am Legend. Deadshot is one of the most bad ass characters in the film and has some of the best lines. But he also has the cheesiest line, "what are we some kind of suicide squad?"
Margot Robbie was a perfect choice for Harley Quinn although her Harley voice and her Duchess voice from Wolf of Wall Street were one in the same.
Captain Boomerang was easily my favorite character and the funniest.
If waited so long to see Killer Croc on the big screen and it was well worth the wait. Killer Croc was next to perfect. I just kind wish he had a tail, that's it.
Cara Delevingne was awesome as the enchantress. Now I did think that the subtitles for her character were a little cheesy as was her line "enchantress" every time she transformed. However I loved the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde aspect to her character. She is a beautiful and talented actress and I thought she shined in this role in comparison to previous performances.
Viola Davis is stone cold in this movie and it is incredible. She wasn't the villain, but she sure as hell felt like one. She brought so much to the film. Her and Will Smith put the film on a whole new level.
Now this is the part where most people will disagree with me, but I do not care in the slightest. I will completely back my opinion up with reasoning.
Jared Leto's Joker was easily the biggest disappointment of 2016. Now I completely understand that Jared Leto took on the impossible job of following Heath Ledger. And I think Leto and director David Ayer had the right idea on what direction to take the Joker. It just honestly wasn't executed that well and Leto wasn't the right choice. I'm not going to delve into how the character looked.
Now some people can argue, "well we didn't get to see enough of him." But at the same time, if you're going to make such a big whoop about the new Joker, you can bet that I'm going to have an opinion based on the material shown. I also think all his method acting was just for publicity, because Leto was pretty public about his method acting and I believe that was to build hype. Whereas Ledger was very, very private about it and no one really knew how deep into it he went until he passed away.
So there are 4 cinematic jokers.
Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger and now Jared Leto.
Leto was honest my least favorite. Now if you wanna know where my opinion stems from a bit more check out the film theory video on the Joker. But each of the three prior Jokers followed an era in the Joker's 75 years in comics as to where Leto is now portraying a new era.
Now Leto was the Joker, and correct me if I'm wrong, he didn't crack ONE JOKE. Not one!
Cesar Romero's Joker is severely underrated. That man literally created the template for the live action and animated batman's we know today as goofy as it seems.
Jack Nicholson played this real sinister dark joker that really was in a dark twisted place.
Ledger's joker was viewed as lunatic by society, but a complete mastermind in reality.
The glaring problem with Leto's joker is that it kinda contradicts itself. He wants to appear insane, but be a mastermind and a maniac at the same time. The character doesn't really work that way.
Aside from the look, this character had nothing signature. He fought with guns, how lame.
You have Romero who uses hand shockers.
Or Nicholson who uses an acid squirting flower on his shirt and leaving his deceased victims with a permanent smile on their face.
Ledger who shoved a pencil through a guys head, or has grenades lines on the inside of his coat.
Leto just used guns and the thing that really got me was the audience was just expected just to treat him like a big bad guy because he was the Joker. It doesn't work like that. It was lazy. It relied on 75 years of comic book material and 3 actors work to just kinda say, "hey this is the Joker, bow down." He also had the worst laugh in the world. It sounded like Wario. Don't believe me? Look it up.
All in all, "Suicide Squad" was a fun film with a lot of post production mistakes that can easily be fixed in a sequel. I hope to see a directors cut of the film that clears the clutter up more and I hope to see less of Jared Leto's Joker.
Suicide Squad: C+