Guilty Pleasures #39 - Suicide Squad

Hope you enjoyed my little skit, just something I wanted to try out. But to the actual review. This is Suicide Squad

The next in the line of DC movies following Batman v Superman: Dawn of Awfulness, Suicide Squad had a rough production history, with the editing being handled by a trailer house and an effort made to inject more humour into what was a serious movie and only 6 weeks given to the writer to script it.

The end result was divisive but profitable none-the-less, and here’s how I weigh in on it.

We open with a scene in the prison. It’s pointless and I’m going to move on. Amanda Waller is meeting a contact in the Hotel. She’s finally found the worst of the worst.

We get introduced to Deadshot (Will Smith) who gets into a dispute with a client about payment in advance and demands double to get the job done. Because it’s Will Smith of course he gets the money. But he has a daughter with a devastating secret, she can’t act for sh*t! But Waller tipped Batman off and she stops her father killing him for some reason.

Next is Harley Quinn, who even the text says is a psycho, a great idea to have in a team like this. She was once the Joker’s Doctor but she fell in love with him and gave him the tools to escape, in return she got electro-shock therapy? OK… Why are the Joker’s henchmen wearing Panda suits? Outside she plays stripper whilst the Joker... gives her away as a gift to some mob boss? When he refuses, the Joker kills him. I’m confused. 

Anyway, Batman gets on their tail and they end up in the water. In true Joker style he escapes and leaves her behind for Batman to capture.

But here’s the thing, for most of the movie, they’re playing the Joker/Harley relationship as legit, and yet all of that scene makes me thing that’s a load of bullsh*t. I’d prefer that they kept the Joker being the abuser but you can’t have your cake and eat it with this.

Next is Captain Boomerang, he has a bit more personality than the guy from Arrow. OK, maybe they’ll do it right this time? NOPE he doesn’t play well with others the text says, as he kills his fellow robber. All I want is the Flash Rogues to be the Flash Rogues, IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK!? Anyway, the Flash stops him in his 10 second cameo, he’s not in the rest of the movie.

El Diablo – something about him incinerating a prison yard during a riot, not sure if that’s before or after the whole incident we’ll get to later. Killer Croc, we get no real explanation for how he is how he is, not even a token one. And the Enchantress, see the sketch for her origin and also for a bit on Rick Flag.

They head to the Pentagon for guess what? Another briefing. The idea is for a task force of villains to go on covert missions, if they get caught, they can be thrown under the bus and never linked to the US. Note how I said covert missions. For example, the Enchantress manages to steal something in seconds that the military took years to try to recover. So of course, they’ll have to similarly approve everyone else and… nope, Task force X is approved, everyone’s an idiot.

Time for another pointless scene. Amanda and Rick Flag come to scope out the members of the Task Force, I’ll just summarise. Croc has a stereotypical gangsta black voice for some reason, El Diablo says he won’t be forged into a weapon. Deadshot is given freely a bunch of loaded weapons and shoots some targets, rather than shooting the guards to get out of there. But Deadshot wants a few things in return, mostly surrounding his daughter’s well-being.

Rick Flag is throwing a tantrum about recruiting villains, something he must’ve known about when they were going to Belle Reve. Waller keeps him in line by threatening Julie. Meanwhile in Gotham, The Joker is worried about his Harley, so worried he lies down and laughs for a trailer shot. He finds a guard which he knows is a guard for some reason has who conveniently has run up a large debt, he pays it off to get some alone time with him, and purrs like a cat for some reason.

Julie becomes the Enchantress in her sleep and because Rick is an idiot, he lets her go to Waller’s house. She isn’t able to retrieve her heart but she does find another idol containing her brother and unleashes him upon someone in the subway. Apparently the two used to be gods but man turned against them and imprisoned them.

When Julie returns, he makes Rick promise, and I’m sure you’ve never heard this one before, to kill her if the Enchantress gives him no alternative. I’m just gonna call the guy with the other totem Brother because they never tell us his name in the entire movie. So Brother begins causing chaos at a subway station. Time to summon the Suicide Squad.

Each of the gang are given a micro-bomb injection and how did they pierce Croc’s hide with a needle? As they leave the guard from earlier gives Harley a phone. She tells him she’s screwed… We never see him again. Joker’s crew breaks into the WayneCorp facility manufacturing the microbombs, why does WayneCorp make these? What possible application do these have that isn’t breaking every human rights law ever made? They begin tearing up the place in their stupid, even by the Joker standards, costumes and they find a scientist which the Joker injects a micro-bomb into to make him co-operate.

The Enchantress bolts and teams up with her brother, sharing his heart to avoid Amanda piercing hers from doing any damage. She begins creating the plot device from every movie in the goddamn world these days, a portal in the sky to do sh*t.

Here’s a brilliant idea for you, let’s drop off the wanted criminals in the middle of an evacuation zone! Here we’re introduced to two characters. Slipknot-the-man-who-can-climb-anything, he hasn’t had any backstory so two guesses as to what he’s here to do. So, it’s time for them to suit up

Digger’s obsession with Pink Unicorns, NOT FUNNY guys. Harley’s wearing fishnets and a skirt so short you can only just not see her ass. Waller gives them their mission via computer screen to rescue someone and keep Rick Flag alive. OK, you know what that could mean, this team is not exactly full of relevant skills for that. So, with the mission finished, we’re introduced to our second character. Katana-she’s-got-my-back-I… Rick Flag lies that the portal in the sky is a terrorist attack, there’s no real reason to do that.

Before long, the helicopter is shot down

The team deploy with the military and it’s just occurred to me, this is not exactly covert, is it? Boomerang and Slipknot discuss escaping, Boomerang is subdued by Katana but Slipknot dies

So, it’s at this point we’re introduced to the Enchantress’ minions, Putties from Power Rangers, who have lasers that come out of nowhere, apparently. There’s a fight but with the minimal light, it’s difficult to see. The fight goes their way, Diablo does nothing and later Harley steals a bag for a trailer moment.

They approach a dimly lit building and it’s time for another poorly lit action scene. Poking Diablo seems to be enough to get him to use his flames in anger, which is really f*cking stupid. They head up the stairs and Harley has a flashback with the Joker. He convinces her to jump into some acid, a bs ret-con from the New52, the joker briefly hesitates before jumping in after her.

It turns out of course, that Waller was who they were rescuing. She didn’t evacuate because she was busy doing research on the Enchantress she really should’ve done before putting her into battle. She kills all the others in the room as they didn’t have clearance. Lady, people are going to find out anyway, you admitted so yourself in the post-credits scene. Oh, but Croc likes her, that counts for something, right?

Hang on! Wait a minute! So they whole Suicide Squad summoning was to fight off some putties in a building where Amanda Waller is so she can get to the chopper, why did they need the Suicide Squad for that? A good number of military could've done that!

They head to the evac chopper but finds it’s been hijacked by the Joker, he has the scientist guy disarm the bomb in Harley's head whilst conveniently not hitting her as he fires the Gatling gun across them, with the bomb disarmed, Harley makes a run for it. Waller asks Deadshot to shoot her, offering him freedom and his daughter rather than just using the bomb in his head specifically designed to make him do whatever you want. He misses but Waller has military shoot down the helicopter.  

Harley survives and we’re led to believe the Joker was killed. Ha! Waller is evacuated on another helicopter and guess what happens, just guess. It gets shot down

Waller survives the crash but she’s captured by the Putties and taken to the Enchantress who grows tentacles or something to probe her, she recovers her heart and that’s all she needs to build the stupid portal and take over the world. Flag and crew head to the crash site and Harley joins them again, she doesn’t die for an attempted escape, ok…

They arrive at Waller’s helicopter and Deadshot discovers the file, he demands that everyone know what’s going on. How about "no and if you breathe a word of what you just read I’ll blow you up." See why having them team up with the military doesn’t really work? Rick explains but it’s nothing we don’t already know. They head into the bar because this was the most popular scene in the trailer, even if it makes little sense that any of you will be there. So what you’ll get blamed? You’re the bad guys, you say it often enough in the movie.

Croc gets a line, ok... Diablo reveals he killed his family in a fit of rage, Harley tells him to own it. Rick comes in and reveals to Deadshot that his daughter wrote to him every day, he just happened to have the letters on his person in the middle of a war-zone, like you do... Deadshot says he’ll help to prove to his daughter that he isn’t a piece of sh*t. Oh and Rick destroys his phone so they’re all free, wait, was the disarm Harley got temporary? That could’ve been problematic.

So, they need to deal with Brother before moving onto the Enchantress. The plan is simple, Croc and some guys that disappeared in the last scene head to re-arm the bomb underneath the subway planted earlier. The rest of them serve as a distraction and get Brother into position.

I have mentioned they really need some bigger guns here. The Enchantress gives them visions of what they want the most. Deadshot killing Batman, Harley living with the Joker and 2 kids, Rick Flag and Julie and Diablo with his family. No mention of what Captain Boomerang or Katana-she-got-my-back… saw.

But Diablo has had enough and activates his god mode which he didn’t even know he had to get Brother into position, he’s successful but powered down, but Brother is killed by the explosion. So a fire god barely touches him, but an explosion from beneath him does, that's stupid.

So with Brother gone, the Enchantress herself engages them, and in case you thought the fights before were too visible, this time they’ve added fog just to make it even harder to see. She gets bored and disarms them, before offering them mercy because movie. Harley goes to join her, wanting the Joker back, but it’s a ruse to get Katana’s sword and cut her heart out. Croc is out by the way. With her heart out, Flag uses the other charge he has with him, gives it to Croc to throw at the portal whilst Harley gives Deadshot the gun to detonate it. He experiences some pointless bad acting but eventually does so and destroys the sky portal.

They win but Waller has survived and still has the controls to their explosives. They’re going back to prison but with a few extra perks. Deadshot gets supervised visits to his daughter, and teach her maths. Harley gets a coffee machine, go figure... And Croc gets some TV. Boomerang gets nothing because he was a dick and no-one cares about Katana-she-got-my-back…

But it’s not over as the Joker rescues Harley. And it’s still not over as Waller hands Bruce some files on the soon-to-be Justice League in exchange for protection. He tells her to shut down the suicide squad. His friends were no-where to be seen during the entire debacle, let me point out. Sure it’s not in any of their native cities but if Metropolis and Gotham are just down the road, and we have someone as quick as the Flash, I can imagine one of them could’ve gotten there. Also, the Justice League haven't been formed yet it's just Batman and Wonder Woman

The last song in the credits is Sucker for Pain, which is ultimately my thoughts on this movie because in spite of every single solitary thing wrong with this movie, I actually quite like it.

I think what sells me are the leads, some of them. Jai Courtney makes a good Captain Boomerang, Will Smith makes a charming Deadshot, Viola Davis is a brilliant, if still too skinny Amanda Waller and Margot Robbie is an inspired choice for Harley Quinn. There are some legitimately cool moments and visual effects and there’s nothing that absolutely insulted me like there was in Batman v. Superman, and I know, that’s a low bar.

But there are problems beyond the story and things mentioned, I don’t really see the point in the soundtrack, the cover they used of You Don’t Own Me in the pointless first scene isn’t even the one from the trailer or the album (and ironic they use it for Harley Quinn of all people).

Rick Flag is relatively bland and forgettable, the stakes start out too high, the pacing is ridiculously messed up, the editing can get kinda obnoxious, most of the humour isn’t that funny and the fact a much better product exists in Batman: Assault on Arkham does hurt this movie further. There's also only a bare minimum of character interaction. Bad guys do not need to get on the whole time!

Also, I haven't mentioned the Joker. If it's true a lot of his stuff was cut it doesn't help this movie, he's largely pointless in it. But Jared Leto's pranks were childish and stupid. He's not one of my favourite interpretations of the character, in fact he's one of my least favourite

Also, make the sequel R-rated, for goodness sake if you can’t make an R-rated Suicide Squad, what can you do, DC?

Ah, you can do that. Hope the others are as good. Not holding my breath, though

Rating -28%