Movie Review: "Suicide Squad" (2016)

[Minimal spoilers in the post; no guarantees about the comments]

When the trailers for SS started coming out, I was hooked. I've always loved the concept anyway, have read at least 3/4 of the various runs of the comic, and doing a mad-cap, dark, comedic, violent, anti-hero action flick sounded like a hoot, and looked great on the screen.

Then, about a week ago, pre-release reviews from critics started landing. Utter disaster. Horrible. Why can't DC make good movies? What went wrong with "Suicide Squad."

But I had already decided I was going to go opening night, hoping against hope.

And …

… well, I'm mostly glad I did.

The movie falls well short of the promise of the trailers, but it's hardly a dud. Call it a Thor: The Dark World class of movie, with some fun bits, some interesting action, some moments of true coolness, but enough stuff that doesn't quite pay off or should never have been included in the first place to make it less than what it could have been.

No regrets about seeing it, but it will likely be a while before I want to see it again.

Let's start with the up sides, of which there are several.

1. Those who like continuity and Easter Eggs will have a good time here. From Midway City (alas, no Hawkman) to Ace Chemicals to classic Harley costumes (and imagery), there are lots of little rewards here.

2. While I blow hot and cold on Will Smith, I thought he made an effective, passionate, and ruthless Deadshot. His backstory and motivations were nicely in keeping with what's been established previously for the character.

3. Margot Robbie is a delicious Harley Quinn. She does such a nice job, I'm almost willing to put up with the excessive amount of Joker-Harley screen time (both in present and in flashback). Almost. I'd rather have seen a Harley Quinn movie first so that a lot of that could have been dispensed with.

4. Ditto on all counts for Jared Leto's Joker. It was a nice rendition, sufficiently different from Heather Ledger (et al.) but well in keeping with the character. There was just waaaaaay too much of him, to the detriment of everyone else (with, apparently, a lot more shot that never made it to the final release).

5. Viola Davis, when allowed to, does a pretty darned good Amanda Waller. While not quite "the Wall," she's not the young, skinny fashion models we've seen in too many recent screen renditions of the character. And she definitely carries the sense of being able to handle herself.

6. The SFX were pretty nice, particularly the smoke effects around the Enchantress (in all her guises).

7. The use of known popular tunes as scene setters was not a bad thing, though some of these tunes have been so overused that they probably need to be retired.

8. The attempt to create a story about families — estranged families, dead families, fantasy families, supernatural brother-and-sister families, and the families we choose for ourselves — was audacious and had some places where it at least partially gelled; ultimately, alas, it got crowded out too badly.

9. Flaws aside (see below), it was overall fun. Not mind-blowing fun, not even necessarily memorable fun, but I've certainly spent a worse few hours in a movie theater.

Now for the down sides, of which there are many, though rarely of profound, cognitively dissonant, tearing-the-eyes-out badness:

1. There are too many characters here. You have the Squad (Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Killer Croc, El Diablo, Hangman, Slipknot). You have Flag. You have Flag's people. You have Waller. You have Joker. You have Katana. You have the Enchantress. It would be very difficult to properly balance that many characters — and the movie does a piss-poor job of even trying. Some characters (the top-billed actor ones) get tons of screen time, backstory, vignettes, introductions, temptations, etc. Others get a few key scenes but end up feeling undeveloped. Others are literally just along for the ride.

Don't get me wrong — most of the characters who get overfocused on are pretty good, but the movie feels terribly unbalanced. For all Guardians of the Galaxy or the Avengers film have had large casts, they've done a much better job of sharing the wealth.

2. Way too much of the movie is long walks down rubble-strewn streets at night. Or through rubble-strewn buildings at night. It almost feels like a video game, and a lot of the resulting action further wastes time, giving the whole proceeding something of a rushed feeling with manufactured emotions.

3. Speaking of that action, way too many of the (many) battles are full of too much shaky-cam, dust-and-smoke, quick-cut, shadowy night to be able to focus on much of anything. It speaks of bad fight choreography or jumped-up film editing.

4. While most of the characters who get much characterization time are well done, Rick Flag [Joel Kinnaman] is not only an annoying character — a bully, a failure as a leader, and a jerk — but he's with us all the freaking time. My dislike of the character tinges practically the whole movie.

5. The villain (and secondary villain) (neither counting Waller) was a mixed bag; early on she was excellent both in effect and appearance, but for most of the movie she's playing a poor man's Imhotep.

6. There are appearances by the previously established DC cinematic heroes. While these are mostly appropriate, they also feel oddly inserted into the proceedings. On the other hand, apparently there was some screwing around with the film at Warner Bros.' behest, to make it less grim, more funny, in the aftermath of the critical drubbing Batman v Superman took.

7. The basic premise of the movie — the creation of a team that could take down a Bad Superman, should one come up — is never fulfilled. The Squad as constituted is nowhere near Superman-level power (a decent Batman could give them a run for their money), and when faced with an extinction-level event, their mission turns out to be annoyingly off-course.

8. For all that I loved Amanda Waller here in some ways, in other ways I had problems with her. She's ruthless, but too often that comes across as pettiness. She has a strong sense of mission, but seems just as interested in saving her own skin. She's willing to sacrifice villains, but commits some wetwork of her own. And the denouement scene was … poorly constructed and out of character.

In the end, SS tries to do too much with too many characters, run through formulaic battles, to be as good as I'd have loved it to be. Guardians of the Galaxy sort of did the same anti-hero shtick, but kept the core group smaller. The Avengers films have had as many people on screen, but benefited hugely by have most of them already established from their own movies, sparing us the need for origin stories for everyone.

I'm disappointed that it didn't live up to its potential (or even its advertised goodness), but the lambasting it's receiving feels more opportunistic than warranted. As a guy who loves the Suicide Squad through multiple incarnations, I'm more than happy to have seen this film.

(For those wanting something better, though, I heartily recommend the animated Batman: Assault on Arkham, which, despite the title, is really a Suicide Squad movie. For that matter I even more recommend the "Task Force X" episode of Justice League Unlimited for a bit more covert version of the Squad.)

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