Suicide Squad? More Like Yeah That Was Enjoyable Squad

Suicide Squad 3.7/5

This movie isn’t bad. It sure kicks the balls off of Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of AIDs. Its the best DC Extended Universe movie we’ve seen yet.

I enjoyed the movie. Your mileage may vary on whether this is a 2.5 or a 4.5 but its not bad. It takes Xmen: Apocalypse behind the shed and sends it the way of Lassie. It slaps Amazing Spiderman 2 like it is owed money.

This movie is well, well better than trash like Independence Day: Resurgence and Legend of Tarzan. Its at least on par with both Thor films.

Lets start with The Good:

• The characters feel like real characters. They also feel like bad guys. Because they’ve done bad stuff and aren’t just good guys who done gone a wrong once.
• I have seen a lot of people be mad that this group of terrible, horrible, not good, very bad people would include men who sexually ogle Harley Quinn in her fishnets and booty shorts, and make passes at other women loosely. As well as crack wise with snips of racism tossed in there. Yeah, I’m stunned a bunch of criminals aren’t morally righteous like a real Superman or Captain America.
• Those scenes are a few of the times that our scumbag criminals feel like scumbag criminals. I actually really liked the scenes where the scumbags felt like scumbags. It made them feel like real characters.
• All your squad members, except one, have backstory and varying levels of arc so they aren’t terrible, boring, flat characters like in Ghostbusters. Every character is good.
• This movie has roughly 8ish or more characters that it needs to establish. It does a damn good job of doing so.
• It takes the world it lives in seriously. I love that. They aren’t like “Derp magic witch wut thats dumb omg its real wtf so cray”. There is no “I’m Ant-Man :(. I know my name is lame.” They’re just like “Yup, that sword steals the spirits of whoever it kills. And yeah thats a 6000+ year old witch. And this guy is basically son of Satan.”
• It plays the stuff straight. Its great universe building. Little stuff is explained so well and there are some cool ass camera shots. Plus little touches here and there (like the Joker’s goons) that are delightful to see.
• I thought Harley Quinn was going to be unbearable and ditzy, but she’s just cooky enough that the zingers and one liners work. It would have been easy for them to go to the Nth degree with “crazy girl” and they didn’t.
• Will Smith is living charisma as Deadshot. I also thought they might one-note him as the cocky, hired gun. But he’s dope.
• I really enjoyed Jared Leto’s Joker being an entirely different Joker than we’ve seen yet. Being the biggest, baddest mob boss is fitting and the character pulls from the more androgynous and expressive/animated comic portrayals.

Now onto The Meh:

• This could have been so much better with an R rating. It didn’t need a ton of F bombs or boobs to make it better, but the violence is strangely glorified and also muted. Letting them go whole hamhock on it would have been delightful in a Kingsman sort of way. When you have R rated villains as your protagonist, let them be R.
• The plot may have been a teeny bit generic, but it serves as a good backdrop to get the characters through the dealio.
• Another blue laser into the sky… but the blue laser did something for once. But still, blue laser into the sky.
• I wasn’t too crazy about parts of the final fight scene. Power usage and strength levels kind of did a Mortal Kombat where powers and who can beat up who got a little muggy. It kind of made bits of the ending a thinky-face emoji.
• I would have liked a Joker scene that I could instantly put into conversation with Mark Hamill and Heath Ledger. You didn’t quite get that but I still really liked it. The Joker was a supporting character in this movie and is treated as such. Its a bit unusual, but it works.
• I generally liked the villain, but a bit less CGI would have helped. There were times that things looked a little awkward or too clean and that takes you out of it.
• The soundtrack was fine and fun, but then it didn’t keep up. Like after having music playing for like the first 60% of the movie in and out, it just goes away at the end. You gotta commit to that or tone it way down at the start.

And finally, The Bad:

• F*ck that post credits scene. That scene did more to establish Bruce Wayne as the go-getter for the Justice League than like the 20 minutes that BvS wasted to do the same thing. So it was good, but like bad too. It was so good it made a part of another movie bad.
• I don’t like Amanda Waller. There is a scene where I just basically quit on the character.
• Mook villains is as mook villains does. They didn’t quite make sense in terms of their abilities and how they fought.
• I understand people’s qualms about pacing and editing. There was some stuff that was a bit disjointed, but it was fine enough all together. I’m really curious as to what David Ayer’s original edit was. It never felt as bad as Fantastic Four, but there were a few times it was a little sandpapery.
• Probably could have done without some characters getting up to like three or four intro scenes. But they spent the money to shoot them so they gotta be in it I guess.
• I hate random slow-mo in fight scenes. I hate how every DC movie needs to have that because Zack Snyder is/was the head honcho of the entire thing. There are a couple shots during the big fight at the end that didn’t need to be slow-mo or had to be held onto as long as they were.

Overall: Its a good comic book movie. Gonna let you in on a secret. I watch all comic book movies once with bros/on a date. Then my mom asks if she would enjoy it. If yes, I get to go again with my mom. If I say no, then we don’t. I’m batting 100% on this so far.

But with this one, I don’t know. I think she may enjoy it, I can see why she wouldn’t and will settle for me explaining the entire thing to her over dinner.

This one is 50-50. A coin toss. I liked it. I don’t know why its reviewing so poorly. I listed a bunch of movies that were well worse above in my opinion.

If you’re one of the people who reads my reviews and is like “ur dumb and wat is wrong wit moviez now and ppl like u r ruining cinema” then hump and stump and go see Star Trek (or some insufferable indie flick about how no one really understands life, man) instead.

I think its good.

Previously:

• Lazer Team
• Blue Mountain State: Rise of Thadland
• Deadpool
• Gods of Egypt
• Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
• Hardcore Henry
• Jungle Book
• Captain America: Civil war
• X-Men: Apocalypse
• Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates
• Ghostbusters
• The Legend of Tarzan
• Warcraft
• Popstar: Never Stop Never Stoppin’
• Star Trek: Beyond
• Jason Bourne

To Come (at some point):

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows
• Batman: The Killing Joke
• Sausage Party (August 12)