Suicide Squad! Actually pretty good! *Spoilers potentially*

Just saw the Suicide Squad and found it to be a pretty enjoyable movie going experience. As a massive batman fan who found the last 45 minutes of BvS to be unwatchable its hard to believe this movie exists in the same universe.

• Fun and cartoony characters that are given their time to shine
• Concise and thoughtful backstories told as much through strong imagery as they are dialog
• Amanda Waller is awesome
• Really strong visual and musical presentation
• NO destruction porn

My only real complaint is the big bad was a little too powerful and I found my suspension of disbelief a bit drawn out imagining how the mundane heroes managed to survive.

Also the inclusion of Adam Beach for 2 minutes just to prove a point seemed kind of weird and uncomfortable. You immediately know whats going to happen to him as soon as he steps off the plane. Poor guy.

3/5

That's nice to hear, I've seen a few trailers and have been interested but not excited. I think I'll watch it in theatres.

I kindly disagree with your opinion and agree with most of the critics assessments. I think the diehard DC fanboys will find a lot to love but for casuals, cinephiles, and newcomers to the DC movieverse it would serve you better to watch the excellent Hunt for the Wilderpeople instead. I will say this is the best non-Nolan, non-Burton, non-Donner directed, and non-animated DC movie but that involves comparing it to stuff like Jonah Hex, Green Lantern, and Batman V. Superman so yeah.

So silly question but what is up with dudes on the internet vehemently defending Suicide Squad and claiming critics have a DC movie bias? Is this one of those Men's Rights/Gamergate things because critics don't like how they depict Harley Quinn so they are bunch of spooky SJWs? Or is this simply a case of just getting way too excited with the idea of Suicide Squad and don't like that critics are essentially saying that movie you waited all year for kinda sucks?

I might of hated Suicide Squad but that's just my opinion and people are free to feel how they want. I like plenty of movies critics hated and the low Rotten Tomatoes score didn't change that.

@bartok: People freaking out over critics is more of a manifestation of the whole Marvel vs. DC thing. They claim that Marvel is buying people off to secure good reviews. I think those people are crazy.

@quarters: My general rule of thumb is to take 15 points off of all Marvel reviews on Rotten Tomatoes to get the true score. Only movie where that doesn't hold up is Guardians of the Galaxy, Spiderman 2, and the first Avengers in my opinion.

Edit:To be clear, I don't think reviewers are being bought off. I think it's just a lot of reviewers for websites are blinded by spectacle and tend to overrate the Marvel movies.

@quarters: While agree, people are in fact crazy there is an argument to be made regarding just how much critics hate these things altering perceived quality. It creates a situation where audiences go in with largely altered expectations. Take Batman v Superman, it wasn't just fanboys but largely general audiences who had a complete different reaction than critics.

While I'm sure were people who thought the movie was the low 20% trash it got reviewed at, most people for better or worse associate that low of a critical score with things that are technically and objectively poorly made. Lazy/bad acting, badly edited (which the theatrical version was) bad camera work etc etc. Audiences went in expecting a different type of "bad", if anything it is just more examples of how the aggregator review system is flawed.

Along with the Marvel/DC rivalry and the fact that the Marvel movies are actually decent, it's basically this. People got super pissed that critics didn't like Warcraft, too.

I think for most, or at least me (diehard DC, but enjoy all comics), its the unfairness in which DC movies are being judged(too dark/comparing it to Marvel, etc.) There seems to be a outpouring backlash against the films, whether the majority seems to think they are good or bad is irrelevant. Marvel has really bad movies too and it doesn't get the outpour of hate "this is trash, don't go see it" that DC movies have had so far. It seems people on both sides or going out of their way to defend/support the movies. Marvels bad movies are kinda pushed to the side as "eh, maybe next time".

I think people misunderstand the Rotten Tomatoes rating system. 20% doesn't mean that the average score for the movie is 20/100 it just means that 80% of critics didn't like it according to whatever algorithm RT uses to determine if a review is positive or negative

I feel like even the worst Marvel movies are merely mediocre and forgettable. They're still decently assembled blockbusters, they just fall flat. BvS was fundamentally broken in a way nothing Marvel Studios has put out has been. It's not that they're "too dark" it's that they feel like a room full of producers wrote down as many "successful movies ideas" on a whiteboard as they could, and forced them all in.

@atastyslurpee: Because Marvel actually makes good movies too. And I haven't seen all of them, but it seems like the bad ones are still at least competent.

If that tells you anything I completely agree with this assessment of BvS and still thought Suicide Squad was worst.

Suicide Squad, on the other hand, is not competent. It's a disjointed mess with a bunch of paper thin characters you won't care about making nonsensical decisions to drive a terrible plot. Early on, they throw so much character exposition at you so fast without giving you any reason to give a shit. Why should I care about this blend army man, his possessed love interest and his japanese swordsman bodyguard?

The movie spends a couple of minutes introducing these major characters with voiceover exposition and asks you to care. I didn't. At all.

They introduce 6000 year old witchs and soul eating swords as mundane and unsurprising it completly shattered my suspention of disbelief.

I basically disagree with the OP on every point. The characters don't have arcs, they are plot pushing robots. Their backstories are rushed and nonsensical. The visual presentation is blend and uninspired. This is a bad movie.

@pyrodactyl: I'm not surprised. Ever since I read about the reshoots to make it funnier, I figured this could end up being another mess by committee.

I didn't mean to derail the Suicide Squad talk into Marvel vs. DC so I apologize. I am going to say some positive stuff about DC and this is coming from a diehard Marvel nerd. DC is really late to the game when it comes to the whole movie universe thing and maybe deserve some leeway. While I didn't like Suicide Squad I did think it was a step in the right direction and makes me look forward to Wonder Woman and Justice League. I love Ben Affleck as Batman and can't wait to see a solo Batman movie. Jared Leto might be a huge douche and I hate the tattooed Joker design but he was surprisingly good for how little he was in the movie.

Not counting the Netflix Marvel shows, DC have found this great blend of cheesy drama and action that makes their TV shows like Arrow, Flash, and Supergirl so much more enjoyable than Agents of SHIELD and Peggy Carter. Also when it comes to animation DC is still superior to Marvel. Though I do think with Disney behind Marvel, the success of Big Hero 6, and an animated Spider-Man movie in the works that DC needs to step up their game.

@teaoverlord said:

Warcraft was surprisingly decent. Not great, but decent. I got dragged to it expected absolute crap, and I walked away glad that I didn't completely waste my time. I think the discrepancy between what the critics rated it (22% on RT is very low) and how it actually was may have fueled the flames on that one. I think critics wanted something more serious like Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. It was not that.

But, yeah, from what I'm heaving even audiences are disliking Suicide Squad. I don't think there is a critic / viewer discrepancy this time.

Depending on how the overall consensus for this movie ends up shaking out, I could see myself watching it as a "I need to know how bad this is for myself" sort of thing.

@junkerman:

im glad the op liked it.

as a DC fanboy myself, I still can't believe how inept all the DC films have been.

DC has done really well with the animated films, games and, for the most part, the TV shows (Gotham is so-so).

Why have their films been such a let down? This film pales in comparison to the animated Suicide Squad film that came out recently. I have a feeling i'll be saying the same thing when Wonder Woman comes out.

I want nothing more than to have an awesome DC film universe.

Its just so weird that with all the awesome stories out there, why can't they get something right?

as for the op's points: (this is just my opinion and I am not stating this as fact)

• Fun and empathetic characters that are given their own time to shine
  • the movie was only fun for me when it was dealing with the characters, and even then it was handled in a rushed "tell don't show"-fashion. For instance, How many times are the characters going to call Harley crazy? As soon as they get into the city, it becomes pretty boring and repetitive. If the filmmakers were going for "empathetic" with their characters, they screwed up in my opinion. it simultaneously wasn't needed and what was on the screen wasn't done properly. This is sort of a weird distinction but hear me out, I don't want the suicide squad to be empathetic or relatable, I want them to be sinister, funny and interesting.
• Concise and thoughtful backstories told as much through strong imagery as they are dialog
  • I simply don't agree with this. there are only 3 real backstories that are told, Harley, Deadshot and Enchantress. I love Harley as a character and I love the Joker. Margot Robbie did a good job but was weirdly underused. I think a lot of the writing she was given was just not that funny unfortunately. Ive always felt like she's supposed to be Betty Boop, crossed with Juliette Lewis from Natural Born Killers mixed with Bugs Bunny. However, in this case, she fell kind of by the ways side and her backstory shouldn't have come into the film. Now that she exists in this universe, she is a very important part of it. It should have been left for her own film. Jared Leto came off as way more needy as The Joker than evil and scary. I know this can be apart of his character but its just an odd choice to introduce this version of The Joker with that foot forward. Deadshot was good but could have been way better. I really like Will Smith, so its tough for me not to like Deadshot. He was essentially just Will Smith wearing a Deadshot costume.
• Amanda Waller is awesome
  • Yeah, I guess.
• Really strong visual and musical presentation
  • I don't know why everyone went nuts for David Ayer in pre-production for this film. I don't particularly find him a striking director or writer. He's fine, I guess. The musical presentation was good but kind of cringey and on-the-nose.
• NO destruction porn
  • I can't speak to this. I actually like it when shit blows up in films.

Someone tell me why Captain Boomerang was there? I mean I know why. He was there just to get a Flash cameo in. But why was he there on the team. What did he do besides FUCK ALL.

It was somehow more inept than Batman v Superman which at least had that one cool part where Batman's fucking up dudes in the warehouse building. This? After we get the backgrounds for Deadshot and Harley (aka the two actors people give a shit about) we get pretty much fuckall for the rest with Diablo getting his at the end because it's the hackiest way to go about it. There was no reason to care about any of these characters except maybe Deadshot and only if you buy into his sob story. Which I didn't because it was cheap, ineffective, and done poorly. We're simply told that June and Flagg love each other but that doesn't come across on screen. We're not really shown why Harleen falls in love with Joker, it just gets sort of glossed over. None of these characters have any arc and the stakes are so low that when things happen why are we supposed to care? About ANY of it? I cared more about Ike Barinholtz's character at the casino than I did any of the main crew.

Amanda Waller was the only standout part because Viola Davis spun gold from glares. She was thoroughly great the whole way through.

If they filmmakers spent more time on the characters and plot and less on making sure their budget could allow for catchy, thematically inappropriate licensed music then maybe it would have been a better movie all around. It starts off well but by the time the squad is assembled it already feels forced and boring. Joker comes off as a drunken nu-metal fan that wandered onto the set rather than some manic intimidating presence. DC is trying but god damn are they missing the mark.

Seriously, someone explain why Captain Boomerang was even there and don't say 'comic relief' because that was Harley's main thing.

Movie was really bad. Squad themselves were good when it focused on their dynamic.

The story, pacing, editing, and script were awful though. What a bad movie. This DC universe is terrible so far

I only enjoyed Margot Robbie, the soundtrack, and when Deadshot was shooting shit real good from the top of that car. Even Leto's Joker was a let-down because he was barely in it (I read that they cut a ton of his scenes). It's really too bad since I was really looking forward to this movie.

It's not without a couple of moments but overall meh, I was definitely underwhelmed after how much marketing/hype was built up around it on the internets before it even released, the trailers basically had shown most of the good bits. Most of the characters sob stories were hackneyed and it was like the movie was trying to justify it's own plot and progression half the time and couldn't even get that into shape. The government lady was pretty baller tho.

Then again I am of a pretty low opinion on all but a couple Marvel movies too.

Marvel movies spend a good amount of time letting characters interact with people. It's humanizing, and often funny. Most of the time, DC doesn't do that. Conversations are about the plot, and when they aren't, they are extremely ham-fisted illustrations of whatever is the theme of the movie or motive for the character. Superman doesn't just have breakfast with his family, he has a heart-to-heart about what being a hero is. Batman doesn't just riff about work at Wayne Enterprises with Alfred, he has a heart-to-heart about what being a hero is. Every time. These conversations have a place in these stories, but they can't be the majority of civilian interaction, or there's no heart, just a story.

The Nolan movies are an exception to this rule because of their execution and (relative) subtlety. The Joker's conversations and personal interactions are absolutely iconic at this point, but they were rarely more than illustrations of a theme or the character's motives. They were just really, really well done. Other DC movies are clearly looking to their success and saying "let's stick with that" without understanding what made those movies good was more than seriousness and gray hues. Even The Dark Knight Rises falters because it falls into this trap. In many ways, it would be better for the DC universe if the Nolan movies didn't exist. They'd probably have some fun for a change.

I'll see it when it hits HBO but just like every other single comic book movie, it's over-rated, over-hyped but all-in-all relatively enjoyable for what it is.

Deadpool I just didn't get. It became what it was making fun of.

Seems like most people dont like it. I feel like dc was in way to big of a rush and jumbling all these characters together with no outside backstory is kinda insane. Batman v superman? Why didnt the new batman get a movie first? Nolans arc ended and had nothing to do with it so instead of focusing on plot they had to waste time introducing all the characters including batman, but even in 3 hours there wasnt enough time. I had to tell my dad the lady was wonder woman lol. A batman flick could have established the characters in this suicide squad movie too. So unless your read comics or watch arrow and flash they have to introduce all these characters at the same time while trying to tell a story? Honestly i enjoy the dc tv universe and would probably have rather them either stuck with that or used the same cast. Marvel built these characters up before doing any avengers, thats where dc really fucked up imo. Although as far as batman v superman a better director maybe could have pulled it off but even then its an uphill battle.

Anyway i will check this movie out after its on dvd or something.

So wait, the main antagonist is another world-threatening monster? Goddamit I really hoped they would have just stuck to something like Assault on Arkham.

Feels like a movie that should be in the 40s or 50s (often the sign of a decent film) and not in the 20s (usually dreadful). The Rotten Tomatoes scale generally works like this - 90%+ = Good 75-90% Solid, often better than 90%+, 60-75% = Garbage, 40-60% = Mixed Reviews and therefore at least interesting, 0-40% = worse than garbage, with some amount of flexibility.

Some of my favorite films in the past several years are Snowpiercer, Edge of Tomorrow, Mad Max, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, and Inception; the first three fall in the 90% category and the latter two in the 75-90% group, and Bad Lieutenant is definitely better than all of those films other than Mad Max. Bad Lieutenant is the rare case of a film not being well received on IMDB (6.7) but being well received by critics, so an odd flip of the RT scale.

It's important to remember what a score on Rottentomatoes means, what separates it from Metacritic. Metacritic uses a (mostly arbitrary) "score" from each critic and then combines them into one giant (and even more arbitrary) "overall score". Rottentomatoes uses a binary "like it or leave it" from every critic involved and then comes up with a percentage of featured critics that picked "like it".

Metacritic is barely information and Rottentomatoes is a semi-useful "roughly how many critics liked it" cheat sheet.

I have to wonder if people know how RT works as it's a little confusing compared to the likes of IMDB or Metacritic which just averages scores. RT on the other hand scores are based on a positive or negative with a threshold of 60% so a film can be pretty average but still get 100% on RT. For example if a film comes out and gets let's say 100 3/5 scores, that will appear as a 100% despite being only so so which is why you also see a lot of backlash against RT when you see a film that has super high scores and you're only watching an ok movie. I've certainly seen films that reviewed incredibly well on RT only to be taken aback by how unamazing it was.

I was kind of interested in seeing SS but we come back to 2 sides that's very similar to Ghostbusters being either great or terrible depending on who you spoke to but very few people actually came out and were just like, it's merely ok. It has some good parts and some not so good parts and that's the same vibe I'm getting with SS but instead of being all about sexism and feminism and what have you, it's now about how critics don't know what they're talking about, Marvel are paying people off or fans will literally take anything because they're so desperate for something good after Superman 2: This time with Batman and other super hero cameos. I think it's time to turn the internet off. We're clearly not mature enough to have this much power.

Came here to say exactly something along these lines. I really, really, don't want to do a Marvel vs DC thing but I've noticed how usually most Marvel movies aren't as good as reviewers say, just like the DC movies haven't been as bad as reviewers say as well. In the end I think both studios are just doing really average movies but with different styles. None of them are awful and none of them are amazing.

To me, Winter Soldier might be the only one that isn't average from everything both studios did so far (without counting Nolan's movies, of course).

But here's the thing, I always hated DC's comics growing up (besides Batman). I grew up with Marvel comics, cartoons and toys. Loved most Marvel super heroes but the movies aren't really doing it for me, I think they're extremely average, repetitive and lack any kind of impact. Their super heroes are way too "super", even more than they were in the comics. Meanwhile, I can at least appreciate and be curious about what DC is trying to do. They might not be doing it well, they have a bunch of flaws, but they're trying to do different things for sure, maybe that's why it weirds people out so much. I have to agree with what @atastyslurpee said:

Anyway, back to the original topic. It's nice to see that maybe Suicide Squad isn't that bad. I'll wait to watch it once it comes out on some streaming service, just like I did with the rest of the comic book movies so far. I liked Man Of Steel and thought BvS was average, with a lot of problems, but had potential, so maybe I'll enjoy Suicide Squad. In the end, I don't even like comic-book movies that much, I just watch them out of curiosity as a fan of cinema.

Not even. The main antagonist is glowing blue bullshit that the main characters are in no way equipped to deal with but for some reason pull it off because who the fuck wants tension or creativity in your dumb action movie.

The thing with Marvel movies is that they are more competently made and have given the characters room to grow and interact and be actual, you know, characters. DC doesn't do that because they're so focused on playing catch up that they're just skipping and shoving things in to play the set up game. Marvel played the long con and only now is it showing the results of those early steps. Civil War's big climax at the airport couldn't have happened without the groundwork for all the characters involved. Batman v Superman felt entirely unearned because it all felt absolutely forced and did a disservice to the characters involved. Marvel is not some perfect machine, most of their movies are pretty by the numbers, but they have an idea and a narrative through-line running in the background that, even when a movie is focusing on an individual character, it feels connected organically. There hasn't been a great Marvel movie, but they are hands down better at what they do than DC is currently, which is INSANE because DC should've had every advantage with two of the most well known figures in pop culture right there in the title.

The Marvel movies respect their characters enough to let them be characters, people, relate able for the viewer. DC doesn't and doesn't seem to know what to do with their characters only that "Well the whole Avengers thing worked out super well, can we just do that?" and they're taking every shortcut possible, including making movies that are badly paced, scripted, acted, and shot because who cares it's got Batman and Superman in it and the kids love Batman and Superman even when all they do s spout platitudes and be dour all the time. Marvel movies might not be great, but dammit they're fun and often varied enough to be worth a watch. Ant-Man is a damn heist movie, Guardians of the Galaxy is a space farce, and Doctor Strange looks to be surreal as all hell.

DC is so focused on getting their own piece of the comic book pie that they don't care about making competent movies to do it. Marvel is getting into the weird territory while DC is still struggling to make fucking Batman work.

I thought it was great. Performances were fun, the characters were defined enough for me and got me invested in the outcome, a good amount of humor, visually pleasing, the action was exciting. I'd welcome a sequel. I don't over analyze this stuff. This isn't meant to be serious business.

Well it should be #1 at the top of the box office this weekend when all is said and done.

@donchipotle: I disagree with various things there but I'm just going to highlight some.

Marvel indeed gives their characters room to grow (I mean, they have to, most of their characters had their own movies) but, actually almost none of their characters feel human besides Iron-Man on most movies and Hawkeye on Avengers 2. There's not a single time on a Marvel movie where I feel like I have to worry about a hero. They all feel like quipping machines who don't have to worry about anything, they never feel relatable but more like super-hero clichés who can do everything. Which is a shame because, on the comics, Marvel usually does a really good job of showing histories about the human side of the heroes.

I strongly disagree when you say that the DC movies are poorly shot because cinematography is probably the best trait DC Movies have going for them so far. They (mostly Snyder) have found a good way to mix the visual style of a comic book with the visuals necessary to work on cinema. It only misses a bit more of establishing shots, but there's a style and visual signature there. It's a different thing, not usual. And most importantly, they know how to embrace the CGI. The CGI doesn't feel so out of place because everything is so stylized. Meanwhile, I always feel like the CGI on MCU (and modern Disney movies in general) feel really out of place and way more noticeable because most of the time they're going for a more bland blockbuster-y cinematography that should use much more practical elements (the Russo brothers do a better job at it though). As for the acting, I feel like both Marvel and DC are on the same level. They both had good and bad actors.

I also disagree that even the bad Marvel movies are better than DC's. I feel like both sides are equally average with the bad ones from both sides being actually bad and not better than anything on the other side.

And, to finish, about Ant-Man. Sure, it was like a heist movie, but a really AWFUL heist movie with cinematography and directing on the same level of a tv show from the SyFy channel and a storyline almost copy-pasted from Iron-Man. For sure the worst Marvel movie and even one of the worst super hero movies from the current Cinematic Universes (Marvel, DC and Fox). For example, Winter Soldier was almost a spy movie and did a great job at tackling that style - it's pretty much one of the few super hero movies that I would actually say it's good and not just average like the rest of the stuff every studio is doing.

I think it's great they put in some tease for the Justice League movie, despite batting 0 for 3. None of them have had any wit or charm, and based on the trailer for Wonder Woman it doesn't look like that will be coming anytime soon. They've gotta turn this shit around if they expect their cinematic universe to take off.

The Enchantress is like an extreme version of Tharja from Fire Emblem - and now I want a Fire Emblem film.

I thought it was lot of fun albeit with a dumb plot. Margot Robbie and Will Smith stole the show.

Wanted to love this film so much. I actually enjoyed BvS a lot but I accept that it's due to me being a big DC fan. The breakneck speed that these movies go with the constant hard cuts is so frustrating though, I don't feel like it's even Snyder or Ayer's fault. It's these execs just obsessed with tone and perception that are actually ruining them. Not saying that they'd be the perfect versions if they weren't messed with but they would surely be better. Wonder Woman looks promising but they better just leave it alone this time.

As someone who didn't hold any particular love for Superman or BvS, I actually enjoyed it. I didn't mind the simple minded plot because The Enchantress, Deadshot, Harley, and Joker were just fun to watch. I couldn't help but smile at that final combat scene where she's warping around kicking the shit out of them. (Even though she could have killed them just as easily at that point but whatever.)

I think that complaining that the protagonists aren't equipped to deal with the villain is pretty silly. How often are the heroes of a story actually equipped to fight the big bad? Underdogs somehow pulling off the impossible is pretty common. Not to mention nearly all of these villains aren't even equipped to take down a billionaire in a bat suit. If the big bad was something that they were technically equipped to take down then they'd walk in, shoot the person, and walk out in the most anti-climatic way possible. At that point the whole movie would fall apart because why would you need a squad of villains to do something any soldier could do. I'll agree though she easily could have just stabbed them all out of nowhere or sent a giant lightning laser beam thing through the building. Would have been nice if they had at least had a reason why she didn't other than maybe wanting to convert them.

I don't go into movies to hyper-analyze and critique but rather to just have fun, and the movie kept my attention and surprisingly I did find myself enjoying it. Admittedly DC villains are also some of my favorite things about the DC universe, so the movie already had a slight advantage on winning me over anyway. Dumb and certainly not perfect, but not a tragic mess where fun goes to die like some people make it sound.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought this. My mind instantly jumped to thinking of her as a crazy(er) Tharja.

I enjoyed it for the most part. I felt they leaned a little to heavy with the licensed soundtrack. Especially in the early bits. I like the songs, but having them so close together kinds of ruin the impact of them. I loved Harley and Will Smith. Thought they were great. Wish the Joker had more to do. A lot of this just makes me want a solo Batman film. Didn't really get the whole two-tones thing critics are talking about.

I vehemently disagree.... Harley Quinn felt WAY too forced. Much better as a side character rather than in your face for the entire film.

The backstories were rushed and thrown together for everyone except Harley and maybe Deadshot.

The musical presentation also felt forced.... you can't just throw good music on a scene and claim you're going for some bigger message. Guardians of the Galaxy this isn't....

The movie also treated the audience like children; anything big happening on the screen had to be explained. Satellite destroyed? Better have some random government character tell someone else that it was very important. Destroying the one thing you've been trying to destroy for the last thirty minutes? Better tell someone who already knows about it how significant it was!

I don't know why people are surprised these movies have been terrible. Warner put Zack Snyder in charge of the entire D.C. Universe. That should tell you right away that thy don't know what they're doing.

I never thought Suicide Squad looked good. Since the Nolan Batman movies I think DC has done an absolutely horrendous job. Its like they're trying to combine the tone of the Dark Knight movies with the action from Marvel movies but they just don't understand what made those movies fun and enjoyable. Instead of putting together a cohesive universe and stories they're trying to force iconic moment after moment in their films and it just falls flat.

If it wasn't for Fire Guy then they would've had their shit kicked in from the jump, and even with CGI Disaster Brother out of the question there's really no reason that this supposed amazing magical being would get into a fist fight with people. Deadshot literally says he could've killed Batman were it not for his daughter. It makes less sense that these characters would be the one to stop Enchantress when, by this movie's own logic, Batman, Wonder Woman, and The Flash are all around, active, and in costume. This thing's been happening for three days and Batman's too busy to bother even though Joker has shot up one of his companies and is on the scene? It's the same problem Marvel movies have where the Avengers just don't get involved in personal movies. It's not a matter of just 'being unequipped to take on the villain' it's 'the villain had to be written poorly and dumbed down in order to facilitate a heroic victory'. Underdogs winning hits harder when the underdog uses their unique talents to bring down someone more equipped and better. It happened in Batman v Superman where the underdog had to use cleverer tactics and traps to stay on the attack. It's why Age of Ultron's climax was so utterly boring - everyone was just mowing down the Ultrons that who even cared. Suicide Squad wasn't an underdog story. The first encounter with the Putty Troopers has Waller saying "You can't kill them" and to not engage but then they do engage them and just shoot them dead like it's no problem. That makes for a boring action scene. And that's every single action scene in the movie.

You ask why you would need a squad of villains to do something a soldier could do and I ask why did they need all those villains at all? The only one they might have possibly needed was Diablo because otherwise they'd never get past Brother, but even then any soldier could just run distraction which is all Diablo amounted to anyway. Boomerang did fuckall, Deadshot was just Shoot Man along with Flagg, Harley was there to cringe up the joint with bad one liners, Katana just showed up for reasons, Croc was barely a thing. Every fight scene boiled down to the soldiers shooting their guns and then a shot of the villains hitting them with a bat or something. The soldiers did the legwork and the actual squad seemed generally useless until they had to fight a powerful alien magical girl who decided to forget she had powers in order to facilitate a badly shot, badly lit fight scene.

Should probably edit title from Potential spoilers to spoilers, nobody is even using tags.

I liked it, I thought it'd be much better, but I liked it.

The plot wasn't all that bad, in fact I'm not sure what people were expecting. The trailers were pretty clear on how things were going to go down. There are a group of misfits (criminals), they are blackmailed into doing the governments dirty work. Though I'm pretty tired with DC trying to expect me to completely turn off my sense of realism. I understand that this is a fictional characters in a world of superheroes, problem is, the opponents are usually so overwhelmingly powerful that when the Suicide goes up against them it's hard to me to believe that they wouldn't be slaughtered like cattle in a heart beat. Marvel goes against logic too, but not to such a degree that makes it impossible for me to believe that the protagonists stand no chance.

Anyways, Suicide Squad is very character driven, which I did enjoy it very much, though obviously some characters (actors with bigger name) take the spotlight.

Will Smith was great as deadshot, very funny and sympathetic, I think I may have even enjoyed him the most out of all the cast. Margot Robbie was great as Harley, but for fucks sake, how many times is the movie going to tell me how CRAZY!!!! she is? Show (more at least), don't tell.

Captain Boomerang was hilarious, which is pretty impressive, given that being the comedy relief in a movie about wacky characters isn't too easy.

I wish they'd trim some of the scenes with the big names though, yeah, they payed a lot for them, but hogging the screen does not a good movie make. Katana was incredibly rushed and one-dimensional, and so was Killer Croc. I'm especially upset about the latter, since I really liked Croc in this movie, seems very reminiscent of the thug/gangster Croc from Brian Azzarello's The Joker.

El Diablo was good until he started getting hammy and sappy, exclaiming that the suicide squad is his second family. In fact the dialogue ranged from hilariously witty to boring sappy cringeworthy drama.

I like enchantress, more so in her more demonic form as opposed to when she became the "aztec empress." Though she was the wrong choice to be the main antagonist of the movie.

The best character by far, and the most accurate to the comics was Viola Davis as Amanada Waller. She was fantastic, menacing, and held quite a presence among other almost superhuman serial killers.

As for Jared Letos Joker....I'm not sure how I feel about him. I'm not sure why he wasn't the main antagonist for the movie? It's clear the only purpose of him being in the suicide squad was to flesh out Harley's origin, which is fine since there's not Harley with out her Puddin'. However, I have mixed feelings about Leto, I loved him in certain scenes, but was completely off put by others.

I do like the fact that him and Quinn have more of a romantic relationship. It's a smart move too, since the current american PC world isn't ready for the kind of abuse Joker deals out to harley in the source material. Plus it's executed perfectly, and the whole mad love aspects of the movie were probably the best one.

Though it's clear WB is just testing the waters with Leto's joker, they want to see how people react to the performance, which explains why he isn't pitted against the suicide squad, which would have made more sense and would have led to a much more interesting storyline.

All in all, it's a fun, entertaining movie.

Apparently, he was at one point pitted against them. They shot that (and a whole bunch of other Joker stuff from what Leto has said) but it sounds like his role was trimmed down a lot. I actually thought he was in the movie the perfect amount for a character that is basically around just to be Harley's love interest. I like the idea of having the Big Bad be a sort of perfunctory character off to the side just to flesh out a character that audiences aren't super familiar with yet.

The critic and aspiring film-maker in me thought this film was a mess. The DC nerd in me loved it to bits for getting so much about these characters right. I like Leto's Joker because, fuck it, as long as you don't betray the character I'm always up to see a new take on anyone.

Not as great as I would have liked but nowhere near the flaming dumpster fire that Bats v Supes was.

This is sacrilege to many I'm sure, but I think I liked Batman Vs Superman more..

There were a few good scenes but I feel like for every good joke, every good action scene or every good moment in general there were like ten pretty bad ones and it started to add up by the end of the movie.

Also man the editing in this.. the whole thing goes from 0 to like 10000 miles per hour in a heartbeat.

It's also super weird how I thought this movie was the suicide squad versus the joker and it turned out to be something far less interesting. The whole thing about "what if Superman was a bad guy" - well you sure as hell wouldn't send Deadshot to fight a bad version of Superman, or Killer Croc, or Harley Quinn or pretty much any of them apart from El Diablo. These are all low rent crooks being pitted against extremely powerful superhuman entities; it just makes no sense. Yah suspension of disbelief and all that but there are reasonable limits to how far you take that stuff before you start over analyzing whats happening on the screen instead of just going with the flow.

It really doesn't help that no one really knows these DC characters and this movie doesn't really do a great job of making you care either.

Great soundtrack though.

EDIT: Oh and I was hoping to be swayed by Leto's performance as the Joker but I just wasn't. I feel like he was trying a little too hard to be both the cartoon version and some new dark version at the same time. Didn't think Harley Quinn was all that good either but at least she did have a few pretty good moments. Honestly thats what Suicide Squad was to me: a few pretty good moments in an otherwise really forgettable super-hero movie. I'm not a huge fan of the Marvel flicks. I thought both Avengers movies were really boring special effect extravaganzas, but in their teen oriented simplicity they're pretty digestible summer action flicks. All the DC movies so far seem like a bunch of disperse ideas cobbled together to form something resembling a movie. BvS probably did the best job thus far of establishing a solid beginning, middle and end.

I'm going to see this on Monday. I've read a lot of reviews and I also have read spoilers so I know what happens even though it's super by the book on plot and I could have predicted the story. I'll come back then with my thoughts.

It's a very average super hero movie that doesn't utilize all of it's characters as well as it should, hearing about all of the reshoots the film had in response to BvS's performance it's hard not to think that all of the additional meddling messed with the final product, I would've rather seen the "grimmer" edit than this half jokey version we got.

But the movies does have some good scenes and I enjoyed most of the characters when they had some time to actually be characters.

That Flash costume looked rally bad though, I prefer the CW one if I had to choose between the two.

I don't think the harley quinn / joker dynamic was done well at all, both were kind of middling. Man.... wasn't a fan of the joker laugh at all. I thought the empathetic antagonist angle was weak, except for Will Smith who fucking killed it (best part of the movie). Most of the secondary tag along characters felt pretty shallow.

Also, a navy SEAL cant hit a fucking taget at 20 feet, yet Harley Quinn is an expert marksman and an Australian jewel thief can out fight a whole squad? It's a directional choice, but just dont call them SEALS. Its ridiculous.

But overall I thought it was pretty fun and actually enjoyed it in the end.

3/5