Movie Review: Suicide Squad

Here we are again. Time to see if the RKO the critics almost universally applied to this movie outta nowhere are just and deserving. This was supposed to get watched and reviewed yesterday, but there was some sort of free concert going on in the Aksarben Village and the parking lot, the parking garage, and the parking lot at the Baxter Arena across the street were all full. As a steadfast cinematic warrior, I decided I would buck the notion of going home, and instead find a spot, my sanity be damned. 

After about 20 minutes of driving around and looking and looking and looking and looking, I found a man getting in his car near me, so I positioned my car so he could get out, and when he pulled out we exchanged nods. I prepped to slide into that spot and go enjoy my movie.  As I began my 10 foot journey to the promised land, someone whipped in from the other side and shattered the fragile world I'd momentarily created. What once seemed so hopeful and illuminated all came crashing down in an instant. Not all heroes wear capes, but this villain for damn sure wore a yellow t-shirt. I'm not sure what he and his wife and child were doing in the village that day, but I was positive that I wished them nothing but turmoil and heartache.

I thought...  I really hope whatever they're going to do turns out bad. I hope if they're going to this concert, whatever it may be, that it starts to rain.  I hope on the way home they have car trouble. I hope they get to take a really nice vacation soon to somewhere on or near a beach, and that when they arrive, only they are afflicted by that flesh eating bacteria that's been making the rounds. I almost said something, and then I remembered a few things. 

1. I'm an adult, and adults don't do that, no matter how upsetting it is. 

2. When I yell, I tend to yell run-on sentences and what if he were an English teacher? The last thing       I need is for this morally devoid prick to judge me. (Stealing a parking place is morally wrong,           right?)

3. Sometimes when I get angry my voice can crack like a 7th grader.  That's not something that can         be allowed to happen in public. 

So rather than yelling at some dude in a parking lot in front of his family, I decided to do the next best thing.  I accepted defeat, went home, went all Ip Man on a pillow, and planned to go back the next day. That poor pillow. RIP. 

 

Professional Re-Enactment

Fast forward 24 hours to today.  Way better.  No one in my way. No concerts.  No yellow shirted, soul-less people. I've come to the conclusion after seeing this and Lights Out that either I am completely out of touch with what a 'good' movie is, or most critics are. If you recall, in my opinion, Lights Out was absolutely awful, yet critics have it sitting at 76% positive, where as Suicide Squad is sitting at 26%. To be fair, normal, non-critics have Suicide Squad at at 72% positive, so take that for what it's worth.  Suicide Squad Trailer go!

I thought it was a fun movie.  One of the things people have really chastised the DC Movie Universe for is that it wasn't very fun.  People said Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice was too serious and pretty much lacking humor in every direction, which it did, but I thought it worked.  It had shortcomings too, but I don't think a lack of humor hurt it.  Suicide Squad though had a lot of humor. It was fun, exciting, colorful, and it took time to let us get to know it. 

That was a positive for me.  Clearly Deadshot and Harley Quinn were the focal points, but they took the time to introduce us to characters that many might not have known before. We got a little backstory and understanding of everyone, save one, but no spoilers here. 

While there was a lot of action, there was also a nice amount of sadness and drama.  Even a few genuine 'puppy dog eyes' moments. You're sitting there enjoying a silly, fun comic book movie, and all of the sudden, this happens. Luckily they used just the right amount and didn't overload us, since I didn't pay to see A Fault in Our Stars. 

The acting was pretty decent overall.  Will Smith was a good Deadshot, who you try to find common moral ground with, even though he is a contract killer.  Joel Kinnaman wasn't bad as the straight-as-an-arrow GI archetype. Had to include him since one of my friends would watch anything with him in it.  Jared Leto played his Dark Knight Returns inspired Joker well.  Margot Robbie was OK as Harley Quinn, even if it was a little uneven, but we'll get to that in a bit.  Hell, I could even tolerate Jay Hernandez and Jai Courtney, and combined, they've never been in anything watchable. 

Something that I found a little off-putting was some of the scenes with the Enchantress from a CGI perspective. The movie on a whole looks great. The CGI is tight and looks great, and actually, throughout most of the movie, the Enchantress CGI looks fine, but some of the later scenes really just look like they were rushed and needed some work. One other thing that I thought was a bit of a distraction was the uneven Harley Quinn voice.  At times, she just sounded crazy, which makes sense, as she's nutty, but at other times, she borrowed Arleen Sorkin's iconic voice from Batman: The Animated series. Both were fine, but swapping back and forth just seemed like more of a gotcha moment of lip service to fans and it was just distracting and inconsistent.

All in all, I really enjoyed it. The 3D presentation added a good bit of immersion as well and was worth the extra few dollars. $9 for the ticket and $12 for snacks made for a pretty cheap date, even though it was me I was taking out. At least I'm easy. Since I really don't feel like I am out of touch or off base at all, I can only assume that it's all of those professional critics that are out of touch with what makes a movie great. I'm not sure if they have film critic college, but if so, it sure seems like a waste of money. I'm going to say 4 out of 5 shoe boxes. If you disagree with me, you're probably just wrong.