It’s not always good to be bad.
So I finished watching Suicide Squad the other night while I was also wrapping Christmas presents, and thus I wasn’t completely wasting my time. I posted some brief reactions to the film on Twitter, and pal Andrew said in response to my negative review:
…And that’s fair enough. I admittedly am not the most critical of film-goers (“Frank Miller’s The Spirit!” everyone shouts at me in unison), and I usually can eke out some value from nearly any movie, even if as a whole I realize it’s kinda lousy. And I realize this may be the kind of out-there crazy talk that none of you will be willing to buy, but sometimes a bad movie can be fun, and you can immerse yourself in it and sympathize with the characters and be invested in the plot even as all the while the more rational part of your brain whispers to you “this ain’t good.”
Suicide Squad ain’t that kind of movie. It’s mostly just bad, with a jumble of characters and scenes and a whole lot of shouting and running around and you don’t really care about any of it. Like Avengers: Age of Ultron, the film depends on the concept of “here are a bunch of comic book characters on the screen together” to do the heavy lifting, without realizing that what was once novelty is now old hat, and you need a little more sauce than that to keep interest up.
Among the annoyances: characters develop some form of camaraderie not really through anything you see in the movie, but mostly because at one point it’s necessary to move the action along. The animated on-screen “bios” for the Squad members is supposed to come across as irreverent and wacky, but simply feel forced and pandering. And the Joker…now, everything I’ve heard prior to seeing the movie seemed to imply that there was a lot less Joker in the film than anyone expected. Frankly, I felt like there was too much Joker in the film…a little of him went a long way, and this much of him went too long.
Not to say there weren’t bits that I could have enjoyed. I thought Will Smith as Deadshot and Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn fit the roles well, and did what they could with what they were given. Jokes fell flat, emotional development fell flat, dialogue just kinda hung out there to dry…the one bit I’ll give ’em is the idea that Deadshot’s daughter is totally aware of what her dad does for a living, and just deals with it. I also liked the creepy visuals of the Enchantress, and at first thought she’d be my favorite character in the movie until the rest of the film dissuaded me from that particular notion by turning her into another Big Glowy Bad Guy for the “heroes” to defeat.
I also liked seeing Ben Affleck’s Batman again, and I even enjoyed the 3 seconds or so of the Flash that we got.
But overall…Suicide Squad didn’t do it for me. I understand there’s an Extended Cut (the Netflix rental I saw is, I think, just the theatrical version), but I don’t know if the extra material provides some of the necessary connective material to flesh out the film, or it’s just more stuff to pile onto the mess that’s already there. There are a lot of pieces present that could be beaten into a good, or at least watchable, film…we’ll see what happens when the sequel shows up.
So my pal has undergone her name change…she’s Tegan O’Neil now, and if you need a reminder, please start with this post to understand where she’s coming from and where she’s going. She could also use a bit of assistance as she completes her transition during the new year…of course she has a Patreon to support her writing, but for a little more immediate help please consider donating to her GoFundMe account. Not that it was a piece of cake before, but this kind of life change will likely be more of a challenge in the years ahead, so if you can support her, or anyone else in your lives going through something similar, I am positive they’ll be grateful for it.
I always hear that the extended version is better (and Netflix usually only sends the regular version) but if I don’t like a movie I don’t feel like the solution is to make it longer.
I felt that the mistake that this film made was taking a bunch of more street-level villains and pitting them against a very vague more magical/fantasy villain. I would have thought a better first threat would have been from the first issues of the Ostrander/McDonnell run: the Jihad. Having them fight terrorists with super powers not only would have been more topical, but been a better showcase for their abilities. I never really felt they really gave enough back story to the Enchantress plot line to really make it a threat we could identify with.