Thoughts on Suicide Squad (2016)

It finally happened: I actually caved and watched Suicide Squad, and boy oh boy do I have some thoughts on the subject.

It happened towards the end of my little vacation trip; there was a screening of Suicide Squad that evening and I thought to myself “Well I don’t have anything better to do, why not?” The next thing I know, I’m over an hour in to the story and I’m HOOKED!

Yes, despite the flaws (and they were many), I found myself enjoying the story I was being fed, so I’ll start off by listing the positives:

Margot Robbie absolutely KILLED it as Harley Quinn. I could watch her all day long, and I’m eagerly looking forward to the full-length Harley Quinn film.
Will Smith was fantastic as Deadshot, I loved the prologue part where he’s demanding his money over the phone before he’ll do the hit. And based entirely on the scene with Deadshot and his daughter (when Batman arrests him), I want/need to see a full-length Deadshot film, and it must have Will Smith in it.
The visuals are out of this world! This is important for me, as I’m a visual-based person.
I like the look of Enchantress, both her initial look and her secondary look when her brother gives her some of his power so she’s not dependent on her heart.
And then there’s the Joker…I admit, I DID enjoy Jared Leto’s performance, what little of it we got to see anyway. I can’t pass a complete judgement on whether it was good or bad because he’s barely there as a character, but it definitely has the potential to be amazing (and definitely a unique spin on the legendary villain).

Those are the big good points for me, now for the not so good.

Here’s the thing with Suicide Squad: if you don’t THINK about what you’re seeing, it’s a great story. The problem comes when you think about the sequence of events, where these people come from, etc. and then issues start coming out of the woodwork. Everyone who says they should’ve done some standalone films before launching Suicide Squad are absolutely right. In fact, those “prologue” segments for most of the main characters look like they came from 5-6 separate films, and I desperately want to see more, because aside from the bigger characters like Deadshot, Harley Quinn and Killer Croc, I don’t really know who Captain Boomerang or Diablo are.

And then there’s the fact that not all of the characters get a backstory. Slipknot is literally introduced out of nowhere, and we don’t even get to know him before he (spoiler alert) dies in a rather gruesome fashion. And THEN there’s Katana, who is also brought in with ZERO explanation, which stinks because she looks really awesome!!

And speaking of explanations, I feel like they could’ve made a full-length Enchantress movie explaining how she and her brother came to our dimension, ruled the humans, were betrayed, etc. and such a film would’ve been really helpful in establishing her motives in this film. I mean we do get plenty of hints that the pair were worshipped as gods, that they’re very ancient, but in the end they were betrayed and trapped away, and now they want vengeance.

It really was a mistake to put the Joker in this film and NOT have him as the main villain. I know that was the biggest reason (among many others) that this film failed to impress. Because, let’s face it, the previews essentially promised a film where the main villain was the Joker!! And who doesn’t want to see that? Then we actually GET to the film and, even in the extended cut, the Joker has maybe ten minutes of screen time. Talk about a bait and switch!! It should’ve either been Joker as the main villain, or Enchantress as the main villain, but using both was a mistake (though I would’ve been okay if they had done the following: have Harley receive messages from the Joker periodically, but don’t actually show him. THEN, at the very end of the film, have the “Joker breaks Harley out of prison” scene play as normal and show the Joker as a teaser/hook for the inevitable sequel. You know, something to whet the appetite of the audience.

Suicide Squad is definitely not the worst film I’ve ever seen, but it does not meet its full potential either. That being said, it does solidly rank as a good popcorn film with me (that’s why I ran out and bought a DVD copy as soon as I got home from my trip). Hopefully Jared Leto gets to reprise his Joker role in the future so I can form a better opinion of his performance.