Director: David Ayer
Cast: Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis
Country: United States
Rating: PG-13
Run Time: 127 min
However, the studio kicked their universe expansion into high gear this year with the release of two massive event films, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (BvS) and Suicide Squad. While BvS made some money, it was a critically lambasted attempt at trying to copy Marvel's formula all within one film instead of building strong character relationships over multiple films. It was also an extraordinarily incoherent, overcrowded, and inexcusable comic book adaptation that squandered two of media's greatest heroes in a disappointing showdown, but that's besides the point. After DC put all of their eggs into one basket with BvS, and than instantly regretted it, the story changed: Suicide Squad was now the real start to the DC universe. Unlike the dour and remorse BvS, Suicide Squad was touted as a fun, energetic, humorous, and action packed thrill ride in comparison to that "oh so serious" tale of vigilantism. Now that it has finally come out, and the hype train has died once and for all, I can confirm that Suicide Squad is an improvement over BvS, but not by much. Director David Ayer's ensemble anti-hero picture may be an infectious and manic celebration of inanity and the psychopathic, but it's also an inept, overstuffed, and woefully paced summer blockbuster that ends the summer mostly on a whimper, and proves my strong willed opinion that the Summer of 2016 will go down as one of the worst summers in blockbuster history.
After two unnecessary introductions to both Harley Quinn and Deadshot, the film kicks into exposition gear as the rest of the Suicide Squad is laid out by Amanda Waller. Waller, a representative of the United States government, has assembled a team of criminals, evil-doers, and villains to accomplish tasks that few others would attempt. If the team survives and succeeds their mission, than they will receive time off of their prison sentences. If not, than they die. It's as simple as that. Unfortunately, Ayer over complicates matters with a plethora of characters and moving parts that turns a simple Dirty Dozen-esque action film into a poorly structured and plot focused mess that thankfully makes up for its mistakes in great strides, ultimately proving the film to be a missed opportunity, but a worthwhile one nonetheless.
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| The gang's all here, for disappointment. |
The most obvious flaw of the picture is its inept structure, editing, and plotting, mostly due to the controversial reshoots that occurred earlier this year in the wake of BvS's critical lambasting. The first thirty minutes of the film are dreadfully weak, as Ayer forces the viewers through an exposition dump in which we are told everything that we need to know about a group of characters through narration and flashbacks instead of being naturally presented with the characters. After this painfully swift first act, the film finally moves into its groove as the main plot takes over and the group assembles in order to go after a supernatural villain who also does the movie no favors. This portion of the film is the strongest, but it's still a shame that Ayer has to keep the focus on the plight at hand instead of on the truly strong characters and their relationships and backstories. Whenever the squad went up against an army of avacado looking monsters, I mostly tuned out. However, whenever a flashback was offered up that explained a key component of a character's...well, character, I felt glued to the screen and simply wanted to soak in the conflict. There are some great characters and performances at work here, as well as a simple plot line somewhere amidst the desperate universe building moments (i.e. the Joker's unnecessary appearance throughout the film, Batman and The Flash's embarrassing cameos), but unfortunately, Ayer allows his men on a mission picture to crumble underneath a veil of incoherency and weak pacing.
Ayer is worth discussing, as he has always been one of cinema's more underrated, or at least rarely discussed filmmakers and artists, as his works typically don't aim to be more than character driven B-pictures. Before tackling big budget films like 2014's Fury and now Suicide Squad, Ayer mostly focused his work on small scaled, gritty, and urban cop and gangster pictures, such as The Fast and the Furious, Training Day, S.W.A.T., Harsh Times, Street Kings, End of Watch, and Sabotage. While his career is far from illustrious, although still highly admirable, Ayer has always been a reliable source of character driven and gun centric entertainment, whether he only penned a film's script or directed it as well. While Ayer does a fine job jumping from small to mega budget, it's a shame that his latest suffers from clashing tones, as well as obvious studio meddling. For example, the David Ayer-ness of the film, the street level story, gun centric action, and character driven nature, is the strongest. Unfortunately, this clashes with the more generic mainstream elements of the picture, such as the focus on plot and the bland special effects fueled villain. Whenever the Squad picks up a gun and goes head to head with a human or human sized opponent, it's solid stuff. But when the mystical villain of the picture takes center stage, I could not have cared less. In short, characters with guns, swords, hammers, and boomerangs should be the last people taking on ultra powerful supernatural beings, as it produces a mish mash of tones that don't blend well into one cohesive or distinguishable genre.
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| "Do you like my grills?" |
Although I've mostly bashed on this film, and I still have more to criticize, I have a confession to make. Even though everything about this movie tells me that I should dislike it, there are elements of it that I unabashedly love, which thereby makes the whole movie that much more of a frustrating and missed opportunity. There are flat out excellent performances, engaging character relationships, and entrancing scenes within this overcrowded mess that reminded me why comic books are such great sources for character driven storytelling. After all, people turn out for comic books because of the characters who headline them, not the plot that they advertise.
Will Smith gives an excellent performance as Deadshot, an assassin who does what he does for his family and acts as the moral center of the film (this is a compliment you will read in just about every review of the film). It's nice to see Smith, who used to headline all kinds of blockbuster, simply act as a supporting player within a blockbuster, and honestly earn my respect and admiration more than ever before. Margot Robbie is probably the biggest and most popular takeaway from the film, especially for fans of the Batman character, Harley Quinn. It's a shame that her scenes and relationship with Jared Leto's The Joker aren't given more focus and attention, as they tend to be some of the film's strongest character moments. Jay Hernandez, whom is mostly recognizable from the Hostel movies, is nearly unrecognizable as Diablo, a tatted up ghetto Latino who generates immense pathos throughout the film and honestly steals the entire show out from everyone else. And Viola Davis, whose character is fairly cruel and to blame for the entire plight of the film, is strong and fierce as always. Just about every other character and performance is sidelined or fairly weak, and there is just so much real estate within a two hour film for ten or so characters to occupy. Don't even get me started on Slipknot.
Earlier I mentioned how studio meddling overly complicated the film and honestly ruined whatever vision Ayer had been building. The main reason for this studio meddling was due to the critical and commercial backlash that BvS received after its release. While the problem with the film was not that it was overly serious, as Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy was already tonally serious and extremely successful at the same time, Warner Bros. seemed to give in to peer pressure and try to make their latest film slightly more fun and energetic a-la the Marvel Studios brand, most notably Guardians of the Galaxy. Instead of crafting a film from the ground up, the studio went for what was popular and rejiggered their own film after making it with the help of a trailer company who compiled the film's trailer that dropped after BvS came out in order to sell that DC films could also be fun. YouTube Channel Red Letter Media's recent review of the film described it best, "It's as if Hot Topic threw up all over Guardians of the Galaxy."
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| Harley may have been brought to life, but she's hard to find in an overstuffed film. |
Now that Warner is three films in with their DCU, I think it's worth mentioning that I've noticed a strong similarity amongst all of their films. They tend to have great moments, typically comprised of strong performance, strong direction, strong shot selection, and strong filmic score. For example, take the birth of Kal-El in the opening of Man of Steel. Regardless of what you think of that film, there is no way that you can watch that scene and not think that the mis-en-scene, including the score by Hans Zimmer, doesn't make it a memorable and emotional moment. Or even take the montage of Superman's heroics in BvS, which is quite beautiful and powerful. However, the problem with these moments is that they don't have a cohesive narrative to attach too. The consistent problem with all three of the DCU films is that they feature incoherent plots, over crowded casts, and special effects driven action that hampers the strong and memorable humane moments. Although their may be a memorable image here, or an emotional scene there, the DCU films are nothing more than that: moments, and moments aren't enough to string together an entire film, especially ones lacking narrative through lines altogether. Their films are tailor made for trailers, based solely on their imagery, which generates hype, and than produces big opening weekends no matter what. Overall, DCU films may be successfully grandiose, operatic, and bombastic in parts, but not from start to finish. Go back to filmmaking 101, Warner, it's as simple as that.
On a final note, I have to stress how this is one of the hardest edged PG-13's I have ever seen, especially for a "comic book superhero" film that is heavily attended by younger kids whose parents bring them to see the movie. While most PG-13 superhero films typically never go as far as one "shit," Suicide Squad drops the expletive, along with "pussy," several times throughout the film and never holds back. In fact, the song "Gangsta," that plays over Harley and The Joker's bath in a vat of chemicals drops even harsher language. Besides this, the film also tackles confronts rather adult issues, especially in the form of The Joker's abusive relationship with Harley that has been tamed down due to studio meddling. There's also a scene in the film where The Joker offers up Harley as a sex slave to a gangster played by Common. Yikes. And finally, there's also an extremely disturbing scene in the film where the male witch counterpart of The Enchantress grabs onto several innocent bystanders with his tentacles and morphs with their bodies in a gruesome sequence of body horror that seems lifted out of the same nightmares as John Carpenter's The Thing or David Cronenberg's The Fly. That horrific moment, along with the adult language and themes, proves that the MPAA rating system truly needs a new rating in between PG-13 and R, just as there was a paradigm shift in the 80s with the introduction of PG-13.
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| Who would have thought that Will Smith would be the film's saving grace? |
Although Suicide Squad may have its moments, and believe me it does, the cons strongly outweigh the pros of this anti-hero mash up. A gleeful sense of energy, strong performances, and occasionally engaging character moments aren't enough to save this incoherent and over stuffed anti-hero ensemble that has been ruined by obvious post-production studio meddling. The initial cut of the film that was probably assembled before the reshoots and trailers were dropped could have made for a cohesive film, but just like Josh Trank's initial cut of Fantastic Four, we may never see it. Better luck next time DC. At least Wonder Woman looks focused and singular.
Rating: 3.5/10 - Better luck next time DC. Although, if I were to apply the age old statement, "three strikes and you're out," DC is officially out.
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