re: Suicide Squad ***SPOILERS*** and Review Thread

Just got back from the movie, don't care what anyone says, I enjoyed it and so did the gf.

Probably because we went in with such low expectations, but we both left entertained.

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And to once again get a giant portal/beam being shot into the sky like 20 other superhero movies

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Curious. I can't seem to recall 20 superhero movies with a giant portal/beam being shot into the sky.

I watched it late last night.

First off, Will Smith was fricking fantastic throughout the entire movie (with the exception of a very bad line during the last battle). He basically took this entire movie on his back. I cared about him from the beginning, and never changed throughout. He was the best part of the movie, IMO.

I felt like we had two movies going here. It was like WB wanted to do something like GotG, but also try to give us this Joker/Harley relationship story at the same time. Honestly, I think that's where the film failed the most. There was just not enough time for it.

Obviously, most everyone agrees the movie was choppy as hell. The backstories were thrown in our face (with the exception of Deadshot) with little effect in the beginning. I mean, this thing was all over the place and rushed like crazy. I know there were a lot of characters, but it’s not hard to do a little characterization earlier in your movie to get your audience to care about your characters, as I’ll explain in a moment.

I felt like there was a lot of badly cued music in an attempt to shove it down our throats that “this movie is fun and playful”. I just feel like it missed the mark. I also felt like most of the one liner jokes fell flat. Will Smith and that guard from the beginning (the web browser joke) were the exception. I thought they were both great.

I think if they would have just focused on the squad it would have been less choppy and they would have been able to do a more detailed back story for each. I feel like with the way the film was cut, we didn’t have a reason to care about Diablo until the end, which is important because this guy is going to be your emotional sacrifice in the film. I think it worked in the end, but I think they got there too late.

That brings me to my favorite scene in the movie, the bar scene. I felt like without that bar scene, they had an incomplete film. That bar scene was the most important scene in the movie, IMO. We got more of the back story for Diablo. His story is extremely dark, morbid, and heartbreaking. It made us feel something for him. Then you had Harley actually say something meaningful instead of shooting off one liner jokes. I thought that exchange where she says “Own it!” was pretty brilliant. Also, up until that point, I felt like the Flagg/Moon relationship was not well established. All they needed was one line from the bar scene where he says something like, and I’m paraphrasing here “Look, the only thing I ever cared about is in that witch”. I feel like that one line was crucial to his state of mind, and the film needed it badly. That’s three important characters that desperately needed me to care about them, and after that bar scene, I was all in. I even got a little respect for Croc after that. Yea, his whole set up with his voice and everything was not very good, but at least we got some life out of him with his “I’m beautiful” line. I felt like that scene sold me. The chemistry between the characters was money and I cared about them going forward, it just took too long to get there.

Now, let me get to the Harley and Joker stuff. I thought that entire subplot was incredibly useless UNTIL, the Harley creation flashback. It was one of the best scenes in the movie. It was beautiful, it was well shot, and all of the true fans knew exactly what was happening. They finally created this unbreakable bond between them. Problem was, it happened towards the end of the movie! This should have been established in the first half of the film. I also did not like the whole cell phone thing. Did we need Harley to have a cell phone so she could text the Joker throughout the movie? I don’t think Harley needed to know Joker was coming. Most will probably say that this is a nitpick, and that’s fine, but it just felt out of place for me and didn’t look right.

This brings me to The Joker himself. I……………just didn’t like what I saw guys. I felt like I was watching a guy high on heroin or something the entire movie. While in theory, yes it's believable that he would be for that iteration of his character. But for me, where he was moving his hands around all the time and rolling his eyes, he just looked and acted like a drugged out thug. Not my first choice for Joker. And his introduction? The first time we see Joker in the DCEU and he looks like he just woke up from a heroin binge. Give us something powerful for his first appearance on screen. Look at the ’89 Batman. “You can call me, Joker. And as you can see, I’m a lot happier”. Love it. Or obviously TDK intro scene. It needs no explanation. Again, probably the fault of too many characters to fit stuff like that in.

I know it sounds like I hated the movie, but I really didn’t. It was very fun at times. After the bar scene I completely bought everything Suicide Squad was selling. Enchantresses’ dance moves and all. I was invested in the characters after that. Even big boy Croc.

My final consensus, a poorly structured movie with too much going on is balanced by interesting characters with great chemistry. Even if it took too long to get there.

6/10.

More from Leto...

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Now it’s beginning to sound like he’s a little heartbroken over the whole thing. And understandably so!

“I think that I brought so much to the table in every scene that it was probably more about filtering all of the insanity, because I wanted to give a lot of options, and I think there’s probably enough footage in this film for a Joker movie,” Leto explained.

“I always wished this film was rated R, and I had actually said that when we were starting. It felt like if a film was ever going to be rated R it should be the one about the villains,” he said.

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LINK

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That brings me to my favorite scene in the movie, the bar scene. I felt like without that bar scene, they had an incomplete film. That bar scene was the most important scene in the movie, IMO. We got more of the back story for Diablo. His story is extremely dark, morbid, and heartbreaking. It made us feel something for him. Then you had Harley actually say something meaningful instead of shooting off one liner jokes. I thought that exchange where she says “Own it!” was pretty brilliant. Also, up until that point, I felt like the Flagg/Moon relationship was not well established. All they needed was one line from the bar scene where he says something like, and I’m paraphrasing here “Look, the only thing I ever cared about is in that witch”. I feel like that one line was crucial to his state of mind, and the film needed it badly. That’s three important characters that desperately needed me to care about them, and after that bar scene, I was all in. I even got a little respect for Croc after that. Yea, his whole set up with his voice and everything was not very good, but at least we got some life out of him with his “I’m beautiful” line. I felt like that scene sold me. The chemistry between the characters was money and I cared about them going forward, it just took too long to get there.

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I liked that scene up until Flag took out Deadshot's daughter's letters.

Deadshot (pissed): You had my daughter's letters the whole time?!
Flag: Yes.
Deadshot (over it already): Alright, let's go save the world.

He goes from pissed that Flag withheld letters from the only person on the entire planet he cares about to saying "ok, let's go save the world, I'm following your lead". It's like there was an exchange/dialogue cut out right there. There is no reason why Deadshot would forgive him so quickly, especially when he had just smashed the headblowerupper.

That jumped out to me.

And I have to reiterate how bad the final battle was. The enchantress having a dancing seizure while building a machine we know literally nothing about, other than it's bad, while her brother fights off the heroes with shitty front kicks instead of using the deadly tentacle arms that have proven so successful in taking over the city.

That was the problem with the whole film, it was too rushed. So many scenes were given no room to breathe.

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That brings me to my favorite scene in the movie, the bar scene. I felt like without that bar scene, they had an incomplete film. That bar scene was the most important scene in the movie, IMO. We got more of the back story for Diablo. His story is extremely dark, morbid, and heartbreaking. It made us feel something for him. Then you had Harley actually say something meaningful instead of shooting off one liner jokes. I thought that exchange where she says “Own it!” was pretty brilliant. Also, up until that point, I felt like the Flagg/Moon relationship was not well established. All they needed was one line from the bar scene where he says something like, and I’m paraphrasing here “Look, the only thing I ever cared about is in that witch”. I feel like that one line was crucial to his state of mind, and the film needed it badly. That’s three important characters that desperately needed me to care about them, and after that bar scene, I was all in. I even got a little respect for Croc after that. Yea, his whole set up with his voice and everything was not very good, but at least we got some life out of him with his “I’m beautiful” line. I felt like that scene sold me. The chemistry between the characters was money and I cared about them going forward, it just took too long to get there.

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I agree.

Diablo referring to the squad as his family may have been over the top, but I can see this group bonding fairly quickly after they've all been in solitary confinement. The Government lets them out of their cells and groups them with others who have similar backgrounds. You know that some of those guys would be itching to have someone to talk to, especially folks that understood where they're coming from.

Both the Croc and the Australian were just... there.