Suicide Squad Review (Late-to-the-party edition)

Suicide Squad is the recent fuck- up from our dear friends over at the DCEU, and was released on the 5th of August and is directed by David Ayer.

This train wreck, as far as I can make out, is the equivalent of the 2002 Scooby- Doo movie; they both have awful casting, huge issues with direction and a visual style that appears to be nothing but miles behind the source material.

..I'll get back on track.

Suicide Squad was one of the most cringiest movies I've seen in a very long time, this is mainly down, like I mentioned before, to the direction.

David Ayer, most known for his 2014 Brad Pitt war movie "Fury", doesn't seem to understand how to shoot or stage action scenes. Every single fight scene in the movie consists of the main group of (main) boring characters slowly engaging in combat with unexplained eye- monster- human thingies that attack them in pitch black scenery.

Yes, that does sound bloody terrible, doesn't it?

Ayer seems to think that shooting in the dark with no proper lighting is cinematic genius, as he does this so many times that it eventually becomes laughable whenever you realise another fight scene is being set up.

Now, let's move on to the performances, shall we?

Let's start, as ever, with the main characters: Margot Robbie as Dr. Harleen Quinzel/ Harley Quinn is easily the most irritating performance in the entire movie.

Her dialogue mainly consists of some of the worst one- liners and quips that I've ever heard in any film. And any joke that is made by her always falls flat, no matter how she delivers it, and in whatever context.
Pure annoyance.

Will Smith as Deadshot is easily one of the best performances in the entire movie. While Smith isn't excellent, but he does portray a decently well- rounded character, even if the script doesn't do any of the rounding itself.

This is another example of Will's roles where the script is so embarrassingly shoddy, the movie forces the audience to focus simply on his performance. But like I said, he's still not giving an oscar- worthy performance, but I get the impression he's trying to, which is all we can really ask for in a movie like this.

Viola Davis as Amanda Waller is most likely the most boring performance out of the bunch.

I got the impression that Waller is meant to be intimidating without any external ways of showing this but dialogue and characterisation. She's not.

Instead all we see is a tired, unoriginal and bland "Big cheese" roll that brings nothing new to the, now thanks to the other DCEU movies, very small table.

There really isn't much else to say about her, so let's move on.

Jared Leto as the Joker was by far my favourite part of the entire movie.

Leto, who's predecessor was the impeccable Heath Ledger and which Leto clearly modelled his performance after, was just about the funniest character I've seen on screen in years. The Oscar- winning actor seems to confuse clinically insane with eccentric and moderately quirky. Thus resulting in the most unbelievably hammy delivery of lines and an all around awkward character.

It's very clear Leto wanted to do something different with the classic character which is understandable. But either he didn't know how to do it, or was given some of the worst direction known to man, and ended up somehow channelling Eddie Redmayne's bug-eyed and shoutyingly over the top villain from Jupiter Ascending.

Every time he was on screen I was having an absolute blast, watching him purring while stroking a man's face and laughing his strangely slow and over the top/under the bottom laugh got huge laughs out of me and I thank Leto whole- heartedly for this.

Now then, let's look at something else. Let's look at 'the bar scene'.
A lot of people don't like this scene along with the rest of the movie, but I disagree.
It goes like this:

The main characters are all in an abandoned bar after being released due to the previous events in the movie (not gonna spoil everything) and have just lost a member of the group.

They are all fairly certain they've lost the battle. They all sit around the bar and share drinks. The atmosphere is tense, but melancholy. Everyone is doing exactly what their characters should be doing, and communicate through eye contact and only one or two words to each other.
The first few minutes of the scene is just left up to their acting.

In short: I like this scene.
I don't love it soley because it's still fairly shit in comparison with any other 'bar scene'.

But this is what we needed more of; relatively subtle characterisation while staying true to their personas and a consistent atmosphere and tone.

The scene showcases some genuinely decent performances from the main characters, slips in some better-than cringy jokes, offers up some interesting backstories and gives the characters and the audience time to calm down.

What a shame the next scene is the climax.

The climax is just Ghostbusters: big special effects- heavy monster that the group has to stop before it destroys the city.

The ending is annoying and riddled with plot holes, the resolution to the climax is stupid and boring, and the whole thing just leaves a rather sour taste.

So in conclusion; this movie sucks.

Suicide Squad gets an awkward 1.5/5