I feel like many can agree with me that the 2010’s might of put out some of the greatest films in film history but it also put out some of the most hated films ever including 2010’s Avatar: The Last Airbender, 2017’s Justice League and pretty much the entire Fifty Shades franchise. But one film stands out from the rest of the most hated films of the 2010’s. That film is Suicide Squad. Now on paper the film has a 26% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with many negative reviews from the critics, but it was widely praised for its cast, musical score/soundtrack and its costume designs. The problem people had with this film is the plot/story, the direction, Jared Leto’s performance as The Joker and the villains. Now while many people hated this film, there were also people who liked the film and aren’t afraid to say that they did and I am one of those people. Do I know that the film isn’t great, yes I do, but I also see something special about this film that made me really into it. James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad recently just came out and as of this moment has so much critical praise and love from the fans of the comics. So I thought why not review the first installment of the film and actually see if the film deserves the hate that it constantly gets or see if it is a decent film. Now I have to be pretty unbiased for this review because like I said before I really enjoyed this movie when it first came out, to the point where I have a Suicide Squad 2017 calendar, two posters of both Joker Leto and Harley Quinn, but also a couple of t-shirts, a sweatshirt, a wristband, the movie soundtrack, the movie on Blu-Ray/DVD which includes the Extended Cut and four Funko Pops. Yeah you can say I was obsessed with the film. Anyway let’s take a deep dive into the film and let’s see if Suicide Squad is a terrible film or a decent film.
*SPOILER ALERT*
Suicide Squad was directed by David Ayer, a man who has been in the filmmaking business since the early 2000’s including writing the screenplay for The Fast and the Furious, Training Day but also directing End of Watch and Fury. Ayer isn’t a terrible director or screenwriter at all but not everything he works on is going to be successful with the critics and I will go into detail why I want to give him a second chance with this movie later on in the review. The cast of Suicide Squad was big with some Hollywood heavyweights to some talented stars in the making. The cast includes Will Smith (Floyd Lawton/Deadshot), Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn), Viola Davis (Amanda Waller), Joel Kinnaman (Col. Rick Flag), Jared Leto (The Joker), Jai Courtney (George “Digger” Harkness/Captain Boomerang), Jay Hernandez (Chato Santana/El Diablo), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Waylon Jones/Killer Croc), Cara Delevingne (Dr. June Moon/Enchantress), Karen Fukuhara (Tastu Yamashiro/Katana), Scott Eastwood (“GQ” Edwards), Ike Barinholtz (Capt. Hunter Griggs), Adam Beach (Slipknot) and Ben Affleck (Bruce Wayne/Batman). Now while most of the cast were perfect choices for their roles, we will get into more detail about who didn’t later, the soundtrack of this film is amazing. The soundtrack has a mix of some older songs with newer songs created specifically for the film. The soundtrack alone is an added bonus for why I love this film because songs like Heathens by Twenty One Pilots, Sucker for Pain by Imagine Dragons, Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, Logic and Ty Dolla Sign), Purple Lamborghini by Skrillex feat. Rick Ross and among others really play well with what’s going on with the film. Now while not every song were placed in the right spot of the film, the soundrack alone is phenomenal. Also I have to mention this because it’s the reason why it won the film an Academy Award, but the hair and makeup in this film is incredible. From the makeup and hair of Harley to the phenomenal makeup work on Killer Croc and El Diablo, this film had such an incredible hair and makeup team. The film also has some pretty sweet visuals including the color scheme for each time we see Harley and Joker together in certain scenes to when we are first introduced to the characters and their back stories. The people involved in making this film really tried to make it different from the recent films coming out of the DC Universe.
Now in order to give this film justice I watched the Extended Cut version of the film. It pretty much has 12 more minutes that were cut including scenes with Joker and Harley’s back story. But either way that doesn’t change my feelings towards this film. But if you ask me I think it adds more to the film then what we got from the original theatrical version.
One thing that I want to talk about is obviously the stuff I liked about the film as there are some things about the film I do like. It’s simpler to talk about this now before I talk about the reasons why this film gets a lot of hate. But I enjoyed most of the performances in the film. Will Smith as Deadshot is honestly pretty great as Will Smith can deliver in any type of role including action films, comedy films or the more serious dramatic films. Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn is literally one of the most perfect performances of the 2010’s as she really does a great job in brining the character to life on the big screen. The same can be said with Viola Davis as Amanda Waller as while I feel like they could have had her really show the Amanda Waller we know from the comics and animated shows/films, Davis made her seem like an asshole who can care less about everyone working for her and rather care if she holds all the power of any mission the Suicide Squad is doing. Jay Hernandez as El Diablo was really great as he really humanized the DC villain in a very great way. He probably had the more dramatic role of everyone in the cast with the fact that his back story and reasoning for not wanting to use his powers anymore is just straight up heartbreaking. And I’m not going to lie but Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang was perfection as the Australian actor not only played the role well but to me he kind of was a scene stealer.
Another thing I loved about the film was the scene where Dr. Harleen Quinzel jumps into the ACE chemicals. This is the scene where we not only see Harleen Quinzel finally become Harley Quinn but we also see The Joker show his romantic side for Harley. Before this scene we see scenes of Joker making Harleen into Harley and Harley and Joker pretty much causing trouble in Gotham but this scene in particular shows how the two kind of fell in love. Joker tells her that in order to be like him she needs to jump into the ACE Chemicals. Joker begins to walk away but stops as you can see it in his face that he cares about Harley, something he has never done for anyone in his life, so he jumps into the chemicals to save her and kisses her. She awakens and they kiss. This scene is a perfect flashback scene to see how the love started between Harley and Joker but when it brings us back to the present Harley is seen aiming a gun at Deadshot like she just came out of a trance. Harley loves Joker but it could also just be the fact that she loves the idea of Joker as Joker loves her but mostly because she is doing his bidding. Every time we see them together with something destructive going on he somehow always disappears when she either gets hurt or caught. So this scene asks the question, does Joker really love Harley or did he love the fact that he can manipulate her to do anything and in return he will show some sort of love towards her until they almost get caught. This is truly a powerful scene for Harley as we see her in a saner mindset rather seeing her in her destructive insane nature.
Finally another scene that I really liked and want to mention is the scene when our characters are in a bar. This scene really changes the tone of the film as rather it having action or comedy one liners, instead it has true emotion and we get to see our characters kind of just be free for a minute without them worrying about having their heads blown off or being attacked by brainwashed people trying to kill them and Rick Flag. This is the scene where El Diablo talk about how he killed his family, the one thing that he cared about the most in his life, but because of his rage and powers he unfortunately killed his loving wife and his two beautiful children. We don’t see a villain in this scene, we see a man who is looking for peace and wants nothing to do with his powers. We even get to see some more emotion from Harley, Deadshot and Rick Flag as these 4 main characters kind of all fall under a certain theme in this film, love. Harley questions her love with Joker, El Diablo lost the one thing he truly loves, his family, Deadshot can’t seem to feel love for his daughter and Rick Flag’s only reasoning for being in this mission is to save the woman he loves, June Moon. This scene really shows how love plays a big part in each of these four characters and I love how the theme of love returns again with the four characters in the finale as Deadshot finally tells his daughter that he loves her, Harley and Joker end up together again but is it really love is the question, Rick Flag saves June Moon and El Diablo sacrifices himself for his love for the team, his love for his new family. All in all this one very light hearted scene was a very great scene that took us away from the action for a few minutes and humanized our characters as yes they are villains but in this scene they are less villainy and more anti-hero/human.
Well I guess it’s time to talk about the bad parts about this film but where to begin????? Ah yes, Joker Leto. Now I still think Jared Leto’s performance as Joker wasn’t great but it also wasn’t terrible. I would have loved to see more Joker in this film considering he has a big sub-plot in the film and his face is placed all over the film from the merchandising to even the trailers, it would have been nice to have at least some more Joker in the film. But then again do we need that much Joker in the film because the way he was shown in the film makes many fans of Joker unhappy. Leto’s performance is probably the most hated of every person who has donned the clown makeup and I have to say I might enjoy the character, I still think his version is probably the weakest. Now I don’t blame Jared Leto for all the problems I have for this character, I blame the production team surrounding the character and its director. Now I will explain in full detail about David Ayer’s direction in just a bit but a big percentage of the blame I have for not only Joker’s portrayal in this movie, but for the entire movie itself, that one goes directly to Warner Bros. It’s really crazy how a company 10 years prior held the greatest portrayal of Joker and DC film of all time with The Dark Knight to this film and portrayal of Joker and they literally almost ruined Leto’s version of Joker in this film. Warner Bros. kind of took control of most of this film, kind of like how they did with another shitty comic book film that got its own cut a few years later. *cough* Justice League *cough cough*. And with this film they really screwed David Ayer over and the fans of the comics. With Joker Leto however, they really screwed him up as the film was re-shot after the original film was completed and they barely showed Joker in this film even though he was big part of the sub-plot. I’m just as confused as you are. Now the portrayal in general made Joker feel like a gangster madman and not an insane clown. His laugh felt creepy but nothing compared to Mark Hamill’s iconic Joker laugh or even Heath Ledger’s. And while I love the look and attire for Joker Leto, especially the beautiful purple jacket that I still want badly, his Joker just seems like it wasn’t done properly or not shown enough.
I still have my thoughts on Joker Leto but one character I hated and every person in the world hated was our main baddie, Enchantress. Cara Delavigne as Enchantress was a terrible choice. Now she seems like a talented actress but I mean I have seen her in like three films and all the films I have seen her in were bad, this one included. Her delivery in the film is terrible, she looks sad in almost every scene, even when she is in the full Enchantress look and not June Moon and why the fuck is this model playing a villain that should had been portrayed by a talented actress or at least one that knows how to act. Also the concept around her character in this film makes no sense. Amada Waller has her heart and when she stabs the heart when Enchantress is on screen Enchantress gets weak and turns back into June Moon. But when she rapidly stabs it multiple times in a certain scene Enchantress is weak but doesn’t change back automatically and her brother, Incubus, uses his power to keep her alive. Another thing if you didn’t pay attention to the subtitles added into the film about each character then you wouldn’t know that her brother, Incubus, was still in an ancient jar. Enchantress also barely seems like a threat compared to her terribly CGI brother Incubus. Like cool you have supernatural witch powers that can manipulate a person to do your bidding or use them for scare tactics, but I mean I don’t know one bad guy who can do all that but then take away the threat by having her do some weird belly dancing when she is doing these threatening things or creating a machine bomb and then you have yourself a terrible threatening villain. I’m sorry but David Ayer might get some of the blame on this as well as you literally have a powerful witch to be your bad guy, why is she belly dancing her way to destroying the world. Then you have her CGI brother in a jar and she randomly picks a stranger we know nothing about and he takes over his body and eats people with his tentacle arms and poof he this giant powerful God who on paper looks cool but in execution looks like something out of a 90’s comic book cartoon. Literally 85 percent of this film is realistic and the 15 percent is CGI and most of the CGI goes to Incubus and Enchantress and both just look terrible and in general are terrible villains. And oh the reasoning to why they want to destroy the world with machines is dumb as fuck. The people that worshiped them betrayed them and now people on Earth worship machines and she wants to build a machine to kill them all. If I made a video version of this review I would literally add in a confused look for 5 seconds because that itself is literally the worst thing I ever heard a villain say in any plan and reasoning for their plans. Yet nobody talks shit about Enchantress like they do for Joker Leto but yet her character has more problems than him and she literally the main villain in this fucking film. And that’s just the two worst characters in the film in general that I wanted to talk more about but just because I’m in the hate for characters let’s to a speed round for a couple of more. Katana was barely used in this film and pushed down our throats 40 minutes into the film. Her back story was rushed and we barely had time to learn anything about her. Slipknot was a character that was added in just to kill off 5 minutes after introducing us to him. I feel bad for Killer Croc cause he looks like he would had been a decent character but he was used more for the background and barely had screen time. And almost every character in this film gets no character development and when they do it still seems like they weren’t developed enough.
The timing and pacing in this film is all over the place. We start the film by introducing a couple of our characters to then re-introducing them 5 minutes later when Amanda Waller talks about each character during their back story scenes. Also even in each back story it felt rushed in some cases like for Captain Boomerang we get a Flash cameo while Boomerang is robbing a bank and that’s it. It would be nice to know more about Boomerang and why he became a bad guy or him doing something villainy but instead we see him double crossing his partner and Flash defeating him….yeah. Also I love the soundtrack for this film but the placement for the songs in the film is all over the place. Like some songs seemed like they were added in because of what was going on in a certain scene. For example: when the squad is in helicopters in the sky the song “Spirit of the Sky” plays in the background. Do you get it, there in the sky so let’s play a song that has the word “sky” in its title. That would make sense to our movie and hearing the song will make you more interested. Hell you couldn’t go 2 minutes in this film without hearing a licensed song in the background. This film felt like a 2 hour long music video at times instead of it being a comic book adaptation. Again I might love the soundtrack for the film, but that doesn’t take away the fact that I don’t like where most of these songs were placed in the movie. Hell even the editing in this film is bad. First off this film wasn’t edited by anyone on David Ayer’s production team. Instead it was edited by the team that worked on the 1st trailer, Trailer Park. That’s right David Ayer’s edited version and most of Trailer Park’s edited version was edited together and made this hell of a masterpiece. Warner Bros. literally killed this movie from the start and they put the nail in the coffin by putting David Ayer’s version of the film into this version of the film, making the film feel like two films stitched in one. But that’s not all as in some scenes the cuts in the scene seem weird and out of place and the film itself is edited weird in general. An example of this I can use is when Waller creates the Suicide Squad before there is even a threat to even create the squad. Before belly dancing villain and her half ass CGI brother made many threatening things happen, the Squad was being put together and the way they edited the two scenes felt so strange as why would Waller form the Squad right before the threat was created? It’s just a confusing moment in the film that I just noticed and it proves how weird the editing is. There are a lot of scenes and moments in this film where the editing is just bad but I don’t want you or me to be here all day so I guess it’s best to move on before I want to blow my own head off like Rick Flag did to Slipknot.
So I feel like it would be best to finish off this final section of the review by talking about David Ayer. I said earlier that I wanted to give him a second chance with this film as we kind of didn’t get to see the full David Ayer film. His script and the writing in this film is kind of not great but I mean that’s pretty much the biggest bad grade I will give him as this film is not the film he wanted to create. James Gunn had all the liberty to do whatever he wanted for his film but David Ayer barely had any control for the final product of his film. Kind of similar to Zack Snyder’s Justice League although that had nothing to do with no control more Warner Bros. was an asshole to him and he quit in the middle of filming cause of his dying child. We would get his version 5 years later on HBO Max with the Snyder Cut and all in all it was decent, not great but it made the film better, it also made Joker Leto a lot better. Still didn’t like the film but my point is we need a David Ayer’s Cut for Suicide Squad. Now it’s not a huge need considering a better Suicide Squad film came out but as I said before James Gunn had full control of the film. I believe Warner Bros. knew of their error the last time they didn’t give their directors full control and now they are most likely to give directors full control of certain comic book film products and we will start to see some really amazing films under Warner Bros. But the David Ayer Cut is something that is not needed but would be nice to see because somewhere in this film is a decent movie; a movie that we can say was doing the comic book version of the Suicide Squad it’s justice. David Ayer’s film was torn apart from the beginning and Warner Bros. put in their part of what they thought was a good film and David Ayer’s part and made a cinematic disaster. Now I don’t think David Ayer is a bad director or even a bad filmmaker, he has helped make some pretty decent films and if we give him a second chance with this film with the David Ayer Cut then maybe we can get this film not only some more love but we can see what the version of Suicide Squad that we were hoping to see when news about the film first came out. All of the former cast members want it to happen, hell even the cast members of the new film want the David Ayer Cut. If it does happen then maybe we can give Joker Leto some justice, maybe Enchantress would be a better villain and not a Shakira wannabe dancer and maybe we can have ourselves a cinematic masterpiece, or at least a decent film.
My final thoughts of this film have changed over time. When I first saw the film in theaters back in 2016 I was in love with the film but in time my love would decrease but that’s not saying I don’t like the film anymore. I still do like this film a lot, even though it is a bad film and was put through the ringer thanks to Warner Bros. Some people hate this film, some people enjoy the hell out of this film, but in the end I think we all can agree that without this film we wouldn’t have a spot on performance from Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn and we also wouldn’t have gotten a cinematic masterpiece from James Gunn. Hell we even wouldn’t have gotten a 5 minute cameo from Joker Leto in the Snyder Cut that literally made Jared Leto seem and look like the Joker this time around. All in all I still have some sort of love for this film but I know about its flaws and boy oh boy there are a lot of flaws, but I don’t care because I still see through this mess of a film and see a decent film. To me Suicide Squad is so bad that it is good and I’m okay to say that and not afraid to tell people that if the conversation of the film is ever brought up. And because I have been talking about “The Suicide Squad” I could at least respectfully review that film too, but in one sentence. The film was fucking amazing and I loved every minute of it, especially with the goat himself King Shark. I’ll give it a 9.1 out of 10 and you should defiantly see the film.
Final Review: 2.5 out of 5, 55 out of 100
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