While I liked Man Of Steel, it had its problems and it could have been better. As for Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice. I had enough of a good time to give it a pass rating. But boy does it have major problems.
Despite all that, the hype for Suicide Squad has remained high. I have certainly been interested by this feature. The cast looks promising, I like the director, and I had a feeling of a Guardians Of The Galaxy attempt by DC.
Then suddenly on the week of the release of the film, there was a fair amount of negative reviews from the critics that has angered many fans. In the end, I was hearing a real mixed bag of reviews. So as usual, I had to wait until I saw it to form any sort of opinion.
I have to say, that it really is a mixed bag of a film. Where to start? Well, despite knowing nothing about these characters and therefore had nothing to grasp and care for this team, they were introducing us to the characters rather well. The way they introduced most of them was rushed, and yet the right amount of rushed. They were doing enough to make me want to know more, even though I knew I was not going to get that. Also, the presentation looked cartoony and seemed to fit with the general look fairly well.
Then the main chunk of the film is solid action, and sadly a lot of inconsistency in the pacing. Whilst trying to gather A LOT of information, I thankfully still knew what was going on. But when I started to be interested in something, it went somewhere else. It ended up being a bunch of muddled and random action and dialogue scenes just put together that did not mean anything in the lead up to the final act.
Will Smith had probably the best performance. It has been a while since I have seen a Smith performance that says 'film-star' to me, and this one did. A very believable character in Deadshot.
The big draw was certainly Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, a.k.a the most cosplayed character in the history of the world. While she certainly had the look, the delivery just felt off to me. Maybe it was the sub-par writing that was given to her. But I just did not care for or get invested in her character. A real disappointment. But like I said, I really hope it was due to the writing department as I really like Robbie as an actor.
This next one I am still trying to figure out, and that is Jared Leto as The Joker. I am not sure whether he was necessary to be in the film. There are obvious links. But I think that was mainly to be set-up for a potential film in the future. As for the performance, something was definitely missing. I am not sure what, but I saw potential in there. It was always going to be a tough one to do well in, as this was the first Joker we have seen on screen since Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight.
While they are the big names. There were lots of surprising performances by the rest of the squad. Jai Courtney was pretty solid as Boomerang. It is not often that anyone gives praise to Courtney. But I felt he was pretty cool. Jay Fernandez as Diablo has a nice little story and good character moments. I did not think Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje as Killer Croc would work. But it managed to do that which I was not expecting. He felt like an important part of the team. Props for that.
I was really interested in the history between Joel Kinnaman's Rick Flag and Cara Delevigne's Enchantress characters. They were introduced well and had great chemistry that made me want to know more about them. Sadly that stuff in the first half was it for me and it became wasted, especially for Enchantress. Viola Davis' character was alright and felt bad-ass at times, which I was not expecting.
As for Adam Beach as Slipknot and Karen Fukuhara as Katana, Slipknot barely had any screen-time so I did not care for him whatsoever. But Katana's intro was ridiculously rushed, and yet I managed to be intrigued by her at the end.
But sadly, the main theme with all these characters is that, I wanted to know more about them. We get a brief intro on most of them, and then we're into the action. There just was not enough time to get to know everyone. Sadly, this is where I get to what I think is the real problem for DC films overall.
BvS and now Suicide Squad both look like they are trying to catch-up with Marvel's heavily developed saga. We are therefore losing origin stories and vital character development. This does not mean that I want an origin story for every member, just a few. Individual movies for Deadshot, Harley Quinn and maybe Rick Flag and Enchantress I feel would do well. Then we could have had some nice intros from the lesser known members of the squad in the first act of the film. Instead of just shoehorning them in.
Some positives that were worth mentioning were some nice moments in the film, which were mainly in the first. But sadly, it did not last long as the shift tone kept going up and down like nobody's business. I liked some of small tie-ins with the DC universe. That really made me want to know about the history of all these characters.
Sadly, I've got some more negatives that I just cannot ignore. The comedy just did not work. It might have got a smirk out of me a couple of times. But the rest of it felt forced or just dropped like a lead balloon.
The visual effects were really poor, especially for the main villain. I was certainly not expecting this. The look of one of the villains reminded of the poor CGI in Dwayne Johnson's character in The Mummy Returns all those years ago. One thing I was not expecting to be a negative, was the soundtrack. I love a good soundtrack. But whilst I liked the song choices, it felt massively over-used. It felt as if they were trying to cramp in a song every few minutes. At some points, we had a song for just a few seconds and then we were back into something else. Very strange.
The editing is so choppy and random. You can tell that there are scenes missing here and I would like to know what they were. I can tell that the studio will be like what they were with BvS, "Just wait for the ultimate cut, all your questions will be answered". Just wait. You'll see.
It is amazing that now I have seen BvS and Suicide Squad. They almost make Man Of Steel look like a masterpiece.
In the end, the story did not flow and ended up not feeling like anything. Thankfully unlike Batman V Superman, I could see real potential for a great film in here. This is why I am barely giving it a pass rating. But sadly, the execution was not right, the pacing is too inconsistent and like BvS, it feels like it is rushing to catch-up with Marvel. I'm afraid that I can see every other DC film being made in the future be seen as disappointing, under-achieving and having too much interference with the studio executives. It just looks like a franchise full of trial-and-error. It seriously has to stop right now, because there are good films in here. Just let the directors make their film, and you can get your profits and we can have a good time. Deal?
Rating: 7/10
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