By now you've probably heard, or know for yourself, that Suicide Squad is a
terrible misfire. Strike three for DC. It's a sloppily written, horrificly
edited, boring, predictable, meaningless mess. But a lot of the reactions I've
seen to the film have said the following. "Well, the first 20 minutes are actually
really fun." No. No they're not. You're wrong.
Ork: Why you gotta be so mean? Why can't you just let people enjoy things
Okay, look I know there's a lot of you guys out there who like this movie, and that's fine by me. Please leave a
comment and tell me why, because I'd love to hear it. I'm just here to talk about
some pretty major story structure problems that get in the way of me
getting attached to any of these characters. So, full spoilers to follow.
The opening act of Suicide Squad -- basically everything that happens before
they get on the helicopter -- is the worst part about the movie. It's not just bad.
It actively ruins any potential for the movie to get better later on. So the
allegedly fun parts of this film are the character introductions, right? It's when
Amanda Waller is listing off the people who are going to be on the team, and then
we see montage flashbacks on each one. Now the movie tries really hard to trick
you into thinking that you're having fun by editing it together really fast, and
using flashy transitions, setting each one to an upbeat pop song, and using
obnoxious text to give background on each character. It actually all feels
like a prolonged trailer, so I was not at all surprised to learn that the studio
hired the guys who made the trailers to re-edit the movie into this abomination.
It's all spectacle and exposition there's no coherent storytelling. Here's
the crux of the problem: if you look at the content of these scenes, you'll
realize that the movie has basically burned through all of the potential
story revelations that could have been peppered throughout the rest of the
movie. In short order we are told that: one, Deadshot really loves his daughter
and blames Batman for being separated from her. Two, that Harley Quinn used to
be a psychiatrist, fell in love with an insane criminal, the
Joker, and aided in his escape. Three, that Rick Flagg is in love with June Moon who
is, four, possessed by the evil spirit called The Enchantress. Holy L! When the
first 20 minutes of this movie are over, the film is in
a terrible position. The audience knows everything there is to know about 95% of
the characters in the film, but the characters themselves don't know
anything about each other! Had the filmmakers just held back a little bit
they could have used these kernels of background story to create compelling
scenes later on in the movie. Harley Quinn and Rick Flagg, for example, are
both dealing with the same problem: they are in love with someone who is
dangerous. Why isn't there a scene where they learn this fact about each other? Or
discuss how it effects everything they do? Diablo and Killer Croc both see their
powers as a curse, a burden. Why don't they bond over this like Iron
Man and the Hulk do? Or like mystique and beast do? Captain Boomerang and Deadshot
both have the exact same ability. Being really accurate with stuff. How does this
never come up? Did anybody know who these characters were before filming the movie?
This is why the rest of the movie feels like such a slog. The characters go from
one generic action scene to the next without actually bonding. There's only
one scene in this movie that I would actually describe as a scene. It's the
one when they're in the bar, commiserating over their situation, and
you'll notice that most of that scene is about learning who El Diablo is. It'd be
even better if they did it without using yet another flashback, but that's the
kind of character development I'm talking about that's missing from the
rest of the movie. Now sure, the movie likes to pretend like character
development has happened, but the script never earns it.
So when El Diablo says, "I already lost one family I'm not going to lose another,"
I challenge you to not roll your eyes. All we needed to know at the start of
this movie was that these people were criminals. You then have the next two
hours to dig deep into who they are at their cores, and find out what really
makes them tick. More so than maybe any other superhero movie, this film had the
potential to be character driven. Instead, they just glossed over everything with
pop music, tossed in generic zombies, and called it a day.
They treated the character material like the stuff that they have to get through
before the fun begins. The whole movie is in a rush to get to
the action, but that action is rendered meaningless because we don't care at all
about anyone in the movie. It's actually astonishing that they were able to screw
this up so much, considering that they got it so right in the animated movie.
Seriously, you could have just adapted Assault on Arkham and been the better
for it. But whatever, this is all just a commercial
for Halloween costumes anyway, so why should I bother. Thanks for watching
everyone, if you haven't already done so make sure to check out my last airbender
review series. If you enjoyed my Hobbit series, you're sure to enjoy this one, as
it's the same kind of in-depth analysis into what makes for good storytelling. As
always, don't forget to Like and Subscribe.
I always appreciate it when you guys do and I'll see you later this week when I
review Pete's Dragon.