Super-Cember Day #23: Suicide Squad (2016)

(Originally posted December 23rd, 2017)

Man, the DCEU just doesn't get it. Suicide Squad (2016) is the biggest showcase in how not to do an expanded universe, and to illustrate that point, throughout this review, I'll be making references to DC's other expanded universe, the Arrowverse on TV. That might seem like an odd thing to do, but there's a surprising number of similarities between things in this movie and things in the Arrowverse, and it's amazing how one can hit the nail on the head, and other can drive a nail into DC's coffin. Let's get this over with. Starring Will Smith as Floyd Lawton/Deadshot, Margot Robbie as Harleen Quinzel/Harley Quinn, Jared Leto as Joker, Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag, Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, Jai Courtney as George 'Digger' Harkness/Captain Boomerang, Jay Hernandez as Chato Santana/El Diablo, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Waylon Jones/Killer Croc, Karen Fukuhara as Tatsu Yamashiro/Katana and Cara Delevingne as June Moore/Enchantress.

Suicide Squad (2016)

One of the things I'd heard about this movie was that it's opening act was actually really good. Really? Were we watching different opening acts? This was so boring to watch. The way these movies have been organised, they have to rush through all of this back story for upwards of 6 characters that would have been so much better to see fleshed out in their own movies. I wanted to see Deadshot to head-to-head with Batman in his own movie, I wanted to see how Harleen Quinzel became Harley Quinn in much more detail, I wanted, well, anything really, out of Captain Boomerang. The movie feels so eager to get all the backstory out of the way that we don't really learn anything about the personalities of many of these characters. If this kind of movie had been done once all of these characters had been given time to develop, it might have been amazing. When the most interesting thing about your set-up is that fact that David Harbour is in it, you've made a real mistake.

Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn

The cast does an okay job overall. Some, like Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman and Jay Hernandez are really fun to watch, and give some really great performances. Others, like Jai Courtney, Karen Fukuhara and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje aren't really given too much to do. And, finally, others, like Jared Leto, Viola Davis and Cara Delevingne are just boring to watch. The Joker was butchered to hell in this movie, and I didn't mind the way they handled the Joker/Harley relationship, but the whole movie just felt like Jared Leto playing the Joker, it never felt like the actual Joker, which is a big problem for a character as iconic as the Joker. You need to make the character your own, you need to take the character to interesting places. This performance did neither. Viola Davis looks half-asleep the entire time she's on screen, and her performance is just as tired, and Cara Delevingne, like pretty much everything else she's been in, is bland and forgettable.

Jared Leto as the Joker

The plot is awful. Never mind the fact that characters do things without the slightest motivation and the story could be hard to follow sometimes; let's talk about the opening set-up. The thing this movie needed to do most importantly was set up the Suicide Squad in a believable manner. If it doesn't do that, the entire movie falls apart. Guess what? They didn't do that, so the entire movie fell apart. No one on this team seems like they belong on this 'best-of-the-best' task force. It may seem unfair to do this, but since the movie is so keen to keep addressing the Superman dilemma, let's see what each member of our team could have possibly done to stop Superman. Deadshot: good luck shooting Superman. Harley: baseball bat, nice try. Boomerang: boomerangs, are you serious? Katana: yeah, try piercing Superman with that sword. Killer Croc: we don't see him do anything anyway. Diablo: Superman already survived an explosion, you're not doing much. No one on this team can do the thing they were created to do. It's a moot point, since Superman's 'dead', but this movie was so intent on making this team to stop the next Superman, so I'm gonna address how garbage that is. The entire premise was flawed, so the whole movie just crumbled in on itself.

Will Smith as Deadshot

Alright, on to the Arrowverse parallels. Here's a list of things in this movie that the Arrowverse also did and did better:

- Deadshot
- Captain Boomerang
- Katana
- Amanda Waller
- ARGUS
- The Flash (goes without saying)
- THE SUICIDE SQUAD ITSELF

Yes, in Season 2 of Arrow, they devote an entire episode to the Suicide Squad, and it kicked ass. Not only was the set-up perfect, but they actually used several villains that the Arrow had defeated in the past, including Deadshot. Yes, Will Smith was great, but the Deadshot character in Arrow was far more compelling as a character. The Arrow episode, actually called 'Suicide Squad', lasted 40 minutes, and it was far superior to this 2 hour movie. Not only that, but the Suicide Squad was only the main plot of that episode. There was at least one other subplot throughout that episode that actually took time away from the Suicide Squad. So, they had at most 30 minutes, and it was a million times better than this movie in just a quarter of the time.

Michael Rowe as Deadshot in Arrow

And, why is that? I'm sorry to ramble on this point, but this actually illustrates a big problem with movies today. Well, the simple fact is that the Suicide Squad episode of Arrow already had about a season and a half of material to draw from. Earlier this month, the Arrowverse did their annual crossover event incorporating all their shows, and it was quite frankly one of the best things I'd ever seen. It had upwards of 20 different heroes, all with varying abilities, to juggle, and it pulled it off spectacularly. Also, they had almost 5 and a half years of great material before they got to that point. This was the 3rd movie in this expanded universe. Marvel changed the game with cinematic universes, and the reason for that is they actually took the time to slow down and establish everything. Say what you will about Marvel movies now, but there's a reason they basically own cinema today, and it's because they actually earned it. Everyone wants the same success Marvel had without putting in the same hard time. It happened with the DCEU, and it even happened with Universal's Dark Universe. The Arrowverse had a similar build-up, which is why it's so awesome now. What the DCEU tried to to was cram all of that build-up into 2-3 movies, and that is just not a good business model. It doesn't even make sense financially. If you're going to do Justice League, why not do individual movies for all the main cast first? Everyone's going to go see them; they're members of the Justice League. Everything would have been so much better for DC had they just been patient. Sadly, instead we got this.

Karen Fukuhara as Katana

Suicide Squad (2016) is a victim of itself. It's a movie that would have been awesome had it been made in 2020 or so, when this world had been firmly established. As it is now, it's just a giant mess, and a boring one at that. Outside of a few good performances, there's nothing here that would pull me back. A gigantic waste of time. 1.5/10.

Tomorrow: it's Christmas Eve, and that calls for something special: 2015's Fantastic Four (I refuse to call it Fant4stic, it's overdone at this point).