Good Elements Blend Poorly in Suicide Squad

Ask any DC Comics fan for their thoughts on the current spread of films in the DC Extended Universe and you’ll typically get the same response. They’ll shy around how Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice didn’t meet their expectations, but they’ll offer some redeeming comment about how fun or exciting Wonder Woman or Justice League look based on Comic Con trailers. Quite frankly, I’m sick of it.

Since the Marvel Cinematic Universe touched down in 2008, DC has been playing an embarrassingly poor game of catchup. Against Marvel’s thirteen feature films over the past eight years, DC has managed to release three. This is a jarring statistic, especially when you consider that DC films have been much less successful than Marvel pictures, both in critical and financial response.

Despite all of this, I actually let myself get excited for Suicide Squad, the latest DC Comics film. It had an intriguing premise, characters with incredible emotional depth, a proven director, a stacked cast of A-listers, and one of the most impressive trailers I’ve ever seen. So what went wrong?

Suicide Squad falls victim to one of cinema’s most unfortunate phenomena: the combination of quality ingredients that ultimately result in rubbish. Some films are bad while others are good, but most disappointing is the film that had all of the right elements to be successful and failed. It’s not enough to have good material to work with. You have to know what to do with it. DC’s “run before we can walk” pattern is on full display as the film attempts to cobble together as many epic characters and as much epic action as possible when a simpler approach would have worked far better.

The premise is fresh: the US government assembles a team of villains and forces them to tackle missions too risky for agents. I love it. This could work as a small-scale story, sending the team to steal foreign documents or rob a bank. Instead, the film sends them on an alien battle blitz in the city, where a dark witch has opened a mystical portal. It’s an ill attempt to mix the world of this film with that of Superman. I recognize that this is the 2010s, but not every movie needs to have the fate of the universe at stake. It’s too big. Stop doing it.

I’m not against superhero movies embracing magical elements. There are ways to accomplish this successfully, as Guardians of the Galaxy did. In this particular case, however, the magical elements fail to tonally blend with the main action. We’re given a beautifully dark and gritty landscape in the main action while the antagonistic scenes showcase a CGI-infused realm of wildly colorful mysticism.

This isn’t just limited to the film’s aesthetic though. Suicide Squad’s driving theme is inconsistency. At a certain point, it just becomes painfully obvious that this is the work of a studio too bent on expanding a cinematic universe to allow a standalone feature to find its own voice. Comedic moments don’t land, tie-ins to Batman and Superman seem forced, and a pop music soundtrack feels like a strained attempt to solidify a branding agreement with Hot Topic. I would love to see director David Ayer’s original cut of the film. Before DC ordered reshoots, more humor, bigger action, and greater scale, this film had a solid chance at success.

For what it’s worth, the lead actors keep viewers glued to the screen. I was particularly impressed with Jared Leto’s grim take on the Joker. Leto’s natural charisma blends with a character audiences are drawn to and the end result is fascinating. His scenes with Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn are electric to the extent that an origin film with just the two of them would have been entirely satisfying. Robbie proves herself a scene-stealer both in emotional drama and hard-hitting action. Though I cringed through some of her poorly-written dialogue (listen for “We’re bad guys. It’s what we do” and facepalm as necessary), she maintains a solid presence on screen. In the role of Deadshot, Will Smith does a fine job moving the action forward.

The rest of the cast is underused, poorly written, and largely forgettable, save for a few moments scattered throughout. The characters of El Diablo, Killer Croc, Captain Boomerang, and Katana contribute essentially nothing to the assembled squad. Really, it’s frustrating how overstuffed this film is. Even Ben Affleck’s post-credit scene with Viola Davis is an unwelcome addition. We already knew Justice League was on the way. I think most of us tried desperately to forget, but thanks for the dismal reminder.

Suicide Squad too often takes the easy way out. The studio wastes actors immensely capable of emotionally captivating characters and a manic story. Instead we get more alien bashing and “comedic” one-liners. Despite this, the film looks slick. A cool purple and blue color palette accented by sparks of neon greens, pinks, and reds offers hints of the electricity that once fueled this now tonally inconsistent smashfest. Another strength is the way in which visual elements play with the music in a delightfully creative way. The pop music (courtesy of Eminem, G-Eazy, Lil Wayne, and Wiz Khalifa, to name a few) is not suited to my taste or the mood of the film, but it does interact nicely with the onscreen action.

In a market so saturated with the genre, superhero films can no longer afford to be mediocre or even good. They must be exceptional. DC does not have the same luxuries as Marvel. The studio has not taken the time necessary to craft characters and worlds that audiences can quickly dive back into with each film. Thus, we end up with films that try to do too much all at once. The result: an inconsistent mess.

#SuicideSquad #Jesse #MargotRobbie #WillSmith