Poor little brother, no matter how hard DC tries to compete with Marvel in the superhero franchise game, it constantly and consistently fails on multiple levels.
Stuck trying to carve its own unique image with a more darker tone, everything from Man of Steel onward has been critically panned and unfortunately, despite a very promising promotional campaign, Suicide Squad joins the fray in the ever growing list of disappointing films from 2016.
Director, David Ayer, came out with arguably the best film of 2014 in Fury, but from what feels like a mixture of script disagreements and studio intervention Suicide Squad is a beautiful mess. Visually striking and interesting, and a cool art-style is about as far as the compliments go, as Ayer is forced into setting up a world with six main characters and two strong antagonists, while pandering to the grander DC world of Superman and Batman AND trying to find a viable villain worth their time makes for an almost impossible challenge.
Starring an impressive cast, Suicide Squad follows Viola Davis’ ruthless agent Amanda Waller, as she forms an elite unit of expendable soldiers comprised of ‘meta-human’ criminals, with the idea of bad guys fighting badder guys. Of course her idea is shunned and rebuked, until an old magical spell awakens a creature with a penchant for destruction, and a ragtag group of misfits become the only option to save Midway City (and the world) from total obliteration.
The squad consists of Will Smith playing Deadshot, a hitman with a heart of gold; Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, arguably the main character or the one with the most character development; Jared Leto as the Joker, only on screen long enough to tease you into wanting to see him in a Batman movie; Jai Courtney in easily his most likeable role as Captain Boomerang; plus a few other (perhaps more forgettable) heroes who together have okay chemistry despite all the odds.
I left this movie tired, reeling from yet another movie that promised the world and delivered something much less, and its hard to place exactly where the blame is, whether its death by boardroom committee, lazy script-writing or cash-grab sequels, DC’s clutching at straws is eroding the superhero genre to a point where the general masses are starting to realise there’s a lot more stories to be told on screen that don’t involve capes and powers and – according to Disney – they involve space and light-sabers; and that’s where the next decade of our industry will be once the post-superhero era is over.
Suicide Squad is a 6/10.
