Despite middling reviews, Suicide Squad, DC/Warner Bros. latest entry into the superhero movie universe opened pretty decently.
Next weekend will be the true proving ground though. If, like its predecessors, it fails to keep audiences coming back, it could mean the end of the potential franchise. But not the end of the characters it features.
Harley Quinn’s film is already in the early stages of production, and I’d bet that Leto’s Joker will be a player in the solo Batman film. There’s a full review of the film from Adam already on the site, so I’ll eschew a lot of my usual nonsense and say that I agree with almost all of his assessment. We also discussed on an episode of our Batman ’66 podcast Shakespeare’s Head. And I talked about it lengthily with Ryan, Tim and Pat (which you can listen to below). If you want to hear me get super spoilery and such, check those out.
Now, let’s get to what worked and what didn’t, starting with what they did right:
1. Harley Quinn
Longtime readers/listeners know I’m not a huge fan of the over-sexualization of Harley (or Deadpool for that matter), and there’s a lot of that at play here with her look. BUT, Margot Robbie manages to capture most of what makes her such a fun and fantastic character and Ayer even gives old school fans like myself a visual treat to appease a little bit of the pain of those too-short-shorts.
2. Amanda Waller
While I’d still have preferred a Waller that looked truer to her comic roots (think the Kingpin, if he was a black woman that worked for the goverment instead of a blad white gangster), Viola David and the script deliver the spirit of why readers and fans of the old animated DCU have a love/hate/fear relationship with the character. She is not to be taken lightly, and despite some third act hiccups, that’s the Waller we get.
3. Captain Boomerang
Now, I don’t know if they got the character right from page to screen, I’ve maybe read one or two Flash stories that feature him in my life. But, I do know that Jai Courtney is the most underrated performance in this film. No one’s talking about him, and it’s criminal. I’ve been on record as not liking Courtney in pretty much anything, but he is so much fun here I’m rethinking my position.
4. Will Smith
No, not Deadshot, just Will Smith. He’s old-school Smith. Bad Boys Smith. Independence Day Smith. The one we loved to watch when he made the at-the-time meteoric leap from TV to film. It’s good to have him back. But it’s a shame they sacrifice Deadshot to do it. He’d have been great as Jon Stewart.
5. The Comradere
The best moments in this film are the ones where the group is interacting with each other. I’d call them quiet moments, but none of them are particularly quiet. Outside of a few bad spots, it’s incredibly satisfying to watch and hear these characters just snipe and bicker with each other. It’s what a team like this would do, and it feels the most true to its roots when it happens.
Now here’s what they got wrong:
1. The Big Bad
Short and simple: it doesn’t work. None of it. Not the motivation, not the performance, not the effects. Marvel has often been criticized as having “a villain problem.” At this point I think the superhero film genre as a hole might have a villain problem. Captain America: Civil War stands out as maybe the only recent example of bad done right.
2. El Diablo
While Katana and Slipknot are certainly short shrifted, El Diablo plays a fairly big role in the film. Unfortunately they don’t do anything to make him more than another Latino stereotype.
3. The Plot/Editing
It’s a tie! And they’re easy things to point at and hiss, but there’s a reason for that. They’re bad.