‘Suicide Squad’ Makes Bad Look Worse
Published:Sunday | August 7, 2016 | 4:10 AMDamian Levy
Suicide Squad is a movie that tries to shift the focus away from heroes and on to the villains. In a world where supermen are showing up and cities are being destroyed, America needs a way to fight back. Enter the suicide squad, or 'Task Force X'. A team of supervillains forced to comply with the mission at hand, or die from the bomb in their neck.
It takes the best part of a superhero movie, the villain, and puts their colourful, larger-than-life characters centre stage. Suicide Squad takes that premise and eviscerates it. It does this by taking it's team of mostly brawlers, pits them against yet another pillar of blue light in the sky in a world-ending plot by a seemingly all-powerful foe. Why they are chosen to deal with this is just one of the many issues the movie never seeks to resolve.
LACK OF COHESION
There's just a distinct lack of cohesion to the movie. The first half bombards you with information overload as it tries to give you the basic rundown of each character and their abilities. It's a full hour until you get into the actual mission and by then, all the information has to be learned by characters left in the dark, and you learn the same things twice.
For all that you learn about the characters though, the less you actually know. Every revelation only leads to more questions. Then there are the characters you learn nothing about, except through vague statements about them. For example: This movie features a man with skin and teeth like a crocodile and a tendency to eat people. That's all you'll ever learn about him.
There are, of course, standouts. Will Smith's Deadshot and Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn are the most developed entertaining parts of the film. My personal favourite, though, is Jai Courtney's Captain Boomerang, just for the sheer fact that he's the least qualified to be there and the guy who seems to be enjoying it the most.
Suicide Squad is a movie that has a lot to deal with. It's problems are blatant and it's extremely flawed. I'd say it's so bad it's good, except that I frequently was bored by it. It did make me laugh at times, I enjoyed parts of it. Largely though, I can't see myself recommending anyone to see this movie, which is why recommend that this is a movie you do not download.