Suicide Squad Review

There are three things good in Suicide Squad, DC Comic's latest big budget movie: Margot Robbie's body, Margot Robbie's outfit (because it shows off her body), and Will Smith's performance. Only Will Smith should have known better than to headline this trash, playing Deadshot, a marksman and assassin who never misses a shot. He gives the character a charming disinterest of the goofy and illogical plot. He also seems to ignore the unconvincing CGI of the main villain; it seems everyone making the movie did too.

The film follows a team of bad guys, enlisted in case the next "Superman" is not so nice (I guess Batman, briefly shown here, is too mean). Viola Davis portrays Amanda Waller, the ringleader of the bunch of bandits and is depicted as this film's "M" from the James Bond movies. She is curt with a stone cold expression, never trusting the group of goons she has contracted out of their prison cells. She puts them under command of Colonel Rick Flag, played by Joel Kinnaman, who is on the field with the titular crew of creeps. Injected with a rice-size explosive in their necks, it takes just the push of a button (or rather a touch on a cell phone) to exterminate the baddies if they act out of line. Fortunately, because simple exposition is not enough, the film hastily tosses in Slipknot, late in the film and without fanfare, and has him attempt to escape just so we can see a PG-13 version of his head explode. I guess her team of rapscallions better play nice, as nothing makes antiheroes behave like watching a tertiary character die behind censors.

Plot-wise, the Suicide Squad is birthed just in time for the Enchantress to start causing trouble, possessing the body of June Moone, who is the girlfriend of Mr. Flags. Her brother is summoned to aid her, and the two build an unimpressive army of faceless humanoid beings, who's body parts crumb or shatter off without any ounce of blood or guts. I mean, gotta keep the MPAA-rating as low as possible.

Will Smith and friends enter and scale a skyscraper to escort Waller out of the building, where a fight breaks out in several of the floors they climb. It is a bland showcase of hand-to-hand combat and gun shots as they finally reach the desired floor. There is a hiccup with the escort, and now the bad guys must battle on the streets to take down the Enchantress; things turn even more typical here, with violent but unsatisfying battle scenes. Her brother proves too strong for our (anti)heroes to defeat, but is swiftly killed anticlimactically by the flame summoning El Diablo, a forgettable and underdeveloped member of the Suicide Squad, who conveniently can turn into a fiery CGI creature at just the right time. I won't spoil what happens next, though you would thank me for saving you the price of admission.

There is absolutely no time spent on character development here, with the film spending all its time on boring fighting and half-assed jokes. Its opening title shot is bright and colorful, as is credits, but the film is dark and gloomy, painful attempts at humor injected artificially. It introduces its characters in a very reality-television way, with short descriptions that appear next to a photo of them. That works, its a playful way to announce its stars, but minimal screen time and zero development leaves the evildoers shallow.

Jai Courtney plays Captain Boomerang, the exact kind of supervillian you would expect when they have run out of ideas for decent characters. He throws a boomerang and speaks with a painfully thick Australian brogue. He also is a thief before being caught by authorities, and that is all you get for backstory here. But that is more than Killer Croc, a human crocodile who is just more strong than your normal man. He snarls and growls, and swims well. I did not even know he could talk until almost halfway through he film, right about the same time he, in one of the movie's many deadened stabs at telling a joke, checks out Margot Robbie as she walks seductively away. How funny, how very, very humorous.

That leaves us to the Joker, played by Jared Leto who receives inexplicable top billing, is barely in the film and hardly necessary to the nonsense plot, showing up in awkward cuts separate from the Suicide Squad as he searches for his Harley Quinn. When he is on screen, we see Jared do his best Jim Carrey impression, almost straight ripping off his performance as the Riddler in the far more entertaining Batman Forever. He does attempt to add some gross sexual nuance to his performance, but I have seen better acting in porn.

The soundtrack is a myriad of pop and rock songs, ripping on Guardians of the Galaxy's pop culture tunes. Only they are a clumsy juxtaposition to the damp atmosphere, distracting from any visual or emotional heft the long 123 minute movie could have offered. And for a movie about bad guys, you wish that there would be more focus on them doing bad guy stuff, not incomplete redemption. I saw this movie at your typical theater; I wish it was one that served alcohol.