Suicide Squad
I was determined to enjoy Suicide Squad and so I did. Twice. And I'd watch it again, it's really enjoyable. Is it flawed? OMG, yes! But again with the determination to enjoy it. I'm definitely a glass-half-full viewer when it comes to the DC movies; I really want them to be good and so I forgive them an awful lot.
Bearing in mind I knew nothing about all-but-one of these characters before this movie, here's my take on it all: Harley Quinn rocked! She basically carried the entire movie. She was a perfect portrayal of loveable crazy. I honestly cannot wait to see the next movie as it seems it will have a Joker & Harley Quinn focus.
Jared Leto's Joker also rocked! He's not in the movie all the way throuh but he is there quite a bit, which is delightful. Heath Ledger still wears the crown IMHO, but Leto definitely has the potential to steal it with a bit more screen time.
Deadshot and Diablo were new characters for me and I really enjoyed both of them. I like Will Smith, I enjoy his comic timing and his expressions so he was a strong addition to the movie. He's no Iron Man, but again I see lots of potential if only the writers were better.
I would have left it at that - dump the croco guy and Boomerang because they were world of lame! I can't decide which of them irritated me more, I think it was the crocodile because not only was he a crap character, but he said everything in that stoopid, slow-motion crocodile voice so he irritated me for twice as long. Ok, Pinky was very funny but it was literally the only thing endearing about Boomerang, definitely not enough for me to care whether he ever got off the cutting room floor again. Hated them both, got it? Sweet.
The Big Bad (Enchantress) was merely a device to make the movie go; it wasn't clever, it wasn't interesting, it wasn't evil, it didn't even have a clever plan. I didn't really mind that the Big Bad was a big flop, I usually just see the baddies as a device to facilitate the heroics of the good guys and then it's a super bonus when the writers do something great and provide us with something special. Unfortunately that wasn't the case in Suicide Squad, but I forgive that too.
Enchantress' alter ego, June Moone, is Rick Flag's true love and Amanda Waller has a line whereby she explains that Moone controls Flag because he loves her, and Waller controls Moone by holding Enchantress' heart...something like that. It's a dreadful line, it's an overly contrived scenario, and the scene breaks the very first rule of creative writing, "show don't tell". Suffice to say, I hated it three times! Why couldn't they just have a gung ho army guy who's loyal to his commander? It works in every other movie. Flag himself, if he's supposed to be a principal character, he sucks at it. The performance was very wooden and overall he sucked monkeys, but not as much as the croc and Boomerang.
Batfleck was in it.
So, Amanda Waller is supposed to be a mean-ass, tough nut...there's a whole lot of breaking that "show don't tell" rule and when she does say or do something bad, the timing of the scene is always off and so the potential dramatic effect is lost. Maybe she'll be a better bad guy next time, but my expectations are not high.
In general the timing is off with these movies and so the humour just doesn't work as well as in the Marvel movies. I want the writers to be better, it frustrates me when things are close but not on the money.
The bad seems to be out weighing the good here, so why did I like the movie? I think primarily because (1) I could see what they were trying to do so I helped it along in my head (2) the music and (3) the strong characters far outweighed the weaker ones.
The music deserves a special mention...it was great! There were a lot of hard-hitting iconic songs, which I loved. That said, a good movie usually has one or two moments where the music kicks-in in a spectacular way and the scene steals the movie, job well done. I love when I'm watching a movie and I'm patiently (ok, impatiently) waiting for "the song" which accompanies "the scene" and I go away happy. With Suicide Squad, the potential for this was there (the movie opens with the super-awesome House of the Rising Sun) but instead of letting the song dominate, they opted to switch immediately to another (albeit great) song, then another, and another... This contributed to the problems of disjointedness and lack of cohesion that permeate the entire movie. It's a shame really. However, while the movie could have been a lot better, overall I found it to be very enjoyable and I fully intend to watch it again! I might re-write it in my head thouh, I think that would help :-)
Bearing in mind I knew nothing about all-but-one of these characters before this movie, here's my take on it all: Harley Quinn rocked! She basically carried the entire movie. She was a perfect portrayal of loveable crazy. I honestly cannot wait to see the next movie as it seems it will have a Joker & Harley Quinn focus.
Jared Leto's Joker also rocked! He's not in the movie all the way throuh but he is there quite a bit, which is delightful. Heath Ledger still wears the crown IMHO, but Leto definitely has the potential to steal it with a bit more screen time.
Deadshot and Diablo were new characters for me and I really enjoyed both of them. I like Will Smith, I enjoy his comic timing and his expressions so he was a strong addition to the movie. He's no Iron Man, but again I see lots of potential if only the writers were better.
I would have left it at that - dump the croco guy and Boomerang because they were world of lame! I can't decide which of them irritated me more, I think it was the crocodile because not only was he a crap character, but he said everything in that stoopid, slow-motion crocodile voice so he irritated me for twice as long. Ok, Pinky was very funny but it was literally the only thing endearing about Boomerang, definitely not enough for me to care whether he ever got off the cutting room floor again. Hated them both, got it? Sweet.
The Big Bad (Enchantress) was merely a device to make the movie go; it wasn't clever, it wasn't interesting, it wasn't evil, it didn't even have a clever plan. I didn't really mind that the Big Bad was a big flop, I usually just see the baddies as a device to facilitate the heroics of the good guys and then it's a super bonus when the writers do something great and provide us with something special. Unfortunately that wasn't the case in Suicide Squad, but I forgive that too.
Enchantress' alter ego, June Moone, is Rick Flag's true love and Amanda Waller has a line whereby she explains that Moone controls Flag because he loves her, and Waller controls Moone by holding Enchantress' heart...something like that. It's a dreadful line, it's an overly contrived scenario, and the scene breaks the very first rule of creative writing, "show don't tell". Suffice to say, I hated it three times! Why couldn't they just have a gung ho army guy who's loyal to his commander? It works in every other movie. Flag himself, if he's supposed to be a principal character, he sucks at it. The performance was very wooden and overall he sucked monkeys, but not as much as the croc and Boomerang.
Batfleck was in it.
So, Amanda Waller is supposed to be a mean-ass, tough nut...there's a whole lot of breaking that "show don't tell" rule and when she does say or do something bad, the timing of the scene is always off and so the potential dramatic effect is lost. Maybe she'll be a better bad guy next time, but my expectations are not high.
In general the timing is off with these movies and so the humour just doesn't work as well as in the Marvel movies. I want the writers to be better, it frustrates me when things are close but not on the money.
The bad seems to be out weighing the good here, so why did I like the movie? I think primarily because (1) I could see what they were trying to do so I helped it along in my head (2) the music and (3) the strong characters far outweighed the weaker ones.
The music deserves a special mention...it was great! There were a lot of hard-hitting iconic songs, which I loved. That said, a good movie usually has one or two moments where the music kicks-in in a spectacular way and the scene steals the movie, job well done. I love when I'm watching a movie and I'm patiently (ok, impatiently) waiting for "the song" which accompanies "the scene" and I go away happy. With Suicide Squad, the potential for this was there (the movie opens with the super-awesome House of the Rising Sun) but instead of letting the song dominate, they opted to switch immediately to another (albeit great) song, then another, and another... This contributed to the problems of disjointedness and lack of cohesion that permeate the entire movie. It's a shame really. However, while the movie could have been a lot better, overall I found it to be very enjoyable and I fully intend to watch it again! I might re-write it in my head thouh, I think that would help :-)