Breaking Down the Squad

Grab your seats, class is in session.

Been on a bit of a hiatus of late, but the Professor is back to give my thoughts on the latest release from the WB/DC world:

I’m going to lay this out up front, as some of our faithful readers might find it important: I’m a Marvel guy, for the most part. I grew up a reader of Marvel comics, occasionally touching some DC comics, but it was more obscure stuff like Demon and Lobo. That being said, I do have some DC favorites as well. I love the Flash, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow TV shows. I thoroughly enjoyed the Christian Bale Batman trilogy, even with the fairly weak 3rd entry. I put this up front because inevitably someone will accuse me of being a “DC hater” as my opinion of most of their movies of late has not been good. I was not a fan of Man of Steel. I was less of a fan of Batman v. Superman. So going into Suicide Squad, I had very low expectations. Coming out of Suicide Squad?

My expectations were met.

I didn’t hate the movie, I just didn’t like it either. For all of its good, it had enough bad to counter act it. Let’s try to get into what I liked and what I didn’t. As per usual, I’ll do my best to avoid spoilers.

Quick breakdown of what the movie is about, in case not everyone knows. This movie takes place after the events of both Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman. The world now knows that superhumans exist and the government is afraid of the possibilities. The quote from early in the movie is “What if Superman decided to rip off the roof of the White House and grab the President? Who would stop him?” From this, they believe a group must be formed who could do just that, or stop anyone like him. Amanda Waller, the director of a secret government sect called ARGUS (Advanced Research Group Uniting Super-Humans) convinces them the best people for the job is a team of “bad guys”. She believes they can be controlled (in an unpleasant series of ways) and that they will do whatever you want them to. After a brief demonstration, “Project X” is greenlit, and the Suicide Squad is created.

So, what did I like? For the most part, the actors did nice jobs. The most shocking to me was how much I liked Will Smith. I fully expected him to “Will Smith” this role, as he tends to do in most of his movies. Fairly sure most of you get what that means, but if not, it’s pretty simple: he has a tendency to play every character as himself. Not always, for sure, but he does it a lot. Not so much in this one. Yes, there are moments where he does, but for the most part, he creates his own character and does so well. Margot Robbie is very good as Harley Quinn, but I think that’s probably the least shocking thing about it. I was surprised how well she did action though. And the look? Well. Much like anyone with eyes would have thought, she nailed it. In fact my only real issue with her in this movie is her tendency to slip in and out of the accent she was using. That could potentially have been on purpose, but I’m not so sure. When it came to the character of Amanda Waller, Viola Davis turned out to be the perfect choice. She brings the perfect amount of cold-hearted, yet completely calculated awfulness that is needed for this character. The other surprise for me was Jay Hernandez as El Diablo. Hernandez was not an actor I recall being overly familiar with, but he does a great job bringing you on the emotional roller coaster his character goes through in the film.

I also very much enjoyed the visuals. Well mostly, but I’ll come back to that. The bleakness of the areas you spend the movie in really helps set the tone for the overall dark tone of this movie. The prison the movie starts in, where we find all of the Squad, really helps bring out the desperate situation these characters have gotten themselves into. Dark, bare, dingy prison cells, a quarter of the size of a college dorm room. A Hannibal Lecter-esque cell for Quinn. What equates to an iron lung for El Diablo. All of these really give that “end of the line, rock bottom” feeling that these characters have to be experiencing. The desolate, shadowy look of the city during the second half of the movie sets the tone just right, really giving that feeling of what’s to come should the Squad fail.

I also liked the pacing of this movie. It’s a weird thing to compliment, but it is something that makes a difference. With Batman v. Superman, the pacing was not so good. It was disjointed, slow at times, slightly too quick at others – it hurt the movie for me. This movie, however, was paced well. They spend enough time at the beginning explaining who the Squad is, and they move through it quickly enough to not lose your attention. From the middle to the end, there is no slow down that takes away from the movie or feels out-of-place. It all makes sense and flows very well.

Now, the other side of the coin: what didn’t I like. First and foremost, the story and the writing. I can’t get too deep into why I feel this way without giving a bunch of spoilers, but the story and writing, for me, were both very sloppy. Too many “easy way outs” that make zero sense with the way parts of the movie are hyped up. The best example I can give without giving too much away is how heavily stressed something is as being “powerful enough to do whatever it wants” and yet it gets taken down in a most pedestrian way. I think if you see the movie, you’ll see what I mean. I was most disappointed in Jared Leto. Admittedly, I went in not expecting his performance to top Heath Ledger’s, as that, for me, is a near impossible task. I was hoping, however, that his performance would be enjoyable and for me it was not. I loathed, and I mean LOATHED, the way he looked. I get it, you have to try to make things new and make your own look when you take over, but it’s too much. The awful tattoos, the silly “grill” teeth, the stereotypical “pimp” feel to his clothing. Just too much. I also was not a fan of his laugh, but it doesn’t come out too much, so if/when he returns, that much might grow on me. Also, for the amount of use they have gotten out of him for ads and trailers? He isn’t in the movie all that much. He could really be considered “click bait”. While these are two fairly big things, the one thing I disliked the most was Killer Croc. Not only did it look awful, but the portrayal of the character is just not good. I realize you would have trouble doing the character appearance right without CG’ing it, but this felt like they didn’t even really try. The Croc character is supposed to be enormous, towering over everyone else and as wide as a truck. In this, he’s smaller than at least 2-3 other main characters. Not really imposing at all. He’s very difficult to understand when he speaks because of the bad teeth they give him and when you can understand him? You kind of wish you couldn’t.

Overall, it’s not the worst superhero movie I have ever seen, not by a long shot, but it’s also nowhere near the best. As I have said before, I tend to give an overall judgement of the movie based on a simple theory: would I pay to go see it again. Would I pay to see Suicide Squad again? No, I wouldn’t. Would I go if someone else was paying? Yeah, maybe, just to see if my feelings on it change at all. Is it worth seeing in theaters? Depends on how much of a fan you are. If you are a big DC fan and specifically a Suicide Squad fan? You’ll probably want to see it on the big screen. If you are a casual comics fan, I would pass on the theater viewing and wait for rental.

Until next time…

Class dismissed.