After months of anticipation, Suicide Squad, directed by David Ayer, opened this August with a bang, breaking box office records and promising to put an original spin on a popular subject.
Suicide Squad tells the story of a team of supervillains forced to perform dangerous missions for a shady organization run by the ruthless Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) for shorter prison sentences—but also because Waller will make their heads explode if they don’t.
Ensemble movies have a lot of characters and balancing each character requires a finesse that Suicide Squad manages to obtain on some level. However, characters like Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) were sidelined or relatively unexplained and underused compared to characters like Deadshot (Will Smith) and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), who were the central focus.
Another character that felt underused, especially considering the promotional material, was Jared Leto’s interpretation of the Joker. For all the marketing teasing the Joker as the main villain, he was little more than a side character. Regardless of his minimal screen time, Leto’s Joker proved to be intriguing, crazy, and very different.
The film’s main problem is its structure. Like most films, it consists of three acts, but with Suicide Squad, these acts are: backstory/exposition, character development with flashbacks, and final battle (with more flashbacks). As you can tell, there are many flashbacks scattered throughout the film, fleshing out characters like Harley Quinn. While mostly interesting and purposeful, they sometimes feel too random and break the flow the film.
The first act consists of backstory for each of the characters, with special attention paid to the biggest stars. Each character is fascinating for their own reasons, but the amount of attention paid to each one is flawed. Killer Croc is featured in the backstory, but he hardly says two lines for the rest of the film.
The second act feels like it tricked the audience into thinking it was actually the third and final act, but then threw a curveball and said “nope. This is the third act.”
Despite its unspoken promise to be different, the final scenes of the movie feel like that of any other superhero film, where the heroes (or in this case villains) must come together of their own free will to stop the antagonist from destroying the world, having already laid waste to the current location (usually New York City).
Certain characters were able to shine in the final act, but the ending felt contrived, like a missed opportunity.
There are several things about this film that are detrimental, such as tone, which flops between dark and humorous, but there are redeeming qualities. The actors shine in their roles, particularly Smith, Robbie, and Davis. Another strong point is that all the prominent themes are done justice.
David Ayer has had his hands full since last year’s San Diego Comic-Con, when the he released the first footage and raised fan expectations tenfold. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to meet those expectations, but he did create a fun, likeable movie. If you like Harley Quinn (and you should), then for that reason alone this movie is worth seeing.
