Suicide Squad

David Ayer’s Suicide Squad is the third film in the current DC Cinematic Universe, also known as the DC Extended Universe, also known as Zach Snyder’s Murderverse (so named on account of Zach Snyder’s Man of Steel (2013) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)). In a world where the movies about our most iconic DC Comics superheroes are dark and unpleasant, only the movie about a team of villains dares to be fun and colourful.

Following the events of Batman v Superman, ruthless government official Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) assembles a team of convicted supervillains as a deterrent against future threats. It’s just like The Avengers, only with criminals, and Hawkeye having the most useful powers! These supervillains consist of sharpshooter Deadshot (Will Smith), the Joker’s crazy girlfriend Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), human sewer gator Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), pyrokinetic El Diablo (Jay Hernandez) and Flash adversary Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney). Also joining the team is vigilante swordswoman Katana (Karen Fukuhara), Special Forces operative and team leader Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) and Enchantress, an evil witch possessing the body of Dr. June Moone (Cara Delevingne).

The entire cast gives great performances; there are faults, but overall one enjoys the acting and appreciates the casting. Will Smith’s coolness excels for his confidence and humorous sarcasm, while appearing tough and portraying Deadshot with sympathetic qualities. Margot Robbie’s performance is pretty much what fans would expect of Harley Quinn – perky, insane, sexy, deceptively dangerous, with a grin befitting of the Joker’s girlfriend. The one thing that may throw an audience member off is her impersonation of the character’s accent; the general performance doesn’t have this accent, so when it does surface it seems out of place. From a storytelling standpoint these two characters are focused on the most. While introducing the characters, the first act lists off the team members in the form of a series of flashbacks (with onscreen stats that go by so fast one can barely read them), revealing Deadshot and Harley Quinn to have the most humanising qualities due to their personal motivations, and therefor audience cares about them the most. The closest any other characters come is El Diablo and Rick Flag – El Diablo being held back by guilt, and Flag having an undeveloped romance.

In Killer Croc’s case, he appears large, muscular and threatening, with a crude savage fighting style, as the character should, but he is barely given dialogue until the last third of the film. It is probably a good performance on Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s part as he is a skilled actor, but unfortunately the audience is not given enough focus on Croc to appreciate it, and thus he ends up as a hunk of scaly muscle in the background, without much of a character, for most of the feature. Jay Hernadez, as mentioned, plays a character plagued by guilt. The character’s skull face tattoos can hide expressiveness to an extent, but simultaneously allows the emotion to come through his eyes, exaggerated by the black socket tattoos around them. Hernadez does well at portraying defensiveness over tragedy under a subdued demeanor. Captain Boomerang is basically built up as a comedic member, fighting with the others but perhaps meant to be ineffectual as he was portrayed in the comic books, but with a tough rugged exterior. In this version he doesn’t seem to have an Australian accent as his character came to have in the comic books, though in fairness it is possibly just not such an obvious one. To be honest, it’s more of a disappointment that he doesn’t throw many boomerangs! Cara Delevingne can express the duality of Dr. Moone’s vulnerability and Enchantress’ coldness, and she is a fair belly dancer (which I’m sure is totally necessary for casting spells). Adam Beach takes the part of another villain, Slipknot, but the story gets rid of him almost as soon as he is introduced. While he only exists in the movie to illustrate part of the situation, one may feel compromised if they also consider this a waste of a character.

And then there’s the recasting of Jared Leto as the Joker. Now, when the character was shown in trailers, not everyone was keen on the redesign, as it went from the energy, smart dress and ear-to-ear grin of Jack Nicholson and the unruly hair, makeup and “cheap suit” of the anarchistic Heath Ledger’s Joker to a pale, creepy guy wearing a grill in his teeth and tattoos all over his face and body. By the time of the film’s release, one can assume audiences will have gotten used to the look and accepted it as another interpretation of the character design. While the Joker in most media is presented with the traits of being scary, a genius and funny at times, this version of the Joker is more on the scary side, perhaps not intended to have that comedic element. “Why so serious?” Leto’s portrayal of the character has eyes like daggers and feels unpredictable, but the guy seems so intense that one has to wonder why he’s called the Joker, aside from the occasional creepy laugh, which Leto does excellently. The most Joker-esque part is where he laughs maniacally as he and Harley drive like maniacs around Gotham. If Lex Luthor was turned into the Joker in Batman v Superman, who is the Joker in this film?

The action is built up with some tension and there is a fun element to it, mixing it up with energy and a little bit of humour. What one may feel is a little boring is the faceless minions of Enchantress, essentially zombies with heads that smash like stone for some reason despite them being so squidgy. If you’re not interested in guys with guns shooting swarms of zombies, you may not be too interested here. In all fairness, these enemies are shown to pose a threat to our heroes to an extent, although realistically these alone should not pose a great threat to a group of supervillains backed by Special Forces. For some reason, Killer Croc seems quite held back in the first few action scenes when he should be wailing on the creepy creatures. Two of these action scenes take place within mere seconds of each other, seeming too frequent and improperly paced.

The visuals are welcoming. Character and costume designs are changed up somewhat from the comic books, but they stand out nonetheless. One such change is Deadshot having both his eyes, with the eyepiece is on his left eye instead of his right… Worst adaptation ever. Worst adaptation ever! Harley Quinn’s costume has been criticised for sexualising the character, which is irrelevant since she has always been sexualised to an extent. At one point during the flashback of Harley’s backstory, the film pays homage to the artwork of Alex Ross on the cover of Batman: Harley Quinn (1999), the character’s first appearance in the main DC Comics continuity, and a famous cover. Enchantress and Incubus’ (Alain Chanoine) glowing eyes are effectively creepy, especially when the characters are silhouetted. Captain Boomerang’s blue “captain” hoodie seems a little silly, but it looks quite good with the heavy jacket over it. There are great uses of colour in certain scenes and throughout, and colour grading is sweet and simple. Some special effects are quite creative too, like in the shot of Dr. Moone’s hand as she transforms into Enchantress.

While the visuals, characters and humour is enjoyable, the story component of the film has its downsides. Positives first. Certain cameos are made in the flashbacks, which are effective to the situations and well portrayed. The characters may behave badly, as they well should, being villains and all, but they are humanised (some more than others, given the focus on them) so the audience can sympathise with them and wish for them to survive and see them succeed. There is some clever subtext around Harley Quinn and the Joker that suggests a certain background and helps to illustrate her as a complex character.

The major negative is that the plot makes little to no sense. The premise of the story is to form a team to counteract metahuman crises. Not only is the team not briefed on what it is causing the crisis, their initial mission isn’t even to stop it. It seems they’re given very little information that would allow them to be helpful and are sometimes even told to stand back while the Special Forces fight. Why have a team of metahumans if you’re not planning to use them?

The climactic action scene has some interesting features, in particular a revelation about El Diablo, but since the origin of his powers is ambiguous in this movie, until this point at least, one unfamiliar with the comics may wonder how this revelation is possible. Since the team is given no information on the magical threat, they have no specific way of winning the day, and so the solution is generic and lazily conceived given the circumstances of the supposedly godlike supernatural villain. The scene is not particularly well written, such as Deadshot telling a man to get out of the way while they’re trapped under Incubus’ foot, and then there’s the general stupidity when, instead of staying at a safe distance, Enchantress walks right up to one of her enemies who is kneeling where she threw everyone’s weapons not seconds before, leaving her wide open to attack!

The Joker subplot, though resolved (with what is probably an obvious twist), essentially goes nowhere. There is potential to integrate the Joker more into the story instead of building up to nothing. It does give Margot Robbie a couple of emotional moments to work with, but the subplot itself is not used to its fullest potential. This next point is relatively minor: there is a joke in the trailer that was left out of the film, where Harley serves the team some drinks, like beer for Killer Croc and a shot for Deadshot, and El Diablo, whose power is fire, asks for water. It’s a decent joke, and if anything the types of drinks they order supposedly reflect their personalities in some way, so it’s a shame it was taken out.

There is a question one must ask in response to Incubus’ transformation. Why is it in movies, such as those that utilise horror themes, when a man keels over on the street, the people who try to help him are those who die because of it? What kind of message does that send? Be a decent human being and you die for it? Why is this a recurring thing?

Suicide Squad is an entertaining movie. It is well acted, humorous, has energetic action, a likeable visual style, well-crafted mise-en-scène, and the soundtrack is a fantastic selection. The dialogue has a few unfitting lines but is not bad overall. It is a breath of fresh air from the last two films of the DCEU and what films are surely to follow in the series. Its failing, however, is of a fundamental component: the plot. The majority of the journey has no connection to overcoming the problem, therefor the ways the protagonists ultimately defeat the antagonists range from lazy to stupid. For a movie about a team, it really only gives two of these villains the focus necessary for the audience to genuinely care about them. The plot feels like it belongs in the dark age of comic book cinema, before it was truly beginning to be taken seriously. To the film’s credit, there is effort put into its subtext, and the characters are enjoyable. On principle, one can’t praise the film too much on account of its lack of plot. Recognising that, it is a thoroughly entertaining picture. These conflicting opinions make it difficult to decide whether or not to recommend it. Its merits are truly in its cast, characters and style rather than its basic storytelling.