Suicide Squad – A review

So I went and saw the latest DC movie to hit theaters “Suicide Squad”.  It covers a group of villains who are brought together by Amanda Waller to take on other ‘meta humans”.  The group is comprised of the following characters –

Harley Quinn

Deadshot

El Diablo

Killer Croc

Captain Boomerang

Slipknot

Col. Rick Flagg

Katana

The main villain is Dr June Moon/Enchantress, who wants to get back at humanity for imprisoning her and her brother in Idols, and for not continuing to worship them.  This movie also features Batman, The Joker and Flash.  This movie has all the markings of being DC’s version of Marvels Guardians of the Galaxy(a group to expand past the main comic players, as a way to broaden the DCEU).

The movie continues Warner Bros. dark take on the DC Comic Universe, with the majority of the movie shot in the night time hours.  The movie starts off with flash backs to introduce each character, which is a very effective way to bring in the audience and make them understand that the “good guys” are also very bad.  Margot Robbie, Will Smith and Viola Davis stand out as Harley Quinn, Deadshot, and Amanda Waller respectfully. Jay hernandez who plays El Diablo, is just below the three stars, as the conflicted criminal with possibly the best back story as to why he doesn’t use his powers.  Jared Leto who plays the Joker, has some interesting scenes, and almost reaches the heights set by Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger.

The movie suffers as all Zach Snyder movies do, in that it is very choppy, and the editing is overly dark.  some of the best scenes that were shown in the trailers, did not make the final cut of the movie(which hurts some of the comedic impact).  There is a mid credit scene, which is VERY Important in the furthering of Warner Bros FINALLY tying the DCEU together in the movies as Marvel has over the past 5 years.

The critics have given this movie such bad reviews that DC fans are trying to get web review site Rotten Tomatoes shut down because it has scored so low.  This movie leaves me rather conflicted…..it was good…but it could have been so much more.  Warner needs to pull Zach Snyder off comic book movies, because it is obvious he does not understand them at all.  there were individual characters that nailed it, but overall, it is way to disjointed to say it is a memorable film.

In March 2016, Warner Bros announced that there will be a sequel made with David Ayer directing again, and Will Smith playing Deadshot.  there is also talk of a Harley Quinn solo movie in the future.

I give it 3 out of 5 stars