Film Review - Suicide Squad (2016)

Suicide Squad is based off of a DC comic and stars Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis and Jared Leto among others as the US Government representative Amanda Waller seeks to establish a special task force in case Superman turns evil again but this group will be hard to control.

I was very 50/50 going into this movie as DC's Cinematic Universe much like Marvel's in 2008-2012 has gotten off to a very rocky start for I was not a big fan of Man of Steel whilst I warmed to Batman V Superman with the extended version but I was looking forward to Jared Leto as the Joker so could this film turn the ship around for DC or are there still rocky waters ahead.

Well I hated this movie and for these reasons:

- Firstly the film is just so lifeless on screen to the point where it feels like your being hit over the head with a hammer and it makes your head hurt, none of the scenes ever really felt like they came alive for me and the storytelling here was pretty weak with a lot of flashback segments in the beginning that in some cases could've been their own film and then grinding the whole thing to a halt in the middle act and then crafting a boring CG filled climax.

- Secondly the action is thuddingly noisy as it is constantly filled with LOUD MUSIC THAT PLAYS EXACTLY LIKE THIS!!! and after a while it all just got too much for me and it added I think to the being hit over the head feeling I elaborated on in my previous point and also the film has this attitude towards women that for me made me very uncomfortable after a while which also didn't help matters.

- And lastly I really didn't like a lot of the performances, Smith as Deadshot didn't really register for me all that much, Robbie went way too over the top as Harley Quinn, Jai Courtney did a really cringeworthy Aussie accent as Captain Boomerang (Courtney himself is Australia but this was way too cartoonish) Joel Kinnaman basically did the "Army Officer 101" act as Rick Flagg while Ben Affleck basically had a glorified cameo as Batman.

But there are two performances in particular that disappoint me one of those is Leto's as the Joker and that character has always been fun over the years whether he was played by Jack Nicholson or Mark Hamill or the late Heath Ledger but this time Leto barely did anything nor did he have any meaningful screen time and for me I just hate it when such a great character like the Joker is wasted in this manner.

The other is Cara Develeigne as the Enchantress and frankly she was not very good in this film and again another Super Hero film suffers from having a weak villain and boy oh boy oh boy am I getting sick to death in so many ways of this.

I will say however that Davis as Waller is a terrific performance but again its one that basically has Davis sitting around a desk barking orders and making threats and it feels like a bit of a waste, hopefully a more meaningful role will come in the future for this character.

And so that was Suicide Squad one of my least favorite films of the year so far, 1 out of 5.