The Suicide Squad Rides Again
Those were the words of Deadshot on CW's Arrow on the seventeenth episode of its third season. The team from the series isn't exactly composed of the same players as the movie which I just watched and pretty much loved.
First off, seeing a rating of 6.8/10 on IMDb for the movie got me to lower my expectations enough to be surprised. I would have given it around a nine if not for a couple of small things here and there and well one very major issue with the movie. Still I would give it around an eight out of ten.
Before I start speaking of all that is good and awesome with this movie I have got to hit the bad first and get it off my chest.
First off Jared Leto's performance as the Joker is Okay at best. There is nothing extraordinary about his role, neither is there anything extraordinary about his performance. And when I say extraordinary I mean extraordinary enough to make me care for his character or its existence. In fact I was always excited when the focus of a scene shifted from him or a scene that he was party to was just over with. In my opinion there are two issues that caused the comparative failure of Jared Leto's in the portrayal of the Joker:
- First and foremost he had great shoes to fill. Heath Ledger's joker makes Leto's look nothing like a good portrayal. Let me put it in other words. I loved Christopher Nolan's and Christian Bale's Batman trilogy and I loved it for the performance of Christian Bale. But when I watch the second movie in that particular series, The Dark Knight, I watch it for Heath Ledger's unparalleled performance as the joker. Jared Leto will not be remembered as the Joker, no way that could happen. He wasn't even thinking of how his role in specific will be put to a lot of scrutiny if not done well given that everyone remembers Heath Ledger's joker for how great it was.
- The other reason is and again in my personal opinion I believe the role was poorly written and should have been written way better. If you read my posts about the writing for Superman in both Man of Steel and Batman Vs. Superman, you will get what I mean here. Whoever wrote this character for the movie does not care enough for the character to write it out well. The psychotic nature of the character wasn't clearly portrayed in the writing and while the crazy that the joker is was there it was a bit corny.
The second issue and it is extremely minor compared to the first is the Batman Scenes with Ben Affleck were poorly done. This was clearly an attempt at making them consume the least possible amount of time so as to focus on the main story which I understand but a few more seconds and a little more effort would have made them better.
The third issue there was the issue of Katana. Even though on Arrow the name Katana was never mentioned we always knew especially once she put her mask on that Tatsu Yamashiro (portrayed by Rila Fukushima) was in fact Katana from the comics. The portrayal of her character on the movie was no where as good as the portrayal on the series. DC needs to really consider these little things when making movies and series where a character has already been portrayed before and where the writing and acting will end up in a tough comparison with a great performance in the same role in the past. However, this is not a big deal since her role in the movie was very trivial in comparison to the rest of the squad.
Last but not least, and this one is not really about the movie but the post credit scene doesn't seem to be as exciting as those of Marvel's. The scene teases the Justice League movie and how Amanda Waller of A.R.G.U.S. in a conversation with Bruce Wayne gives him a folder with information on the members of the upcoming Justice League movie. DC needs to learn how to put the right post credit scenes in their movies by taking a lesson from Marvel. But besides that, the usage of such post credit scenes after every single bit of possible information has released about the upcoming movie was just not really something that could get me interested.
This is all the takes I have on the movie. Now we need to look at the positives in the movie from CGI to writing to acting:
- DC finally did something different with the level and quality of comedy it adds to their movies. They increased the dose and it works for them. Deadshot (Will Smith) and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) were just hilarious all the way through.
- The How to Get Away With Murder lead Viola Davis portrayed Amanda Waller so well. The woman seems to have a nag for roles in which you just feel she is both good and bad and you are always confused as to whether you want to see her alive or dead. The portrayal in the movie definitely beats the one in the Arrow TV Series.
- While giving us the Suicide Squad the writers did not forget to give us a background story for each and everyone of them, some had shorter background stories than the other, but in the end the movie did succeed to familiarize non comic book fans with the characters which was great.
- Cara Delevingne did a good job as the supervillain and antagonist in the movie, Enchantress.
- Until i was done watching the movie, I did not realize that Jay Hernandez portrayed Diablo. Jay Hernandez has always been an actor I believed could do much better with his career but he just never cared enough. But seeing him in that role proves my point. The way he talked, his voice, and of course the make up fooled me into not realizing who the actor behind the character was. So all I could say about him is he pulled a great performance to a great and very interesting character.
- Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje who many may remember as Mr. Eko on the hit TV series lost did a great and very hilarious job at times as Killer Croc.
- The cameo appearance for the Flash capturing Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) was decent and Boomerang had his laugh out loud moments in the movie as well.
All in all and like I said, if you are going into the movie and expecting a great Joker, you will be disappointed. He is not even part of the squad, something that could have made the portrayal of the great villain a lot more than it really does. If you are the kind of person who will judge the movie on one or two or even three small mistakes then again, it is not the movie for you. But if you are a hardcore comic book fan who wants to see a mostly high quality portrayal of your favorite characters and/or you are someone who accepts and understand the facts that every movie has its shortcomings then go ahead, you will love it.
Thanks for tuning in and I hope you liked this review.
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