Suicide Squad

[Guy Profumo]

Went to see it yesterday evening.

Can't understand the criticism of it, it is what it is. 4*

Minor (first scene) [spoiler]

Interesting cameo from the Bat showing he is prepared to directly shill for Uncle Sam in this one, something Bruce usually opposes, that. The (ab)use of state power.

[/Spoiler]

[Guy Profumo]

Suicide Squad

Well.

I enjoyed it.

(Apart from the bits with Cara Delveigne in it as her one-dimensional "Human" counterpart to her two-dimensional "Supervillain")

[Louis Van Faartle]

Suicide Squad

A little clunky in places but it was fun. I don't get all the hate for the DC movies. I've enjoyed them all so far.

[RobW]

Suicide Squad

Your Usual Table wrote: I thought it was a train wreck. Apart from the terrible acting and dialogue, it was so clearly chopped up and reconstituted in the editing room that parts of it were unwatchable. Warners attempts to catch up with Marvel remind me of the Gabbo episode of The Simpsons when Krusty tries to upstage Gabbo with a puppet of his own only for the decrepit, ugly thing to disintegrate in front of him and horrify his audience.

Broadly agree. Thought it was dull and terribly written.

[Patrick Thistle]

Suicide Squad

I thought it was OK. Low expectations because of the reviews I'd seen on here and elsewhere.

It suffered from 'best bits were in the trailer syndrome' and confusingly some bits from the trailer weren't in the film. Plot was a tad simplistic, although I liked the sort of twist over who they were rescuing. Also the cameo appearance by a different DC hero was cool.

There were several tropes that have appeared on our very own movie clichés thread. Also the nanite device was very Running Man/ Battle Royale derivative. Virtually the same thing was used in Kingsman last year. Introducing a member of the Squad without any of his back story was a bit of a giveaway about what would happen to him.

I'd give it 6/10

[Incandenza]

Suicide Squad

The trailer vs. the film: the trailer was cut by an outside company that specializes in trailers. The movie never really had that tone. Warner Bros. thought that Batman vs. Superman would be a mega-hit (it did make a lot of money, but they were counting on it to gross $1b), and they were thinking that Suicide Squad would be able to be it's own dark movie that maybe wouldn't read a wide audience. They freaked out after BvS largely disappointed everyone, and went back to the trailer company for them to edit the film. They panicked because their DC movies are struggling against the Marvel films. They ended up with what I've heard is a jumbled mess that is obviously the result of no one coherent vision.

That's the big overview of what is written about here: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/suicide-squads-secret-drama-rushed-916693

[EIM]

Suicide Squad

POSSIBLE SPOILERS, BUT PROBABLY NOT REALLY, DUNNO, DEPENDS WHAT YOU CLASS AS A SPOILER, PEOPLE GET SO PRISSY ABOUT IT THESE DAYS

I saw it twice, because I've given up drinking and I've got nothing else to do with my time. I'd heard it was disappointing, but I had zero expectations so couldn't really be disappointed with it. It was a mess: the editing was all over the place, the plot utterly bizarre, some of the characters were an exercise in making up numbers, others not explained enough. But I still quite enjoyed it. It was Avengers meets the end of Ghostbusters, really, and that'll fill the time it takes me to drink a bucket of Fanta well enough.

Deadshot. What an odd portrayal from Will Smith. The French Prince of Gotham City. Less a dead-inside assassin for hire, more a wise-cracking gun-toting hero. Who didn't do much deadshooting.

[Reed John]

Suicide Squad

Louis Van Faartle wrote: A little clunky in places but it was fun. I don't get all the hate for the DC movies. I've enjoyed them all so far.

DC's problem is Zach Snyder. He's not a good director and he doesn't understand the characters at all. Their casting has been very good and a lot of the decisions they've made have been right, but the execution in the writing especially has let them down. It's still very savable under other directors.

Besides, not all of the MCU are gems. Fantastic Four was terrible - both the original and the reboot -and Ant Man was nothing to write home about.

And DC is doing way better with DTV animated movies and episodic television than Marvel.

I haven't seen Suicide Squad yet. I'll probably wait for it to be on Netflix or on-demand.

[EIM]

Suicide Squad

I really liked Ant Man. Second only to Guardians of the Galaxy in my TOP MARVEL COMIC NERD FILMS list.

[Reed John]

Suicide Squad

EIM wrote: POSSIBLE SPOILERS, BUT PROBABLY NOT REALLY, DUNNO, DEPENDS WHAT YOU CLASS AS A SPOILER, PEOPLE GET SO PRISSY ABOUT IT THESE DAYS

I saw it twice, because I've given up drinking and I've got nothing else to do with my time. I'd heard it was disappointing, but I had zero expectations so couldn't really be disappointed with it. It was a mess: the editing was all over the place, the plot utterly bizarre, some of the characters were an exercise in making up numbers, others not explained enough. But I still quite enjoyed it. It was Avengers meets the end of Ghostbusters, really, and that'll fill the time it takes me to drink a bucket of Fanta well enough.

Deadshot. What an odd portrayal from Will Smith. The French Prince of Gotham City. Less a dead-inside assassin for hire, more a wise-cracking gun-toting hero. Who didn't do much deadshooting.

Deadshot was among my favorite Batman villains as a kid. In the comics, he's been portrayed a couple of ways, but the most interesting is as a kind of wealthy and cocky playboy.

[jason voorhees]

Suicide Squad

LOVED Ant Man.

Not only was it something to write home about, it was enough to drive home and take the home to the movie.

Brilliant B Film, of which, I have a very special decked-out part of my soul dedicated to brilliant B films.

But yes, I have no idea how that putz (Zack Every Film Sucksyder) got handed the keys to everything.

Just take the guy who did the 90s cartoon...look how that worked out for Brad Bird.

[ian.64]

Suicide Squad

Ant-Man was a perfectly acceptable and very enjoyable Friday Night flick. If the Avengers movies were heavy main courses, Ant-Man would be the tasty starter.

I've yet to be won over by the DC Universe as the element of fun appears not to have been allowed in by the assembled masses of writers, directors and producers. Man of Steel and Batman v Superman were wonderfully produced vehicles that laid on the technical quality with a trowel yet imposed this sludgy faux-important gloom over it that neutralised any attempt to truly enjoy them. Ironically, in Batman v Superman, the character I enjoyed the most was Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor (the supposed weak element in the movie) because his performance almost seemed to communicate the need for some scripters to feed him snappy one-liners (I'm being geeky, goofy and awkward, won't some please throw me some jokes to chew on?). As for Zak Snyder, well, his Watchmen adaptation was a long, long journey with a great movie hidden somewhere in it, but I recommend his Day of the Dead remake as it remains his best flick: funny, scary and very well made. After that, huge, effects-filled blancmanges of varying quality.

I haven't seen Suicide Squad (sooner or later, I will), but I'm not too encouraged by the reviews, or the reportedly choppy, shambolic nature of the film. I would like to hear a comment or two on Jared Leto's Joker character, because after all the pre-movie bumf about how he sent dead birds and other unpleasant stuff to fellow cast members in attempts to 'method' himself into the role, reviews suggest just another 'ooh, look, I'm nutty!' turn you can find in other thrillers.

[ian.64]

Suicide Squad

Cheers, CV (or Table), very informative. I daresay I'll see Suicide Squad in time to see if I'll be nodding in agreement with you. I could avoid it, but sometimes there's a weird satisfaction in having suspicions of cinematic dodginess confirmed. Believe it or not, I'm one of those doofuses who can't really rest until that question 'is it really as bad as they say it is?' is eventually answered.

[Reed John]

Suicide Squad

Indeed, Bruce Timm's 90s cartoon is the best overall film/TV interpretation of Batman, and for that matter, the early 90s Superman is probably the best Superman. The later Justice League and Young Justice series Timm and his people did are also good templates for what DC wants to do now. A bit simplistic to be just turned flipped page for page into live action movies for a broad audience, but the general tone and the characters are always right on.

The Christian Bale ones were very good, but it's not really possible to expand his version into a wider universe.

Heath Ledger's Joker is the best. Way better than Jack Nicholson. Other than that, the animated version voiced by Mark Hamill is the best.

Gotham has taken it in another direction whereby The Joker isn't one character but more of an idea that has appeared in several characters. It's not clear if they will do an origin story for The Joker as such.

[Patrick Thistle]

Suicide Squad

Couple of things. Not all "Marvel" films are Marvel Comic Universe (MCU) films. They sold the rights to some characters to other companies. Fantastic Four films e.g. are made by other people.

Jared Leto's look reminded me very much of the comic books and animated Jokers. He was a bit one-dimensional. In the same way it was never adequately explained why Harley Quinn adopted an annoying mall brat personality after the Joker electroshocked her into 'madness' or even whether she really was mad. On the one hand she was referencing voices in her head in a way that was played for laughs; on the other she steals a handbag and then says "What? We're bad guys. It's what we do." So is she genuinely mentally affected or is she just acting out?

I'm not sure the editing was so so terrible, on a level far above other films. Maybe that's reflective of the poor quality of movies generally.

I didn't see Batman v Superman. Seeing the Batfleck in this doesn't make we want to see it.

[Patrick Thistle]

Suicide Squad

The more I think about it the more questions I have.

SPOILER ALERT (just in case)

What was the point of the Katana (?) character? No explanation why she would be involved and she added nothing to the film.

One thing that really jarred was Waller's disposable attitude to her tech staff. It's a fairly common trope for government senior officials to shrug off their collateral damage or even allow it to happen. "They didn't have clearance" is a lame excuse.

How lucky there was a Navy Seal willing to make the supreme sacrifice and detonate a bomb. This often happens in movies but in a movie called Suicide Squad, Unnamed Navy Seal 3, was the only character to live up to the film's name.