Suicide Squad (2016) Review

Suicide Squad was definitely one of my most anticipated movies of the year. Although the other reviews were awful I was confident that it couldn’t be as bad as everyone said. Well, it pretty much was.

The movie begins with Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) telling a government about the Suicide Squad members. I was very disappointed to find out that the way Warner Bros. and DC decided to introduce the villains of infamous Suicide Squad was with narration during this scene. Doing this was extremely lazy and cliché. I refuse to believe there isn’t a more creative way to introduce these interesting characters. The movie got a little better as it went on but it stayed very formulaic and basic. Suicide Squad brings nothing new to the table, which is disappointing considering the premise and is different from most superhero movies. The film became very repetitive, trying to hammer into our heads the fact that the villains feel love too, which honestly is way too cheesy for this dark of a movie.

I felt like Warner Brothers and DC treated the audience like they were dumb. For example in one scene a helicopter explodes with Joker and Harley Quinn on board. Amanda Waller watches the explosion and tells the rest of the Squad they are dead. The remaining characters just accept that as fact and move on. So they are really not going to check the crash site for the bodies or do a little more investigating? Are we as an audience really supposed to think that The Joker, Batman’s biggest nemesis and one of the main selling points of the movie is dead? No. And of course the Joker comes back at the end, to no surprise. There were many other plot holes and times in the film where DC was just forcing the audience to accept facts that didn’t make any sense. The after credits scene was also extremely disappointing, as it was just another teaser for Justice League and showed absolutely nothing of substance to get me excited. DC really needs to reevaluate the direction they are going with their cinematic universe and should consider breaking away from Zack Snyder’s style.

The only redeeming factor of Suicide Squad was Margot Robbie’s unbelievable portrayal of Harley Quinn. She was so fun and I was grinning anytime she spoke. I could watch an entire film just with her character. Jared Leto’s performance was great too, but the Joker character was a bit off. He didn’t feel as devious as Heath Ledger’s joker and also didn’t get nearly enough screen time.

Suicide Squad, for me, was a pretty big disappointment.

DC had an opportunity to do something different and make a new kind of superhero movie. Instead they made one that is formulaic, unoriginal and in some parts, a little boring. Although there was more humor than in previous DC films, Suicide Squad proves once again that Marvel is far superior. C

Directed by David Ayer

Starring: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Jai Courtney, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cara Delevingne