Film of the Week: Suicide Squad

Warning: Contains spoilers

When the first trailer was released, it looked to be an entertaining film. It did what a trailer was supposed to do. Show you snippets of the film to entice you to see the full feature film. With the footage being cleverly edited around the background song, Bohemian Rhapsody, I thought that WB had learnt their lesson after revealing the entire story in the first Batman Vs Superman trailer. After the initial disappointment with Batman Vs Superman and their sudden redemption trailer with Suicide Squad, I knew that I had to be careful with being caught up in all the hype, and there was a lot of it.

It was one announcement after the other. The Joker was going to be a part of the film, then Batman was rumoured and eventually confirmed to make an appearance, and the same cycle happened with the Flash. We knew that it was going to be a big film from the get go. With plenty of characters, there had to do a lot in a little time. It wasn’t going to be an easy job, which is why they shouldn’t have rushed it.

It has been a common accusation that Warner Brothers is trying to be like MARVEL and they aren’t exactly disproving that with their latest films. To put it bluntly, Suicide Squad could have been a lot better than it was. It had pacing problems throughout, and a couple of characters had next to no backstory, so when they showed up, I had no clue as to who they were. If I had read the comics beforehand, then I would know exactly who they were, but because I didn’t, then they were just there unfortunately. Katana fell victim of having no backstory, or at least some story in general. She just showed up out of nowhere and we were expected to just include her in the group as if we knew just as much about her as we do about everyone else.

After the incredible performance of Heath Ledger’s Joker, everyone knew that it would be tough to follow in his footsteps, but when Jered Leto was cast and we saw a him for the first time in the trailers, I believed they had picked someone who would do the character justice. Jered’s performance was unique enough to differentiate from the rest of the people who’s played the character, but at the same time expelling the Joker’s initial personality which was just doing what he wants and causing havoc because he wants to and it’s fun. That’s what I got from that one small snippet of footage. The final product took away all of that. He appeared, then went, then appeared again, then went. When he was suspected to have died in a helicopter crash, there was no emotional connection at all. The Joker is DCs biggest villain, and probably the biggest villain across all comics, and so to show his apparent death was irrelevant, unnecessary, and completely out of the blue. If he was the main villain of the film and he was shown to have not survived the crash, then maybe there would have been some tension as we waited to see if he would actually return or not, but when he did at the end of the film, it was merely a predictable thing that was played out as if it had us guessing. Batman had more relevance than the Joker and his cameo was less than a minute before showing up again during the mid-credit scene.

All the actors played their part well. Each person brought the character they were playing to life. They successfully translated their personalities to the big screen, but it was the poor pacing problems that let the entire film down. The storyline probably could have been better, but I have no real problems with it. It’s believable and logical, but the way it was told needed to have been a lot better.

It has been noted that Warner Brothers’ executives, after watching a version of the completed film, interjected by saying that they wanted to make it a more family-friendly film. DC is known for being dark and gritty. Whilst the comic books are being read by people of all ages, they have never really done anything as light-hearted as MARVEL has, and that has separated the two and grown their own audiences. It seems as if Warner Brothers are trying to capture the same percentage of audience as MARVEL has, but by doing so they are ruining DC’s core personality, and that’s a real disappointment. Can you imagine what Deadpool would have been like if the studio took away its core personality? There wouldn’t be a watchable film left because it would be jumping all over the place without making any sense whatsoever. Deadpool took a risk, but the fans loved it because the film captured exactly what the comics have been giving us for years. If they did the same for Suicide Squad, then it would have been an epic movie.

Recently critics have been accused of disliking DC films because they are DC films and it’s as simple as that. They are all fan boys of MARVEL, yet the Dark Knight trilogy was incredibly well-received. On Rotten Tomatoes, The Dark Knight has a score of 94% out of a hundred, Batman Begins has a score of 84% out of a hundred, and The Dark Knight Rises has a score of 87% out of a hundred. The Dark Knight, is currently sitting in IMDB’s top 250 in a very respectable 4^th place with a score of 8.9. In keeping with IMDB, Suicide Squad has a score of 7.0, Batman Vs Superman has a score of 6.9, and Man of Steel has a score of 7.2. Don’t get me wrong, all those scores are respectable and should be a cause for celebration, but it does go to show that DC has a strong chance of making even better films that what MARVEL is making. Maybe Warner Brothers should take a step back for a change and see what can be achieved, because I believe their perspective will surely be widened.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns