Suicide Squad - The movie

Started by thalaw2, December 03, 2014, 03:03:51 AM

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spydermann93

Quote from: stumpy on August 11, 2016, 10:55:51 PM
Took part of the afternoon off and saw this today. I generally enjoyed it. I agree with the earlier assessments about the movie trying to shoehorn quite a bit into the allotted time.

A couple quick comments:
Spoiler
I was surprised how many Joker-related scenes there were.

Captain Boomerang was sort of wasted in this movie. Not that he should be a lead or anything. But, aside from being a minor agitator within the group, he served no purpose and didn't display any particularly useful or unique abilities that explain why Waller would especially want him on the team.

Amanda Waller was played as  pretty evil. I know that it's realistic to portray her as someone who rationalizes her actions as serving some positive goal. But, they didn't really pull any punches. Which is probably the right tone for the character and for the movie, but I am not used to seeing that in these comic book-based movies.

The end credits Easter egg seemed somewhat poorly motivated. Bruce Wayne already has information on the metahumans and we saw that in B v. S. I don't really see him cutting a deal to hide Waller's culpability from what happened in Suicide Squad in order to get information that the World's Greatest Detective either already has or could certainly get on his own.

Spoiler
There were a few Joker scenes, but they weren't extremely prevalent.  The ones that I could remember were: the one where he and Harley are in that strip-club and the Joker kills that Thug-dude for "disrespecting the Queen", the one where he and Harley are being chased by Batman, the one where he's in his Knife-Apartment and he's told where Harley is, the one where he breaks into Belle-Reve to disarm Harley's neck-bomb, the one where Harley jumps into the vat of chemicals and he jumps in after her, the one where he saves Harley via Helicopter Minigun, the one where he gets shot down in the Helicopter and pushes Harley out to save her, and some last scene where he is actually alive despite having blown up 30 stories above the ground.

Captain Boomerang was pretty much a waste. The only thing he brought was a pink unicorn which was funny because "ha! A grown man with a pink stuffed animal. How hilarious!!!" Honestly, though. I liked the unicorn scenes. Charmingly funny. Other than that, he was what? Comic relief? Right, because we didn't get that from ANYBODY ELSE IN THE CAST (Deadshot, Harley, heck, even Killer Croc at times). At least Slipknot served a purpose (blowing up to show that those devices are, in fact, lethal)

To be fair, those records probably had info on where Flash and Aquaman lived, making it easier for him. Sure, he probably could have found them himself, but I don't know. It's just easier, I guess?

BWPS

The Joker was so bad, worse than Lex maybe. They should take both their Oscars.

Other than that, a really "good" movie. Like not actually good good but it was more enjoyable than I thought. I'll watch it again probably.
I apologize in advance for everything I say on here. I regret it immediately after clicking post.

bat1987

Definitely an enjoyable movie. A lot of stuff going on, but still it's less messy than BvS. Harley Quinn was really good IMO, and so was Waller. Joker, I'm still not completely sold on.

It also probably has one of the best soundtracks in recent memory

JeyNyce

Quote from: Tomato on August 08, 2016, 12:19:14 AM
So I was a bit hesitant to see this one, so I watched a bit of it off a camrip... not the whole thing, but enough to know this one's worth seeing in theaters

Shame on you for doing that , it was worth going to see in theaters just for Harley Quinn.
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Tomato

Quote from: Tomato on August 08, 2016, 12:19:14 AM
So I was a bit hesitant to see this one, so I watched a bit of it off a camrip... not the whole thing, but enough to know this one's worth seeing in theaters

I still haven't gone yet, but that's more because of financial issues (which will finally be sorted by next paycheck) so at this point I might just wait for the DVD to watch the whole thing... still, I liked what little I did see of the film (about 30 minutes or so), and I stand by what I said about seeing it in theaters. It's just a shame I felt so burned by previous DC films that I couldn't trust them enough to just see it.

Glitch Girl

Saw it actually a while ago.  It was... a movie I guess. 

Spoiler-free impressions

The good:
Will Smith (basically being a surly Will Smith, but it worked)
Margot Robbie
Viola Davis (great as Waller, too bad the movie had her doing some amazingly stupid things)

The bad:
The villain
Two members who get NOTHING to do
The climax
The logic flaws
The pacing (and basically the plot)
The Joker's laugh


Now for the more spoilery review
Spoiler

I find it odd that I didn't put the Joker himself on my "Bad" list because it certainly wasn't a memorable performance, but the thing is, there were brief moments where it worked.  Very brief, but they were there.  Unfortunately most of his performance made me think of Marylin Manson as most of the time he lacked the sheer personal enjoyment of his mayhem that I think is critical for a successful Joker.  Seriously, the man needs to learn how to smile.   Most of the time he fell squarely in the "meh" category.  Even his laugh wasn't very memorable, and THAT is a crime. 

As for the plot, I think a big chunk of it could have been fixed by rearranging a few things: Have Enchantress be the first attempt, it goes awry, but no one knows about Waller's involvement, she says she can fix it, creates the Suicide Squad AND introduces the nanite element to ensure that we don't have another Enchantress incident.  Sadly though, that doesn't change the fact that Enchantress is a pretty boring villain.  Once she escapes and releases her brother, she spends most of the movie just gyrating in front of an energy field and occasionally doing mind tricks.  Bleah, 

I did like the blinky hat though.

Sadly both Katana and Captain Boomerang are so extraneous to the plot they could have been replaced by lamps and it wouldn't have made a difference.  Seriously, Katana's whole shtick is cutting things, so who cuts out Enchantress' heart at the climax?  Not Katana.  Cap Boomerang is barely there except for the rare bit of humor and a drone and the part of the climax where someone has to throw a bomb, not him. Why? I don't know.  Killer Croc isn't given much to do either, but at least he serves a purpose during the big climax fight. 

Poor Slipknot... He didn't even get a profile introduction.  His only purpose was to show the nanites work.  What a frickin waste.

I mentioned logic flaws and sure there are some you can ignore if you're being entertained but I found many of these to be distracting.  things like
- If this group is supposed to be in there as a force that can be easily disavowed if things go south, why are they running with government troops?
- Why didn't Waller use the nanites on Enchantress (or at least her host body) as well?
- Why did ANYONE let Waller do anything after Enchantress got loose and is destroying the city (they all saw her at the briefing so they knew about her)
- Why the @#$%^ did Captain Boomerang come back after leaving at the bar?

Despite all this, I didn't hate the movie.  I didn't love it by any means, but I was relatively entertained.  Whenever Deadshot or Harley was on screen things were fun.  Some of the title work was very nice, and the use of music added a lot, even though it did peter out as we got to the climax (which was utter garbage as far as I'm concerned).  Wouldn't see it again unless it was a slow Saturday and it was on TV, but don't feel like I should demand my money back.

-Glitch Girl

"Cynicism is not maturity, do not mistake the one for the other. If you truly cannot accept a story where someone does the right thing because it's the right thing to do, that says far more about who you are than these characters." - Greg Rucka

JeyNyce

At this point Tomato, you might as well wait for the DVD/ Blu-ray release so you can see the stuff that were deleted from the film.  All I have to say is Viola Davis deserves an award for being the best Amanda Waller on film or TV.  I was scared of her most of all
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Silver Shocker

#127
Haven't seen the film, but I have some things to add regardless:

Not surprised Viola Davis killed it as Waller. She had a lot of push to be in the role because of her work on How to Get Away with Murder. As for being the best actress to play Waller, that's not saying much. The one on Arrow wasn't very good. Jey, would you say she was better than CCH Pounder from JLU? Because I always thought she was perfect.

Regarding Slipknot:

Spoiler
I just assumed he'd only be in the film to get blown up. Not only did they do the same thing with another character in both the Assualt on Arkham animated movie AND Arrow, but that was his role in the comics too (though in the comics, he only got his arm blown off.

[Edit: Got the name of the tv show wrong. ]
"Now you know what you're worth? Then go out and get what you're worth, but you gotta be willing to take the hits. And not pointing fingers, saying you're not where you want to be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that, and THAT AIN'T YOU. YOU'RE BETTER THAN THAT!"
~Rocky Balboa

stumpy

Quote from: Silver Shocker on August 27, 2016, 09:16:03 AMJey, would you say she was better than CCH Pounder from JLU? Because I always thought she was perfect.

Agreed regarding CCH Pounder. She was a perfect Waller in my view. It's hard to compare the animation and voice work to live action, though.
Courage is knowing it might hurt, and doing it anyway. Stupidity is the same. And that's why life is hard. - Jeremy Goldberg

daglob

CCH Pounder is on NCIS New Orleans. I think she could handle it.

Da Glob, who remembers her from "Lifepod"...

HarryTrotter

Quote from: daglob on August 27, 2016, 11:11:46 PM
CCH Pounder is on NCIS New Orleans. I think she could handle it.

Da Glob, who remembers her from "Lifepod"...
There is a New Orleans spinoff?That franchise just wont die...
I always thought Oprah should have been Amanda Waller.
''Even our origin stories have gone sour.''
Jon Farmer

JeyNyce

Quote from: stumpy on August 27, 2016, 09:32:04 PM
Quote from: Silver Shocker on August 27, 2016, 09:16:03 AMJey, would you say she was better than CCH Pounder from JLU? Because I always thought she was perfect.
Agreed regarding CCH Pounder. She was a perfect Waller in my view. It's hard to compare the animation and voice work to live action, though.

CCH Pounder has the best voice for Waller, but I hate to admit it, she has gotten too old to play the part.  If they had the movie while she was doing JLU, then she would have been perfect.
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detourne_me

She was really great on The Shield too,  a morally ambiguous figure of authority.  Perfect for Waller.

Silver Shocker

#133
So I just saw the film, and uh....I really thought it sucked. Not just because I'm a huge fan of the classic comics (which this attempts to adapt very loosely) but also because it's just a bad movie that bungles its premise spectacularly. The group I watched it with, including my non-comics reading friend who has no significant prior knowledge of this property, also thought it sucked. Honestly I thought BVS was better by a large margin (and that's not a very good film either).

I found GG's assessment of the film very on point.

Let's get the very specific, but notable positives out of the way:

1. The acting from the major characters was excellent. Will Smith give it his all, sold many of the film's various amusing zingers (which comprised the bulk of what I actually enjoyed in the movie). Viola Davis was perfect casting for Waller, couldn't have asked for a better actress for the role, regardless of the writing. Jai Courtney was surprisingly enjoyable as Captain Boomerang, a purely comic relief character (and while I found the unicorn thing stupid, it at least consistently got a chuckle out of me.) And Margot Robbie could not have been a more spot-on Harley Quinn if they dubbed over her voice with Arleen Sorkin or Tara Strong. Jared Leto did a good job with his very specific take on the Joker, even though I don't like it.

2. The soundtrack for the movie was rad. Lots of really great licensed songs. Unfortunately, it's a double edged sword as it was blatantly obvious DC wanted to make it more like the trailers and more like Guardians of the Galaxy.

3. Enchantress was really cool and interesting....for the first twenty minutes. I'll touch more on her in the spoiler section. The sequence where she grabs the guy in the subway bathroom, for example, looked really cool, and I quite liked her "Ring" ghost-inspired design in the film.

4. Ben Affleck's cameos as Batman were the best part of the movie, even though one of them raises some plot hole questions.

5. While I didn't like how he looked or his accent, Rick Flagg was very well written and actually surprisingly true to the comics. I feel very confident in a better version of this movie he would have been the male lead instead of Deadshot and the film would have been better for it.

6. As a fan of the original comics, Slipknot's role was almost perfect, except for two fairly minor negatives that hurt it a bit.

7. Harley and Joker's relationship was handled pretty well in the movie, regardless of how it is worked into the overall narrative. It's also touching in a twisted sort of way that he seems to care about her more than in other iterations.

8. Some of the stuff involving Deadshot and his daughter was cute.

9. Harley Quinn/Margot Robbie was hot. Might as well tack that onto the end.

Let's get to the negatives, most of which will be spoilers. And for the record, I am fully aware this movie was heavily re-edited before release including reshoots, which might be the cause for some of the negatives.

1. The pacing and editing in this movie is weird at times. Particularly the first twenty minutes. I'm not convinced the first onscreen appearance of the Joker in the film was originally meant to be the character's debut, since it lacks any kind of visual gusto. He's just *poof* on screen in a wide shot. Compare to Heath Ledger's entrance in The Dark Knight or really any of the shots of Joker seen in the trailers.

2. Most of the team added nothing to the film. Several of them (I'll say who in the spoiler section) are underdeveloped characters who lack proper motivation and don't display skills that would make them a good match for this mission.

3. I didn't like Jared Leto's Joker. I just didn't like his look, mannerisms, or voice, and I don't have any strong desire to see more of him in a later movie. My assessment of him is consistent with my assessment of him prior to release.

4. Pretty much all of the dramatic moments that don't involve Harley Quinn and Deadshot (and at least one or two that do) feel forced and don't ring true at all, a few scenes hinge on character motivation that just isn't in the movie and the musical score and use of slow mo somehow managed to ham it up to an almost parody-level.

5. Without spoiling (that comes later) the opposition the squad faces outside of the Joker sucked. Bigtime. This is actually the thing that sinks the movie the most by a huge margin.

6. The premise of the Squad in this universe, that they would be used to fight Superman or the next Superman-like threat that pops up, makes no sense. Other than Enchantress and maybe El Diablo, noone in this team would last 10 seconds against Superman. The movie neither addresses this nor subverts this.

7. The action scenes sucked. Other than the obnoxious amount of slo-motion, there was no style, visual flare, or impact to any of the fight scenes. The whole thing looked about on par with an episode of Arrow at best, and maybe if they didn't spend what had to have been a substantial amount of money licensing those songs to make it seem like Guardians, we might have gotten better action. Say what you will about Zach Snyder's story and character sensibilities, the guy is an excellent visual storyteller (as many people have pointed out, as tiresome as it was to see Batman's origin again, Zach Syder made the best looking version in any film.)

Spoiler


8. Why the hell did Deadshot spare Harley's life? It doesn't make any sense, since the characters have barely interacted together at this point and doing so could jeopardize him getting to see his daughter again which is what he wanted in the first place.

9. The movie managed to bungle one of the core concepts of the Suicide Squad: the bombs. In other iterations, they can go off if the characters stray off too far from mission parameters, but here they only seem to be activated by remote, which would suck if the phone used for this was dropped, lost, stolen or smashed. And what do you know? Rick smashed his in the bar scene.

10. Why in the world did Captain Boomerang come back after the bar scene? Ignoring a joke about him coming back like a boomerang, he has NO reason to do this considering Flag smashed the phone and it's widely out of character for him. He was also so incapable in combat outside of the cannon fodder monsters that it makes me wonder why he's in the Squad or the movie at all other than comedic relief.

11. I didn't like Waller shooting the people in the vault, or Rick Flag being seemingly ok (or ok enough) with it. It also seemed weird considering he had an earlier scene bucking authority with Waller early in the film and this would have been a good spot to play into it.

12. Everything involving Enchantress and Incubus outside the first 20 minutes was a hot mess. You guys thought the Marvel villains sucked? These two make all of them look like Dinofrio's Kingpin. Incubus barely did anything and didn't even really need to be in the movie, since you could have just had Enchantress be the villain by herself. Their endgame and what they were doing was vaguely defined. He and Enchantress's bizarre later form (which was not integrated into the narrative well at all) looked ridiculous and unappealing, and I would have enjoyed it a lot more if Enchantress used her first design for the whole thing. Her bizarre movements didn't help matters either. The two of them are paradoxically too powerful and not powerful enough for this movie and this roster of the Squad. They knew they were going to have to fight her (this might have been different in a different cut) and yet they chose a roster we should have no reason to think could beat them. Yet they managed to beat them using bombs, guns, bladed weapons and El Diablo's powers. That, plus the disposable canon fodder and the fact that noone dies outside of Slipknot and El Diablo makes it feel like there's little stakes or emotional investment to any of what's going on. June Moon being alive after Rick destroyed the heart felt like a cop-out that cancelled out any kind of character arc Rick had other than smashing the phone in the bar. I would have liked the film a lot more if Enchantress fought along side the Squad and they fought one or more different, drastically less powerful foes (such as Joker, or as my non-comics reading friend suggested, Bane). For crying out loud, they did reshoots for the third act and the third act was the worst part of the movie.

13. As GG said, Waller was really stupid in this. She kills several of her own people in cold blood for no good reason other than "they knew too much and this was outside of their clearance" right in front of Deadshot and Rick, the later of which she has (as far as we know) little to no leverage against. It just doesn't make any sense to me. If she was really going to have them killed, why not do it later, more discreetly? And then later she conspires with Bruce Wayne (who she knows is Batman) to cover up the invasion even though, again, she has no good reason to do this since alien invasions and monsters are kinda public knowledge in this movie universe. And if it was simply because one of her own operatives (Enchantress) caused the whole thing, then, as GG said, why have the Squad march through the middle of the street with an armed regiment instead of a more covert approach such as an airdrop and secure-on-site? It doesn't make any goldarn sense.

14. The whole slow motion scene at the end with Deadshot firing the shot, overdone as it was, missed the opportunity for a key visual that would have given Deadshot a nice coda to his character arc. Why didn't he shoot his gun through the head of the hallucination of his daughter? The whole scene seemed to be going in that direction, and it ties back to the flashback with Batman. The only possible reason I can think of for it not being there (and I think this is pretty likely) is the ratings board wouldn't let them put that in and keep a Pg-13. 

15. Katana, Killer Croc and Boomerang had no character development outside of the bar scene and no reason to be in the movie outside of the fight scenes and comic relief. It felt like a wasted opportunity, especially for Boomerang, who not only is a Suicide Squad mainstay, but is a Flash villain (which they establish in this film), meaning they could bring have brought him back for the Flash really easily with a built-in motivation for revenge. Sure would have made more sense than him joining the final fight for no reason.

16. Regarding Slipknot:

A) He should have gotten a profile screen so it'd be more of a surprise to people who didn't know about that scene in the comics (or you know, noticed his extremely limited role in the marketing) And guess what? Originally he would have and they cut it out!

B) Why the hell did Boomerang attack the soldiers and try to run? He put himself at risk for no reason when he could have just waited to see if Slipknot got his head blown off (which he did). I don't buy that he needed to do it to convince Slipknot since he seemed pretty convinced as it is. The scene made Boomer look stupider than it should have, and while Boomer's kinda stupid in the comics, he's not thatstupid (and of course, did no such thing in the comics)

17. Why would they bring Deadshot, whose sole skill is that he never misses a gunshot, on a mission against Enchantress, who they know they're going up against, when they already have a bunch of army guys, including Rick Flag?  The only real value of such a skill would be sniping, and Deadshot never gets to snipe anything outside of the scene where he's supposed to get a killshot on Harley (which he deliberately doesn't do)


So yeah, I really didn't like it, and I was totally expecting to enjoy it more than I did. Really disappointed  by that. The Batman: Assault on Arkham animated movie was a much better adaptation of Suicide Squad.

On that note: here's the Honest Trailer. Naturally, spoilers abound. I'll say this, I hated the movie, but I love the Honest Trailer for it.

[Edit] Now I really want to know what Tomato will say about the film when he watches it in its entirety. He said he saw 30 minutes of it (the first 30 minutes?) and the first 30 minutes just so happen to be the only part of the movie that's good.

Edit 2: Electric Boogaloo: While I'm waiting for a reply, I'm going to make two predictions:

1. If Benton ever sees it, he's going to absolutely hate it, but reluctantly acknowledge that everything about Margot Robbie except her visual design (and maybe how sexualized she was) was awesome, and maybe praise Viola Davis' performance as Amanda Waller (but not how she was written, since as we've established, this Waller is kinda stupid).

2. Tom will hate everything after the first 30 minutes except Harley Quinn and Joker, which he'll love, and Viola Davis' performance as Waller, and maybe Affleck's final cameo..
"Now you know what you're worth? Then go out and get what you're worth, but you gotta be willing to take the hits. And not pointing fingers, saying you're not where you want to be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that, and THAT AIN'T YOU. YOU'RE BETTER THAN THAT!"
~Rocky Balboa

BentonGrey

SS, interesting review.  I imagine that's probably fairly accurate, from what I've heard. 

Here's the Honest Trailer for movie.  It felt pretty spot on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdiFhv3gsyo

As for your prediction, I'd wager you're right about me.  :)

What makes all of this even worse is just how awesome the original comic is.  I just finished the first volume, and it is one of the greatest comic runs I've ever read.  It's up there with the 70s Claremont X-Men. 
God Bless
"If God came down upon me and gave me a wish again, I'd wish to be like Aquaman, 'cause Aquaman can take the pain..." -Ballad of Aquaman
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HarryTrotter

We now know the movie will get a spinoff based on Gotham City Sirens.Which sounds great,but from everything seen so far,I cant say Im optimistic.
''Even our origin stories have gone sour.''
Jon Farmer

Silver Shocker

Benton: I actually posted the link to the Honest Trailer in my own post. But yeah, that's probably one of my favorite Honest Trailers of all time.

Yeah, the original Ostrander comics are great. I've read the first 4 volumes and the Deadshot miniseries and they're good stuff. I've got Vol. 5 coming in the mail in early January. I was really intrigued to learn that the actual plot of the movie draws from Ostrander's stories but the execution just wasn't good at all.

Spade: Yeah, I heard of that, along with Will Smith's Deadshot supposedly getting his own movie. The Gotham City Sirens is supposed to have Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. I'm fine with both of those Smith and Robbie were great in the roles (even if Will Smith was very Will Smith-ish) and I'd like to see them in a better movie.

One other very quick thing I didn't touch on from the film:

Spoiler
Flash's cameo was great. It was only like 2 seconds, but it was a lot of fun. Between that and the Justice League trailer, I'm actually optimistic for Ezra Miller's Flash movie, DC/WB's just gotta find a way to get a director who will stick around and get it made.
"Now you know what you're worth? Then go out and get what you're worth, but you gotta be willing to take the hits. And not pointing fingers, saying you're not where you want to be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that, and THAT AIN'T YOU. YOU'RE BETTER THAN THAT!"
~Rocky Balboa

BentonGrey

Haha, whoops, sorry SS.  It deserves mentioning twice, though.  ;)
God Bless
"If God came down upon me and gave me a wish again, I'd wish to be like Aquaman, 'cause Aquaman can take the pain..." -Ballad of Aquaman
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