One of the most awaited superhero – or in this case supervillain – movies hit theatres worldwide in August after months, and I mean months of promo. But alas, the movie could not live up to its hype. Although Suicide Squad has done well at the US Box Office, securing the top position for a second weekend at $466 million, it has not fared well with film critics and the audience in broad terms. What can very well be described as a movie, whose official trailer pretty much encompasses every worthwhile scene there is and leaves little to be excited about in the rest of the movie, is a time-pass at best.
So how does one summarize it? Basically, the movie picks up from another much critiqued DC movie Batman VS Superman: Dawn of Justice, when it suddenly dawns upon the United States government: What if the next Superman turns out to be a terrorist? What can we do to protect ourselves?
Here’s the immaculate solution: Why not use a group of dangerous, crazy and lethal super villains to do our bidding by offering them some time off their sentence? There it is, Suicide Squad is broadly a movie about a bunch of supervillians running dangerous black-op missions for the government in return for clemency.
Let’s try to get past the super weird storyline. I mean after all one can look past a weak storyline if the execution is good. But unfortunately, Suicide Squad again falls short.
Let’s talk about the characters. If Viola Davis won an Emmy for her performance as Professor Annalise Keating in How to Get Away with Murder, I don’t know why she delivered such a mundane and mediocre performance in this film as Amanda Waller – the brains behind the entire get the villains to do good scheme. Then there’s the Suicide Squad itself comprising of Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Diablo, Boomerang, Killer Croc and a few others who have little to no dialogues in the entire 2 hour runtime. Out of the entire squad, when it comes to getting into character, only Deadshot played by Will Smith and Harley Quinn played by Margot Robbie embrace their characters, stand out and deliver a good performance – with Deadshot’s humor and Harley’s crazy personality making up for the lacking direction. Others are just there along for the ride.
And let’s not forget about The Joker portrayed by Jared Leto. With months of teasing us about his transformation for his role in the movie, and several promotional posters, the movie is a travesty to Joker’s character. Jared Leto did a good job playing a demented, crazy yet a shrewd villain – making it one of his most eclectic roles yet. But unfortunately for all the Joker fans, he neither had a central role in the movie nor did he have a supporting one in all honesty. The only time The Joker got some screen time was what we’ve all pretty much seen in the trailers and the posters. His scenes were flashback ones mainly and those too with Harley Quinn in them. Nonetheless, Jared managed to pull off the character in its entirety from the looks to the ever so maniacal laugh.
What’s probably the worst part about Suicide Squad is the main villain ironically ‘The Enchantress’ played by model turned actor Cara Delevingne. In what seems to be a performance that will make you cringe, Cara massively fails to deliver a believable performance. Apart from the fact that the main crux revolved around this group of villains trying to defeat a supernatural entity, the Enchantress herself together with her brother, turns the already disappointing movie into a laughing stock with scenes that involve Cara moving in a belly dance-esque motion while casting a spell to build a machine to end the human race.
Overall, the movie surfaces best as a time-pass. It does, however, have its moments with one-liners, a good soundtrack and slow-mo action sequences that are a treat for the eye. But one would expect much more from a DC offering. The movie follows its official description “inevitably turning into chaos”.
We can only hope that DC can regain its magic and give us something good to talk about in Justice League but so far Marvel has been taking the cake and eating it too.
Rating: 3/5