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This year seemed to promise the rise of DC Comics movies, with both the heroes and the villains getting films to take on Marvel’s box office-dominating superheroes. After Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice failed to impress audiences with its dark, uneven story, attention turned to the villains of Suicide Squad. But, unfortunately, they don’t have much more to offer.
Suicide Squad joins some of the worst of the world’s metahuman bad guys as they’re brought together to battle their own kind. Under the direction of Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), they’re recruited for a secret task force to take on deadly missions in exchange for shortened prison sentences. Of course, for prisoners serving three life sentences, that isn’t a whole lot of incentive. But when one of the members of the task force turns against them—and all of humanity—they have to choose whether to step up and fight together or give up and walk away.
The idea behind Suicide Squad is brilliant. After all, the bad guys often get to be more outrageous, more over-the-top, more entertaining than the good guys. So a movie with a whole bunch of them together should be both action-packed and wildly entertaining—and, at times, it is. It’s loaded with supervillains, ranging from delightfully evil to downright dull—and they’re brought out one after another as the story is set up.
In this huge ensemble cast, there are plenty of hits and misses. Margot Robbie steals the show as wonderfully wicked Harley Quinn, while Will Smith makes a charming bad guy in his role as Deadshot, the hitman with a heart. And Viola Davis gives the film its backbone as the government agent who’s often just as ruthless as the villains she’s commanding. Unfortunately, though, other characters are seriously lacking in villainous charms. Many of them are entirely forgettable—and, despite months of teasers and crazy behind-the-scenes reports and hype, Jared Leto’s Joker is surprisingly unimpressive.
But the film’s greatest disappointment is its perplexing plot. Nothing here really makes sense—from the reasoning behind the squad’s formation to the underwhelming threat that they face. It should take a pretty terrifying villain to get a bunch of bad guys to race into battle together—but Cara Delevingne’s Enchantress is mostly just moody and aggravating, like the ancient witch version of an angry goth teen whose mom wouldn’t let her borrow the car to meet her friends for fro-yo. And instead of building up a team of demented bad guys for more deliciously evil romps to come, it simply introduces a group of intriguing characters before setting them loose in a story that’s about as sensible and structured as the thoughts bouncing around the Joker’s twisted mind (but not as much fun).
Though DC continues to build its cinematic universe, determined to create a Marvel-like box office powerhouse, this year’s releases have proven that they still have a long way to go. There’s definitely promise here—but, first, they need to take a step back and work on their stories.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
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