If “Suicide Squad” is supposed to be fun, kill me now. It’s as much of a mess as “Batman v. Superman,” the other entry in the DC Comics Cinematic Universe this year. Director David Ayer’s film has no attitude, no wit, and though it’s a movie about bad guys, does not even have the pleasure and fun of bad taste.
As the story of a team of screwball, misfit villains teaming up to save the world against their best interest, “Suicide Squad” wants to be an anti-hero remix in the vein of this year’s “Deadpool.” But it also has the irreverent, pop sensibilities of “Guardians of the Galaxy,” the overstuffed dream team burden of “The Avengers,” and why not throw in some “Fast and the Furious” or “Scarface” for good measure?
Reports have surfaced about studio meddling that resulted in a shortened writing period, expensive reshoots and versions of the film edited by a company that makes movie trailers. And it shows. “Suicide Squad” patches together story threads, cinematic styles and even a classic rock soundtrack pulled straight from a Spotify playlist, and it never comes together into something coherent or compelling.
If this were Marvel, they would’ve released separate prequel films introducing each of the six (or how many are there, really?) villains. In “Suicide Squad,” Ayer devotes the film’s first 20 minutes to the CIA’s Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) rattling off their bios in procedural fashion. Each gets some baseball card stats (Rick Flag golfs with a 3 handicap, would you look at that?), a dry one-liner and a classic rock song (Deadshot gets “House of the Rising Sun” for no reason in particular) . They play like trailers for movies we’ll never see, with Ben Affleck’s Batman and Ezra Miller’s The Flash making cameos in a few of them.
This is true for all six, except of course for the ones the movie forgets to introduce, like Kitana, who just show up halfway through. And even she ends up having more to do than the “official” Suicide Squad members Boomerang (Jai Courtney), Diablo (Jay Hernandez), or Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje).
Both Deadshot (Will Smith), a ruthless assassin and hit man who never misses, and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), a flirtatious pixie with red and blue streaks in her white pigtails who can toy with men and then break them, emerge as the film’s protagonists. It’s their job to lead this team of supervillains in the event of…a terrorist Superman? Waller feels she can control them, but ends up letting an ancient spirit called The Enchantress (Cara Delevingne) loose to wreak havoc.
It’s a flimsy plot to say the least. And though these are all new characters with incredible powers, the film copies Marvel again and resorts to dumping its heroes into a war zone to fight off hordes of ugly, CGI puss bags of enemies. We’ve spent 20 minutes seeing how special these guys are, and all the action they can deliver is the same bland mix of martial arts and gunplay?
Just as erratic are the movie’s melodramatic diversions to Deadshot’s daughter, Diablo’s wife or, most notably and oddly, Harley Quinn’s love affair with The Joker. Jared Leto relishes the opportunity to go full method as The Joker, but his work is more an impersonation of Heath Ledger mixed with Tony Montana. Following Harley’s backstory, the movie halts in its tracks to show The Joker as a gangster kingpin of a Gotham nightclub. Later, Harley reflects on a scene in which she was willing to die for The Joker. He dives into a vat of paint to rescue her, and they embrace in a colorful display like they’re suddenly part of a music video. The Joker’s appearance feels more like a glorified cameo. These moments could all belong to their own movie and certainly have no place in one.
As frustrating as the film’s disjointed plot and haphazard character introductions are, the real missed opportunity in “Suicide Squad” lies in the film’s tone and attitude. The beginning of the film at least suggests that Ayer wants to have some fun, and Deadshot and Harley take down prison guards with gleeful gusto. But that all gives way to over stylized neo-noir and slow motion bullet time in the rain. The same could be said of the villains, who never do anything specifically bad. They spend inordinate amounts of time brooding over their melodramatic pasts. Visually and thematically, it’s a sad departure for a movie that suddenly wants to be epic and dramatic instead of irreverent.
“Batman v. Superman” might not have been any fun, but “Suicide Squad” certainly tries to be fun, only to fail so miserably. Turns out it’s not good to be this bad.
1 ½ stars