Suicide Squad

I had not watched Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice before attending a screening of the superhero action fantasy film Suicide Squad. I had heard about the comics, but didn’t really know the story. I knew that it was about a team of super-villains, but nothing really else. Oh, and that the team featured the Joker and Harley Quinn. Other than that, I didn’t know what to expect. Mainly I wanted to have a fun time and to be entertained.

The story centres on a group of super-villains who are forced together to fight crime for the government. They each have a microchip implanted into their necks which means if they step out of line, the microchip can kill them.

Now, I have not read any of the Suicide Squad comics and have seen some bits of the Arkham games, so I was not really knowing what I was going to witness. What I did see was a great superhero movie. I’m not very big on superhero movies, but I couldn’t pass on not liking this because the action and story and characterisation was so dark, superbly suiting the tone of the film. DC movies are much more adult than Marvel, having that dark atmosphere and themes to their films, and not even just films, their comics and games, as well, have a harder edge than Marvel do. Marvel tend to be a bit tongue-in-cheek with their humour, but DC has very little which is humorous. In fact, I didn’t laugh whilst watching this movie, and it doesn’t try to be a comedy. I found myself quickly falling in love with these characters. What was flawed, I think, was the backstories, some of them were lingered on, some of them sped past like they wanted to get to the main action faster and didn’t care much about that certain character. I would have liked it more if they had made the backstories as long as each of the characters to get to know them better. Plus, it was a bit obvious after introducing a character in the main plotline, showing a flashback to their life. That’s a minor niggle, mind you, because you can get past that.

Will Smith did an excellent job of Deadshot, the contract killer who has a great way with guns. I particularly liked his backstory where we find out how much he loves his child. Plus Batman has a nice cameo in his story, as well, which didn’t realise was going to happen.

Harley Quinn was one of my best characters, if not the best. As played by Margot Robbie she’s just absolutely brilliantly maniacal. I really liked when she was with the Joker. And yes, she was sexualised, she always is, either in comics games or (as now is the case) a movie. So you do get a lot of eye candy from Harley Quinn at a pole dancing club, for example. Also, it is meant for a more mature audience, hence the 15 rating. What I especially like about Harley Quinn is how she loves danger, and here she again flings herself into apparent doom, and is relishing every minute of it. Also, she does have one of the funniest scenes where she’s in an elevator fighting baddies and all the Squad are worried about her. When the door opens they see her standing there and are gobsmacked as she reacts like nothing happened. That was a bit funny.

Talking of the Joker, I was really sad about this. Jared Leto did an absolutely magnificent job of portraying the (in)famous villain, but his screen time was really short. It would have been great if we had seen more of him. I liked how he protected Harley Quinn.

Going in to this film I didn’t realise there were going to be some really dark aspects to this. Ok, this isn’t A Serbian Film, but when permanent death in a superhero film happens, which you are not expecting at all, it did rattle me a bit. I won’t say who dies, but it is a bit sad.

The effects are superb, apart from El Diablo’s fire, which is clearly computer generated, but could’ve been a lot worse. This is a flawed film, it’s not the best superhero film out there, but it’s really close. Now that I’ve seen this I really want to watch Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice.