Suicide Squad (August 2016)

Official Australian release date: 4/8/16. Viewed: 4/8/16.

Director: David Ayer

Actors: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis

Genre: Action / Comedy

Rating: M

‘Suicide Squad’ is on par with ‘Batman v Superman’ (if you didn’t mind that, you won’t mind this and if you hated that, you probably won’t like this either) and the film acts as its sequel and a stop-gap until ‘Justice League’ comes out next year. It’s also DC trying to compete with Marvel’s ‘Deadpool’ which was MA and about an antihero who kills people – although this is only rated M. Still, a few people are killed and there’s plenty of violence, but it probably has more in common with ‘Ghostbusters’ than ‘Deadpool’.

The film does a great job of introducing the characters in the first 20min, with everyone getting their own song and “profile”, and each of them gets a bit of backstory as the film progresses – Deadshot (Smith, an assassin), Harley Quinn (Robbie, Joker’s girlfriend, in those amazing “pants”), Joker (Leto, with his metal teeth making him sound a little like Ledger), Boomerang (Courtney, doing his best Tom Hardy in ‘The Revenant’ impression), Diablo (Hernandez, pretty much Human Torch), Killer Croc (Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and Enchantress (Delevingene, a witch). There should’ve been more of how Batman (Affleck) put them all in prison, but he only gets 2min screentime, and the Joker not much more – obviously setting up a Joker v Batman film somewhere down the line. Waller (Davis) is the true villain and she manipulates well to get this “team” together and “controlled” by Flag (Kinnaman) to go on a rescue mission, that soon turns into a suicide mission.

The main issue is the “ultimate” bad guy is one of them – Enchantress. She creates a swirling vortex-thing that we’ve seen a million times and they have to stop her. The problem is the same for all superhero films – why not call in the rest of the heroes? In this case, where are Batman, Wonder Woman and The Flash? The tone is sometimes light and funny, but then gloomy and “we’re still the bad guys and are still probably going to die” the next. It doesn’t ruin the film, but sometimes makes it hard to read. The soundtrack is great throughout and often keeps the tone fun. The action and fight scenes are done well, but the film probably outstays it’s welcome by 10min. No one, even Smith, hogs too much screentime and it definitely doesn’t always work, but is a mostly fun ride.

Overall: Not a bad comic book movie.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.