Suicide Squad review

Director: David Ayer
Running time: 123 minutes

A wasted opportunity with a few nuggets of redemption

Much like Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad is probably an idea better in concept than it ever could be in execution. A film about an ensemble of comic book bad guys as the main protagonists has never been done before, and the trailers were effective with its dark tone and offbeat characters.

Set after Superman's death, the government assemble a group of some of the most villainous characters from the DC lore, and send them into Midway city to defeat an enigmatic entity.

There are moments when Suicide Squad works, but those moments are few and far between. There is little action to really speak of, sure there's a few gunfights before the eventual final showdown with the main villain (one of the most generic in a comic book film). But none of the action is exciting, it's all blandly generic with no weight behind it because the story is scant at best, and the characters motivations are weak meaning that nothing much is ever really at stake.

It isn't helped when the locations are so boring and contained, only about three or four streets and a skyscraper actually take place in the empty city of Midway.

The first twenty minutes of the film are by far its best, as each of the characters have small monologue introductions alongside bizarre choices of music (some work while others are just distracting). Because of its snappy pace and exposition, in its entire run time the beginning of the film is the only time when anything feels engaging. Of the ensemble of characters, only two of them are actually interesting, and it is these characters that save the whole thing from being criminally bad.

Will Smith's screen presence and zippy line delivery just about brings Deadshot to life, an otherwise hokey character who has a daughter he misses (shown through a number of flashbacks). He's the only character with any form of a story arc, and the one with the most screen time and emotional connection to.

Margot Robbie is fine as Harley Quinn, the star attraction and probably the only character those not too familiar with the DC universe might have a vague recognition of. Her role is more or less eye candy with an abundance of one liners for comic relief, sometimes it works but other times it just comes across as flat, and trying too hard. The script doesn't really do the role any justice.

Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) is impressively intimidating as the government official who is co-coordinating the entire operation. Who would have thought she'd turned out more villainous than the actual suicide squad.

Those looking forward to the Joker (Jared Leto) will be disappointed, who is nothing more than a glorified cameo with less than ten minutes of screen time. Appearing as a mob boss cloaked up in jewellery and colourful attire. I wasn't too impressed, the character wasn't frightening or funny, just creepy, so I'll need to see this interpretation in a bigger role.

The other characters might as well be wallpaper, characters with props and little else. The lack of any real action set piece doesn't help because it means the non existent character development can't be glossed over. Killer Croc, one of the most fearsome Batman villains literally has nothing to do.

And the plot is a bit of a mess, suffering the same problems that Batman V Superman had, where the narrative is full of scenes that offer nothing to the central plot, and with subplots introduced and forgotten.

All in all, Suicide Squad is mildly entertaining, the casting is nigh on perfect and it is by no means a bad film, but one with huge wasted potential that doesn't live up to the hype that proceeded it. By the time the credits rolled I wondered what the whole point of it was.

Verdict: 2.5/5