We have seen a multitude of superhero movies in recent years, from the ultimate good guys, bad-ass anti-heroes and revisionist takes on the genre. Now there is DC's Suicide Squad, a team of bad-guys who have to do high-risk missions for the American government.
Suicide Squad picks up where Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice left off. Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) is a senior government official who wants to create a team of meta-humans to do the dangerous missions. Her recruits include Deadshot (Will Smith), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), El Diablo (Jay Hernandez) and Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). The team is called into action when an incident devastates Midway City and to ensure compliance the members have an explosive device implanted in their necks.
Suicide Squad is at best in its early potions when Amanda Warner introduces us to the members of the squad before their recruitment. It was an expository sequence but it was made with energy as it shows the backstories of the members of the squad, showing their rap sheets in brightly coloured text and embracing its comic book source material - there is a great homage to a famous comic book painting by Alex Ross.
Warner Brothers went full out when searching for its cast and crew, getting David Ayer to write and direct and forming an all star cast. Will Smith and Margot Robbie got the most attention as Deadshot and Harley - Deadshot display Smith's on screen charisma, a smart mouthed criminal who knows how to play hand when negotiating with gangsters and the government. He was one of the most well defined of all the characters, having a rivalry with Rick Flagg (Joel Kinnaman), a Special Forces soldier who thinks the hit-man would run off. For fans of Smith you get more of what you like. Robbie was a perfect as Harley Quinn - speaking with exaggerated Brooklyn accent Robbie portrayal was like previous iterations in Batman: The Animated Series and the Batman: Arkham games, being a crazy minx who has unhealthy relationship with The Joker. Hernandez was also a standout as El Diablo, a man who wants to suppress his powers and seek some sort of redemption.
Viola Davis and Jared Leto were also great in their supporting roles and hopefully we shall see more of them in the DCEU. Amanda Waller, a Machiavellian woman who would do anything to survive and protect 'national security' - she can become the DCEU's Nick Fury, a woman who does not have any super powers but can handle her own in a world of superheroes and villains. As she says in the film she has a talent for getting people to act against their interest. Leto is a terrific actor, but it was an unenviable task of replacing Heath Ledger as The Joker. Yet he succeeds - Leto's version of The Joker is a cruder and more sadistic character, someone who enjoys violence. The Joker was spurious to the plot, he was only introduced to the film so he can be ready for future DCEU films.
Other characters were poorer presentations. Akinnuoye-Agbaje is a huge bloke and physically looks the part as Killer Croc, but the character may as well not have appeared in the film - he was just a thug and had no characteristics. The pitch of voice was lowered too much to be believable and it became distracting. Delevingne was miscast as Enchantress . Her human alter-ego is meant to be an archaeologist, but she looks like barely graduated from High School let alone have a PHD. When Delevingne first appears as Enchantress she had a creepy look to her, having a dark complexion and black smoke whirling around her. When Enchantress has her completed form she becomes less effective - she did jerky dance movements and her voice was dubbed with an older English voice which did not fit. The point was to make Enchantress other worldly yet it did not work.
Warner Brothers and DC were aiming to make their version of Guardians of the Galaxy. They go to the point where they have a pop soundtrack like their Marvel rivals and are trying to match its tone. The film works best when it shows the relationships between the villains, delving into their past and the conflict of doing their job and their own self-interest. It made for an interesting twist to the superhero genre. However, after the great start Suicide Squad does not stick to its convictions and goes into familiar superhero territory of stopping a big bad guy trying to make a devastating weapon and the film attempts to give the characters a connection with each other, instead of showing them for what they really are, self-interested villains. The film also suffers from writing and editing problems, one character was introduced just so he could be killed.
The problem with the DCEU is it's trying to catch up with the MCU, but by doing that it's trying to do too much too quickly - flooding their franchise with characters without much of an introduction. Marvel Studios were able to play the long game and it benefited the series because all the characters get an introduction and the various sci-fi, fantasy and paramilitary elements. Suicide Squad was a way for the DCEU to quickly introduce their villains (as well as some heroes) and it inexplicitly brings in fantasy ideas like a woman having a sword that captures the souls of the people it kills.
Suicide Squad does not deserve some of the bad reviews it has received; it is still an entertaining and more ballsy attempt at a mainstream superhero film - it has a 15 rating in the UK. Its basic heroics plot is nothing new or that inventive, yet it does work changing up some of superhero (or should it be supervillain?) dynamics and it does a fine job at introducing some of the DC villains.
