Suicide Squad (2016)

  I actually saw this on Thursday but I had a serious backlog of posts to get through. 

DC Comics movies have taken a serious ass-whipping in the critical and commercial arenas.  Batman vs Superman underperformed and Suicide Squad got murdered on Rotten Tomatoes.  I'm not here to say that it was unjustified.  I am saying that you need to look past all the hype and see it for what it is:  a summer comic book movie.

Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) has a daring plan to keep the world safe from dangerous metahumans:  take the worst of the worst, shoot them with a nano-bomb in the neck to keep them in line, and send them out under a reluctant commander, Rick Flagg (Joel Kinnaman), to do battle.  When a 6000-year-old sorceress (Cara Delavigne) slips her leash and starts building a mystical super-weapon in the heart of Midway City, the Suicide Squad is mobilized.  Deadshot (Will Smith) becomes the unofficial leader as the most trustworthy villain, while Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) has her own plans for breaking free.  These very disparate individuals must come together as a team in order to get out of this mess alive.

I have summarized the critical reviews into the following categories:

1) The movie was dark/depressing/boring/not funny enough.

2) I didn't know who the characters were and the movie didn't do a good enough job of explaining them to me/I didn't see enough of the characters I wanted to see.

3) I couldn't identify with any of the characters/didn't know who to root for.

DC movies have veered into the bleak and noir end of the spectrum.  They're trying to distinguish themselves from Marvel but it makes their movies damn near unwatchable.  Suicide Squad went through a lot of rewrites to get some jokes in after initial reviews were not promising.  However, there's only so much you can do with rewrites.  Personally, I felt the movie leaned more in the direction of melancholy than outright depressing.

I cannot help you if you don't know who the characters are.  That is your fault for not having a good childhood.  The Joker, Harley, Deadshot, and Killer Croc should not need real introductions if you've ever seen any of the 4000 variants of Batman's animated shows.  Everyone else does get a decent enough intro, given that it is an ensemble film and there are time restraints.

They are villains.  They are not good guys.  Especially in the new 52, which is where these iterations of characters are based.  Diablo's apparent rehabilitation is the exception, not the norm.  Think of it like watching a nature documentary.  Do you enjoy seeing the lions?  Hell yes.  Do you for one second forget that they are predators?  No.  Don't forget it here either.

For me, this movie actually did the impossible -- made me sort of want to watch DC movies again.  If they can somehow manage to strike a balance of humor and darkness, they could really get this franchise off the ground.  Wonder Woman is looking like a real step in the right direction, based on the trailer from ComiCon.  But only time will tell.