Another Lukewarm Movie Review

Something else I did over the weekend at Alex' was watch Suicide Squad. Most of it. Well, part of it.

I could see some things in there that were good. Will Smith's personality didn't match a Floyd Lawton I was used to, but Floyd as he was presented in the '80s comics might have been a hard sell to audiences. And I tend to like Will Smith, so it's fine. Margot Robbie was Harley was OK, in that I thought she did well with what the film gave her. That feeling Harley's almost always either a) amusing herself, or b) trying to play everyone. Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang, had some of the naked self-interest and sleaziness I enjoyed with old Boomerbutt, but maybe I missed the points where he showed more of Boomer's dangerous side.

I'm not sure why they went the direction they did with Enchantress (Cara Delevingne), with that outfit, and the swaying, and at one point I think she started talking in rhyme. Did they figure the look with the pointy witch hat was too silly? Or did they not want Margot Robbie to get lonely with the sexualization? Especially strange given her brother was this giant, almost armored, fiery looking guy. Hard to see the relation. Viola Davis did alright with what she was given as Amanda Waller, though, again, not quite all that I was hoping for. The whole bit with the binder full of files on the characters was kind of clunky as a expository device, but that's not Davis' fault. I did end up skipping the next bit of the film after that because I'd read that they go over all that stuff again right afterwards, which seemed stupid and pointless (I think I was also watching Star Trek Beyond and Jazz vs. Clippers at the time).

Every scene with Jared Leto in it was unpleasant. He's trying for this effect, but it's too obvious he's trying with how he moves to emphasize certain things. Course, I didn't see any point to having Joker in a damn Suicide Squad movie anyway. I know they figured it would goose interest to have a villain the public at large knows, I just don't care about that line of thinking. If we're dealing with a universe where Mistah J actually gives a shit about Harley as this one does, Waller wouldn't be stupid enough to put Harley on her team where she'd have to expect Joker to show up. In the comics, where the Joker would be too busy trying to kill Batman to care, she might try it, but here it's just a dumb decision.

Beyond that, I wasn't sure how much characterization was the movie and how much was me filling in gaps with stuff I know from comics. I thought it looked as though Diablo and Killer Croc might be turning into pals at one point, Diablo being the one who wasn't going to tease Croc about his appearance, but I'm not sure about that. I think, given time, this was a combination of characters that could make something interesting, but it didn't come together. Maybe use the time wasted on Joker on some of the rest of the cast instead.

I do appreciate that they went with a weird kind of threat, with an evil spirit possessing someone and trying to form a gateway back to her dimension and rule both. That's kind of out there, not mundane, not bickering about politics, so credit for going for something there, even if I'm not sure that's really a good mission for the Squad. It seems more like the kind of clusterfuck that would develop abruptly during some other, slightly more grounded mission they went on. Trying to stop some rival government's metahuman force and things get out of hand. Still, it was something.

I guess at some point I should try to watch the whole thing in one go and see if I like it any better, but it's hard to get fired up at the prospect of doing so.