[quote]
Just when you think the summer movie season can’t get any worse, along come the “Worst. Heroes. Ever.” And while the film’s official tagline is selling its stars a little bit short (surely last year’s incarnation of The Fantastic Four still holds that dubious distinction), the mundane, milquetoast, and often mind-bogglingly stupid “Suicide Squad” almost makes good on the threat of its marketing campaign.
Of course, the advertising copy isn’t referring to the quality of the film’s super-powered task force so much as it is to their moral fiber, but this motley crew of demented rejects — a real who’s who of who gives a shit — are bad in every sense of the word except for the one that might threaten to make them interesting.[/quote]
[quote]
In scene after scene after SCENE, writer/director David Ayer leans on well-worn pop/rock tunes to augment the clichéd shots of the Suicide Squad walking in tandem, the Suicide Squad creating mayhem, the Suicide Squad, um, trying on wardrobe options. “Spirit in the Sky” by Norman Greenbaum? AGAIN?
— The stunning and talented, Margot Robbie, riding a wave of success from “The Wolf of Wall Street” to the cover of Vanity Fair, hits all the wrong notes as the bat-wielding and supposedly bat-bleep crazy Harley Quinn. I think Robbie is going for some kind of tough-chick New-YAWK accent as she delivers her one-liners in a self-pleased manner and then pauses for the deadpan reaction from her fellow cast members and (Ayer must have been hoping) laughs from the audience. Whatever she’s doing, it’s a wildly uneven performance, and it’s just not good. Very little about this film is good.
When you’ve got model-turned-actress Cara Delevingne as one of your chief villains, and she’s writhing and wriggling about in embarrassing fashion, spouting lines that make Dothraki sound like Shakespeare, you’re not just dipping your toes into camp territory, you’re getting soaked.[/quote]
Damn, sounds like another case of DC trying to mimic a successful Marvel formula and failing. In this case, it’s Guardians of the Galaxy; a group of goofy non-heroes that come together for a common cause. And like every other case of their attempts at Me-Too’ing, they have failed miserably.
I’m disappointed. I had high hopes of them turning this one around. The first time I saw Jared Leto as The Joker, I thought “crap, here we go again. They don’t understand their own property”. But the trailers started hitting and I thought they managed to make an entertaining DC property. Now the reviews are here and I’m sad again.
I really can’t think of a good DC movie in the last 20 years. Yes, The Dark Knight was amazing, but I don’t consider it a DC movie. Batman may be a DC character, but that was NOT a movie set in a comic book world. No superheroes, no special powers, just real world drama and action (dialed up a bit).
I had a similar progression. However, with each new trailer, it seemed more and more likely that first ‘oh wow’ trailer was a fluke. Mimicking the style, without understanding what made it work. Repeat the same tone, over and over, but with clips that increasingly did not mesh with the tone they implied through the music.
The last few weeks I’ve been expecting to be disappointed.
Just to tug on the Guardians of the Galaxy cloning thread a bit; it sounds like they are even trying to clone the soundtrack style of GotG. Guardians had an amazing marriage of characters/scenes to classic music that helped give it an audio feel that appealed to the viewing audience. Several of the Suicide Squad reviews mention the music marriages that they are attempting, and it sounds to me like a blatant attempt to mimic what GotG did with their music selection, just using a different era, and doing so less successfully. Even the trailers, looking back, did the same thing.
I was hoping they’d be able to pull this off. I’m still going to see it because I’m fascinated by the idea of a Jared Leto “gangsta” Joker. Unfortunately, it sounds like his presence is a major distraction from the actual plot and characters of the main story, which is what I was afraid would happen. The Joker is just one of those larger-than-life characters that really demands the spotlight.
I wonder if the negative/mediocre critical reception will impact the movie’s box office? The second week drop on Batman v Superman was steep. Despite the overall box office success, the panning BvS got from fans and critics was enough to cause WB to shake-up DC’s movie leadership.
By the way, I don’t know if anyone mentioned it, but Geoff Johns is the overall leader of DC now. Back in May, it was announced that he was going to be the new caretaker/guiding hand of DC movies, but at SDCC it was casually (stealth) dropped that he’s actually the president of DC Entertainment.
My teenage son, who’s a big Joker fan (because he’s fun to draw), has been talking about this movie since the first pics came out. I’m not going to share the Rotten Tomatoes score, so hopefully he can find stuff to enjoy in it. I’ll go in expecting the worst so maybe I won’t completely hate it. We already have tickets for Friday…
I dunno. Reviews don’t help me with superhero movies. I despised the second and third Nolan movies (other than Ledger’s Joker), and I found a lot to enjoy in Green Lantern (except Ryan Reynolds’ horrible portrayal of Hal Jordan. But Oa! Kilowog! The Corps!!!).
DC’s stuff has been working really well on TV. Shame they’ve had the wrong people in charge of their movies. Johns certainly wrote some good comics, so maybe he can turn this around.
You’re not alone in feeling that way about reviews, even if we have different tastes in these movies. I finally saw Batman vs Superman and was really surprised, given the vitriol directed towards it, that I largely liked it, especially the early movie grittier and grounded stuff (saw the extended version). I’m not a DC reader though, so am judging the movies not by fidelity to storylines or characters and find the more serious, grounded, tone of Dark Knight and what Snyder has less capably attempted in his DC movies to be interesting.
I also despised the 3rd Nolan Batman movie, except for Hardy’s Bane, and thought it was a huge drop in quality (and tone) compared to the first 2 in the series. Loved Dark Knight though. Also like Iron Man 2 over Iron Man 3, which I hated aside from Downey’s performance/charisma, as I preferred Rockwell and whatever Rourke was doing and those action scenes. And enjoyed Ang Lee’s Hulk, and Superman Returns, although don’t really want to see either again - they were at least a lot less bland than the Thor movies and less goofy than Whedon’s contributions (which I liked solely for their character moments). And I generally like the more grounded and serious tone of the non-Marvel movies, even though the Marvel movies have consistently set at least a reasonable quality bar, and I really liked most of the recent ones (Winter Solider, Civil War, Ant Man, Guardians).
[quote]
Superhero movies typically focus on the “good guys” fighting some irredeemable and malevolent force–the kind that’s easy to hate. Suicide Squad takes that narrative in a different direction. It’s still an exciting roller coaster ride full of glitz and predictable set-piece moments, but this isn’t the sort of comic book movie you’re probably expecting. It’s better.[/quote]
If by mixed bag you mean it has some good reviews, that is true of almost any movie, even the truly terrible ones. Theres always some people who like them no matter how bad they are. I wouldnt call this a “mixed bag” MetaCritic has it at 47 and RT has it at 35. That sounds overwhelmingly negative, especially considering the pre-hype they dished out on this.
The one common complaint, even in some of the good reviews is that it lacks substance and cohesiveness. I have no doubt that the movie will do great its first weekend but the real question is will it have legs or will it fall off like many of the other DC offerings. From what Ive read, DC is not going to be happy after week 2. I have gone from wanting to see this in the theatres to wait and see but unless people I know really start raving about it, most likely its dropped to bluray status for me.
Yeah, the rating is a huge warning sign. PG-13 ruins everything.
I’d like to hear more about the soundtrack and whether there’s any narrative justification for the songs chosen. Because that’s what made the Guardians soundtrack so wonderful, starting with the close-up of Chris Pratt’s walkman on his hip in that dark cave and how throughout the movie, every time a popular song comes on we’re reminded that even though we’re with him on some distant alien planet, Quill’s home is Earth in the 1980s. Those songs enhanced his fish-out-of-water hero’s journey, not to mention carrying a deep emotional connection to his mom. Yeah, they sounded awesome but they built story.
Assuming Suicide Squad tries to riff on this successful soundtrack formula but just uses songs because they sound cool, I can’t think of a better example of how shallow and artless Hollywood blockbusters can get. Just no understanding of where the magic comes in.
