Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was a skunk blast to the face for most of us trying to have a good time with a superhero movie earlier this year. This has been established repeatedly—perhaps ad nauseam—in this here column. Suicide Squad looked like a chance to get DC movies back on the good foot.
With David Ayer (Fury, End of Watch) at the helm, and a cast including Will Smith, Jared Leto and Margot Robbie, it looked like summer was due to get a fun blast of movie mischief. Suicide Squad does nothing to improve the summer blockbuster season. It actually sends a big, stinking torpedo of shit into its side, and sends the thing barreling toward the bottom of the bowl.
Yes, I’m equating this film to that of a large, destructive, malicious turd. That’s being kind.
After a first half build up/tease that does a decent job of introducing bad guy characters like Deadshot (Smith), Harley Quinn (Robbie) and the Joker (Leto), the movie becomes what can only be described as a spastic colon, resulting in that big turd referred to above. While Smith and Robbie deliver relatively fun performances, the movie is a scattershot mess with no sense of direction. The tone is all over the place, as if the studio meddled and turned the movie into a hackneyed heap of nothing.
Seriously, nothing in this movie, including the reason for forming the squad and the motives of the main villains, make any sense.
This article appears in Aug 11-17, 2016.