For as much as I wanted to hate the DCEU I simply couldn’t. Oh, I could acknowledge the fact that they are bad movies, I just couldn’t accept that fact. The tangible connection that I have to these characters is unprecedented to the point that I have an uncomfortable bias. The first time I saw Man of Steel this got the better of me. I projected the hope that Superman embodied for me onto a movie that while sound wasn’t very hopeful. I couldn’t even properly review Batman v Superman because this bias was there on my shoulder clouding all the judgment that I could have. I still watch that film wishing it were great...but every time I slowly realize that it’s not. Suicide Squad did not work on that bias. I hate this movie. I hate it so much that I couldn’t even apply that to cushion the blow. This is a tease. A film that promises something bigger and better than it really is and that disarmed any favors I could give it. The original vision of Suicide Squad seems to have been something lurid, and nasty, something that you never see in a PG-13 movie, so the film seems to be trying to run away from that the entire time. David Ayer, a talented director, throws hints of the manic energy that could have inhabited the film but all of that seems to have been killed in the editing room. Notice how fans started to say that they didn’t want DC movies dark anymore. Notice how I said that in one way or another too? Well, this is what happens when the studio or a director takes that and misses the whole point of it. The film feels like it’s desperately trying to embrace the manic energy of films like Harmonie Korine’s Spring Breakers but is also trying to stay as light as Guardians of the Galaxy. Instead of landing on either side the film falls right in the middle feeling really confused and joyless. The only moments that seem to rise above the pack are the moments that hint at the crazed, but also totally not PG-13 mania that luridness provides. There’s an early scene in a club where Joker (Jared Leto) and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) take out another gangster that hints at some crazed depth and psychology to their actions. Harley, over-sexualized, draws the gangster into a hysteria, and then the Joker shoots him in the face at the peak of his desires. It’s a moment that just hints at what could have been. Ayer’s frenzied cutting, Leto’s wide-eyed eccentricity, Robbie’s sexuality on display in an almost toxic way, all of it combining to create a baser feeling. But the film doesn’t let that ever cut loose. It never could. So, here’s what we have instead. We have a scrambled film that never provides proper character motivation or at least none that sticks. We have a film where most of the exciting footage in the trailers isn’t even in the freaking movie. We have a film that looks down on its audience. Oh, you can’t handle villains like Heath Ledger’s Joker, and Loki in The Avengers. No, take a green dude who wants to destroy the world. Oh, you can’t handle the absolutely psychotic whims of Jared Leto’s performance. Cut him almost completely out of the movie and cover what he is part of in garish music to appeal to the teenage girls in the audience. They think Jared Leto’s attractive right? Want to see Katana? Well, you can have like 3 minutes of her doing stuff and Karen Fukuhara trying. Captain Boomerang gets even less to do. There're so many character moments sprinkled around this film that seem to just be surface things never suggesting to deeper characters. The movie also just downright takes an intermission to explain El Diablo, just so it can desperately make us care when he is killed off. At least Margot Robbie, Cara Delevingne, and Viola Davis can have the initiative to carry a scene, but others like Joel Kinnaman and Scott Eastwood are completely useless. Deadshot is set up for an arch but in his big moment, much like Batman in BvS, betrays it. The action chops of David Ayer could have at least made it intense and gripping, but the rotting tone and horrible action kill that prospect. Ayer’s previous hard edge brought to his magnificent Fury has all but disappeared here as he stages fight scenes with enemies that blend into the background of the sets. The image of our heroes swinging at what looks like thin air is laughable and unexciting. The DCEU has failed. There is no doubt about it now. Wonder Women will fail. Justice League will fail. Warner Brothers will fail. If something this promising can crash this hard even while containing a truly well studied performance by Leto, two cool cameos for the fans, and a glimmer of hope then it’s all going to fail. RIP the DCEU. Suicide Squad gets a 3.5 out of 10
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |