Suicide Squad

A Black Ops team dubbed the "Suicide Squad", consisting of the worst incarcerated criminals is created by a conniving, ruthless government official by the name of Amanda Waller. This team, which includes Harley Quinn (normal but certifiably insane), Deadshot (sharpshooter/assassin), Captain Boomerang (insane street-level criminal who has skills with a boomerang), Killer Croc (body is mutated to look like a reptile), Slipknot (skills with rope and an assassin), El Diablo (controls fire), and Katana (wields a katana which can trap the souls of the dead) are tasked with bringing down a supernatural entity of an unknown origin. Their consolation in participating in the Squad is a reduced sentence. Once they realize they've been set up to fail, each member of the team must set aside their own selfish ambition(s) in order to effectively work together to come out alive.

I'm not sure what critics have against the DCCU (DC Cinematic Universe), but as I did with Batman v. Superman, I must disagree with all of the disparaging, and mediocre reviews. If anything, I honestly liked Suicide Squad better than I did BvS. Granted, I have not had a chance to check out the Ultimate Edition, so I cannot make the assessment that my concerns with the theatrical release were dissuaded. Suicide Squad has its problems, but it is not the huge pile of crap it's being made out to be. I found the story to be much easier to follow, since they didn't try to combine multiple comic arcs into one long story. Not to say that BvS's story was *too* hard to follow, but it was obvious since Suicide Squad didn't have multiple comic story arcs combining into one it was a much more coherent and well put together product in the end.

As with most of the characters of BvS, in Suicide Squad I thought they did a pretty good job (with a few minor details here and there) of sticking to the essence of who their comic book counterparts were. I think my personal favorite characters were Will Smith as Deadshot, Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, and Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn.

However, the things where Suicide Squad lost me from saying it's the best DCCU film to date are:

1. Joker and Harley's relationship - In the movie, Joker is constantly weaving in and out of the story as he's pursuing Harley to bring her home. Now, I'm no real expert (I only read comics every so often, and have seen a few of the animated series), but as far as the comics and animated show(s) go, from what I understand their relationship is supposed to be an abusive, almost-but-not-quite Stockholm Syndrome type of relationship where Joker just tolerates Harley, and it's Harley who's actually the one in love with the Joker. In that regards it was weird seeing their roles switched. There were times where it showed instances of the psychological (and sometimes physical) abuse Harley endured at the hands of the Joker, but it was never a big part of their relationship - at least, as far as the movie shows. For all we know that stuff could have been happening behind the scenes. I do think Jared Leto and Margot Robbie as Joker and Harley Quinn respectively played their roles well, and I look forward to seeing them in future movies.

2. Katana - I loved the character; however, I wish that her character had been written as being bilingual instead of only speaking Japanese - unless there was an instance or two where she spoke English that I missed. She never really interacted with the rest of the group, and so the audience doesn't get a good chance to really get to know her. I will say though, there is one especially touching moment amidst the chaos where we do see a touch of humanity from her, so that was refreshing.

3. Killer Croc - He had a decent sized role, but I still wanted more from him. He played the giant brute of the group well, and even had moments (like Katana) where we saw a different side of him, but I was left wanting more.

4. Enchantress - As the villain of the movie, I think she did well with the material she was given, however it wasn't much to go on. There was no real depth to her character, no real gravitas to make her a satisfying villain. I think that had more to do with the script and not with Cara Delevingne who played Enchantress. Towards the final fight, I had hopes of seeing something magical (pun intended) occur and she would turn out to be a great villain, but it just sort of crescendoed and then fizzled.

All in all, as mentioned above, Suicide Squad is not a horrible movie. It's actually quite a bit of fun. This is one where if you are a comic fan (or if it just happens to look good to you) do *not* listen to the Debbie Downers and go see it. I know I'll be seeing it at least one more time.