MOVIE REVIEW: 'Suicide Squad' downright bad

Downright bad; With world-saving villains of Suicide Squad, studio tries to copy Marvel recipe, but falls short

The heavily tattooed, pyrotechnic Diablo (Jay Hernandez, top) is part of a clandestine group of “meta-humans” recruited by the U.S. government for a dangerous black ops mission in Suicide Squad, the latest DC Comics movie.
The heavily tattooed, pyrotechnic Diablo (Jay Hernandez, top) is part of a clandestine group of “meta-humans” recruited by the U.S. government for a dangerous black ops mission in Suicide Squad, the latest DC Comics movie.

Well, you can't exactly blame them. DC/Warner Bros. had been taking such a beating against sworn enemy Marvel for so long -- a stretch of time best typified by the release of Batman v Superman, which took an absolute bath critically and made considerably less than the company had hoped, and Captain America: Civil War, a new tentpole film for Marvel that basked in the warm glow of critical gushing, and financial reaping -- it was only a matter of time before they would finally wise up and emulate their crosstown archrivals.

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Boomerang (Jai Courtney), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Deadshot (Will Smith), Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) and Diablo (Jay Hernandez) are bad guys fighting evil in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad.

Not for nothing is DC/WB flying in journalists from all over to the set of the forthcoming Justice League film to prove how much they've learned since the dark days of March.

Suicide Squad

75 Cast: Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cara Delevingne, Ike Barinholtz, Scott Eastwood, Adam Beach, Common

Director: David Ayer

Rating: PG-13, for sequences of violence and action throughout, disturbing behavior, suggestive content and language

Running time: 123 minutes

The result is Suicide Squad, DC's first attempt at a Marvel-style film, with a kinetic combo of violence, jokes, and the inclusion of as many other Marvel-esque details as they could rip off on the fly. From the start, with the film's custom Imax countdown graphics, and pounding soundtrack (indeed it's the kind of flick that wants to fill every square inch of the audience's head with musical bombast: We open with "House of the Rising Sun," quickly move to "Sympathy for the Devil" and find time to include everything else from "Gangsta" to "Bohemian Rhapsody"), DC/WB very much wants to establish the idea that they maybe aren't so dark and humorless as their previous, Zack Snyder-helmed titles would suggest. But like a conservative, dour politician who is suddenly forced to pivot into a friendlier, people-connecting figure, there are still an awful lot of awkward rough edges to sand down.

The film is written and directed by David Ayer, a talented filmmaker with a litany of well-produced dramatic action films on his resume (including Fury and End of Watch). In his previous work, he has shown to have a good eye for action, and a way with ensembles, which would suggest a perfect fit with this project. You can certainly see the logic in his selection, only he's more of a nervy dramatist than inspired lunatic. The vibe DC obviously wants to generate -- as evidenced in the film's many trailers and massive marketing push -- is something off the wall and counterculture, closer to Guardians of the Galaxy, than X-Men, but despite a strong effort to showcase its "weirdness" it slips into standard super-tropes far too easily. It's afraid to really twist itself into something we haven't seen before, which feels like a terribly wasted opportunity.

We meet the outrageous personalities of the villains in question in just about the clunkiest way possible: During a top-secret meeting at the Pentagon between high-ranking generals and Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), a particularly ruthless operative, who has conjured up her team of archvillains as a means of combating the potential threat of another "meta-human" uprising. After the, ahem, "death" of Superman (to be addressed in Justice League, and most certainly not for long), the powers that be fear the next incident might not go their way. Naturally, their fears are all too well-founded, as quickly a wildly powerful figure known as Enchantress (Cara Delevingne), who in human form is the girlfriend of military wunderkind Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), meets up with her similarly powered brother, Incubus (Alain Chanoine), and immediately formulates a plan to devastate the world before taking everything over.

Facing this menace is Waller's team of villainous misfits. There is Deadshot (Will Smith), a never-miss assassin for hire; Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), the cutie-pie bat-wielding maniac and girlfriend of the Joker (Jared Leto); Boomerang (Jai Courtney), an Aussie who drinks beers and has a variety of his namesake to toss around; Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), a cannibalistic half-man/half-reptile with sharpened teeth and an unfriendly disposition; and Diablo (Jay Hernandez), a face-tattooed former gangster with a tragic back story and the ability to shoot fire from his fingertips. Led by good-guy Flag, the team is quickly assembled and thrown into the fire, so to speak.

Sent out on a mission they believe involves "domestic terrorism," the team quickly learns the truth after being attacked by an army of possessed, morphed former civilians, turned by Enchantress into a faceless horde, with skin resembling an overripe avocado. Kept in check by the threat of setting off the tiny bomb implants placed in their necks, the team acts to shut down the menace and save the world in the process.

The story, such as it is, is pretty much unintelligible gobbledygook, which is a depressingly common affliction of the genre, but what we're really here to see is the bonhomie of the Squad, forming an uneasy alliance. To facilitate this, Ayer has added a scene midway through the carnage, where everybody suddenly drops what they're doing and goes instead to down some drinks at a local, deserted bar.

It's a smart idea to give the film a chance to catch its breath -- it's a similar device to a scene in Fury, where the characters hole up in a French apartment and enjoy a fine meal before embarking on their last mission -- even if it's sort of nonsensical, but despite its best efforts, it still feels paper thin. Smith's Deadshot plays off of the actor's famous charisma (and throws in a motivating relationship with his young daughter, played by Shailyn Pierre-Dixon) but little else. Boomerang is mostly a nonpresence, Diablo is given his tragic back story but little depth and Quinn might as well be called Punchline for the number of times she's meant to save an otherwise expositional scene with a quippy remark, many of which fall flat.

The scattershot storytelling also manages to bungle the promise in the film's other big star, the Joker (played by Leto with sharklike metallic teeth, and stretchy line delivery), who really only serves as a side character, totally apart from the main story line. Striving for his inner Heath Ledger, Leto attempts to give a command performance in a film that mostly wants to use him as a cameo, which just feels awkward. Naturally, his presence is mostly in service to the film's inevitable sequel, set up nicely by the penultimate scene, but it's unclear, yet again, if this title will hit audiences the way DC hopes.

As if to finalize total capitulation to the Marvel way, the film also adds a mid-credits coda designed to titillate fans about the forthcoming Justice League film, only it's something fanboys have known about for months, so there's absolutely nothing left to tease. Despite their increasingly desperate efforts, this Squad is just another example of DC/Warner Bros. arriving late to their own party, and forgetting to bring the wine.

MovieStyle on 08/05/2016

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