Review: ‘Suicide Squad’ an entertaining mess of a movie.
BUT FUN FILM UP FOR MESSY VILLAINS GANG DC UNIVERSE
Can anyone remember when superhero movies made sense? Me neither. And “Suicide Squad” doesn’t even come close to changing that.
OK, we’re technically dealing about a supervillain movie, here, so things need to be a little deranged. You can’t expect a lot of rational behavior when you’re watching a cast of characters that includes a jungle witch, a guy who shoots fire out of his hands, an alligator man and Will Smith trying to be anyone but Will Smith.
Actually, I enjoyed Will Smith playing Will Smith playing Deadshot; he gives “Suicide Squad” some much-needed focus. The other thing I really appreciated was Margot Robbie, whose unhinged portrayal of Harley Quinn was every bit as magnetically fun as the trailers promised.
But those same trailers also misled us on what Jared Leto’s much-anticipated Joker portrayal would be like. And they didn’t prepare us for the fact that “Suicide Squad” would evolve into something resembling a “Ghostbusters” movie. By the end, I expected Sigourney Weaver to peel herself out of a plaster dog mold.
Still, you can shake your head and laugh at the film’s preposterous finale while admitting that “Suicide Squad” is pretty entertaining.
Building on the newly revved up DC Universe — with a quick nod to the end of “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” — the story finds cold-blooded, shadowy government figure Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) convincing military higher-ups that Earth is vulnerable to aliens, who, unlike the Man of Steel, could be hostile to our values and way of life.
She also reveals she’s been collecting super criminals in a secret prison. That’s where we meet, among others, the Joker’s crazy girlfriend Quinn; weapons master Deadshot; Diablo (Jay Hernandez), the tattooed former gangbanger whose hands are flamethrowers; Boomerang (Jai Courtney), who can … throw boomerangs (somehow, that’s a superpower); Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), whose name says it all; and Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), the Special Forces great who will lead this team against any super-baddies who may show up. The whole bunch adds up to something akin to the Dirty Dozen with better makeup.
They find employment right away, as Flag’s girlfriend June Moone (Cara Delevingne) just happens to be possessed by a powerful witch with sibling issues called Enchantress. Things, naturally, go awry, and Enchantress decides to take over the world.
Here’s where director David Ayers starts throwing everything he can think of at us, meaning there are lots of chaotic action sequences, too many characters and bad guys with what look like rotten fruit for faces wandering around. And when our anti-heroes storm the abandoned city to take down the Enchantress, Ayers reveals that he apparently managed to break into Ivan Reitman’s shed and steal his awesome “Ghostbusters” special effects.
What happens after that manages to be both predictable and ridiculous, as the questions pile up: Will the wisecracking Deadshot restart his cliched but touching relationship with his young daughter? Will the Joker catch up with Harley to rekindle their twisted romance? Can Viola Davis play another role in which she is so unlikable?
It bears noting that Leto did about as well as he could playing the Joker, considering he was following up Heath Ledger’s iconic, Oscar-winning portrayal of the same character less than a decade ago. While Ledger brought depth and frightening human depravity to the role, Leto plays Joker strictly as a comic book character. It works here in an ensemble film, but it’s tough to tell how it would play out if the Joker got his own film.
It will be interesting to see where DC takes these characters after the semi-delightful mess that is “Suicide Squad.” But, for now, just enjoy the sloppy and wild ride. Contact Tony Hicks at Facebook.com/BayArea NewsGroup.TonyHicks or Twitter.com/tonyhicks67