Suicide Squad (2016)

Starring: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Joel Kinnaman, Cara Delevingne, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Ike Barinholtz, David Harbour, Scott Eastwood, Adam Beach, Ben Affleck, Common, and Ezra Miller
Grade: B

I liked Jared Leto’s Joker. There, I said it.

Eat shit, fanboys.

Summary

In the Belle Reve Special Security Barracks, only the wildest assortment of villains is kept. Captain Hunter Griggs (Barinholtz) makes his rounds, talking shit to the prisoners. His job is to “keep you alive until you die”. He starts with Deadshot (Smith), pissing him off already by calling him by his real name of Floyd Lawton. It doesn’t take long for Deadshot to threaten Griggs, so he has his team beat the hell out of Deadshot to teach him a lesson. Next, Griggs goes over to see the insane, but super-hot Harley Quinn (Robbie). She attempts her usual flirting and Griggs loves it, but he calls in for her to be electrocuted because she grabs onto the bars of her separate holding cell. When this happens, she gets a flashback to when she was brought into Belle Reve and how she was sedated while laughing maniacally. She gets up and runs straight into the bars of the cell again headfirst, knocking her out.

Elsewhere, government official Amanda Waller (Davis) talks about how the world was when Superman was alive and how it changed even more after his death. As we know, this movie takes place after the events of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice when Superman died. Because of the desperate state the world is currently in, Waller (Davis) meets with some other top-secret officials at a restaurant to discuss her new idea, with one of them being supporter Dexter Tolliver (Harbour). She argues that they got lucky with Superman because he shared the same values as they did. The next “Superman” may not. Though the one guy doesn’t want to hear it, Waller uses this as a segue to pitch her “Task Force X” idea that will unite the worst metahuman criminals possible to help the United States government.

First, there’s Deadshot. He’s the most wanted hitman in the world, and he never misses. As she talks, we get an example of him in action, taking out a target for $2 million. He’s a bad man, but he’s supremely talented. Fortunately for Waller, he has a soft spot for his 11-year-old daughter who’s stuck living with his ex-wife in Gotham City. One night, he was walking with his daughter, and she talks about how she’s the one who takes care of her mother because she’s out all night and in bed all day. A frustrated Deadshot offers for her to live with him because he came across some money, but she says she can’t because her mother told her about him killing people. He denies it, but his daughter still calms things by saying she still loves him. The only reason Deadshot got caught was because Waller gave an anonymous tip to Batman (Affleck). When Deadshot and his daughter went into an alley, Batman showed up to arrest him. After a scuffle between the two, Deadshot was going to shoot him, but his daughter stood in front of Batman and asked Deadshot to stop. This forced him to give up without a fight. He was arrested and sent to Belle Reve right after. Second, there’s Harley Quinn. Back when she was normal, she was Dr. Harleen Quinzel. She was the psychiatrist assigned to work with The Joker (Leto) in Arkham Asylum, but she ended up falling in love with him. She helped The Joker escape, but he did some sort of shock therapy to her during the mess, and it completely changed her personality (and sanity), giving us the villain, she is today.

They became the king and queen of Gotham City. She is obsessed with Joker and has this undying loyalty towards him, and though he treats her like dogshit, Joker will flip out if anyone disrespects her. In a scene in some club, Monster T (Common) greets Joker in a private setting and compliments him for bagging someone as bad as Quinn. The unpredictable Joker brings her over and has her flirt with T until he’s comfortable with the situation. It all ends with Joker shooting and killing him. Sometime after, they’re driving through the streets of Gotham, and Batman catches up to them. Joker drives off the road and crashes into a body of water. The Joker is nowhere to be found, but Quinn was knocked out from busting through the windshield. Batman jumps into the water to check on her. Momentarily, she wakes up and tries to slice him with a knife, so he has to knock her out again. He brings her out of the water, but once he gives her CPR, she starts making out with him, so he pushes her off. From there, she was taken to Belle Reve. Third, there’s the crazy Digger Harkness, a rugged Australian and alcoholic thief. He’s known as Captain Boomerang (Courtney). He’s robbed every bank in Australia at least once. Because of this, he came to America for a fresh target set. During one diamond heist where he killed his partner with his boomerang, he was apprehended by The Flash (Miller).

Fourth, there’s Chato Santan, known as El Diablo (Hernandez). He’s a former gang member who has the power to set things on fire. They only got him because he surrendered himself. He got jumped in a prison riot, so he incinerated half the yard. Fifth is Waylon Jones, a monster mutant half-animal hybrid who goes by Killer Croc (Akinnuoye-Agbaje). He was chased away from Gotham by Batman, so he searched for sanctuary elsewhere and never found it. Lastly, there’s a witch named Enchantress (Delevingne). The thing with Enchantress is that she is actually Dr. June Moone. Unfortunately, after a trip on some archeological cave expedition, she heard her name being called and stumbled onto some voodoo doll/statue thing. She broke it open, and it released the Enchantress in the flesh, a metahuman more powerful than they’ve encountered. The spirit of the witch entered the body of Moone and has stayed there ever since. Now, the witch has a buried heart and whoever finds it can control her. Because of this, Waller sent in a team to the cave to find the heart, and they did. Waller has the witch’s heart in a briefcase and that is why they are able to control her. Furthermore, Waller explains that the finest special forces officer America has ever produced in Col. Rick Flag (Kinnaman) was assigned to watch over the troubled Dr. Moone, but the two ended up falling in love. This is exactly what Waller wanted because since she controls Enchantress, which is inside of Moone, and Flag watches over Moone, Flag pretty much has to do whatever Waller says.

With this, Waller argues “Task Force X” is the only way to protect our country.

At the Pentagon, Dexter Tolliver sets up Waller for her “Task Force X” pitch by coming up with a good point about how they have no contingency plan for a potential Superman-like metahuman attacking the United States. Waller presents her idea, but it doesn’t go well. To save time, Waller has Moone unleash Enchantress in the room with all of the other U.S. officials and to show the possibilities, she disappears and reappears with a binder from the weapons ministry vault in Tehran. Waller asks for Moone back. Enchantress tries to stall, so Waller gets a needle and pokes the heart of Enchantress in which she has stashed in a briefcase, forcing the issue. Moone appears again but pleads for Waller to not make her switch again. A focused Waller tells Flag to take Moone away. With all the cards now on the table, they agree to establish Task Force X under the A.R.G.U.S. program. Waller, Flag, and Moone go to Belle Reve, and they’re shown around by Griggs to each prisoner. El Diablo refuses to help because he’s a peaceful man now and doesn’t want to be a weapon. Deadshot is given a bunch of guns to prove his skills and is released from his handcuffs to do so. Immediately, he grabs a gun and threatens to kill Griggs. Once things calm down, he hits every target a hundred times over. Right away, he starts making demands like getting out of Belle Reve, having full custody of his daughter and letting his ex-wife have supervised visits without her boyfriend, and wanting them to pay for her daughter’s entire education including college. Flag tells Deadshot he’s in no position to make demands, so Deadshot tells him this was directed towards Waller and not her “errand boy”.

Privately, Flag and Waller get into an argument. Flag doesn’t think this is a good idea at all and threatens to make some calls to find out what’s really going on, so Waller threatens to keep Dr. Moone in a drug-induced coma, forcing him to shut up. Meanwhile, Joker finds out from one of his henchmen that Quinn is being held in a black site in Louisiana, and he plans on getting her back.

At some underground club, Griggs loses 10k and asks for another. Instead, he’s taken to a private room, and Joker shows up. Basically, he forces Griggs to help in a plan that will aide Quinn in escaping Belle Reve. Elsewhere, Enchantress takes over Moone’s body in her sleep. Flag tries to call Waller, but once Enchantress shows Flag a vision of Moone dying, he puts down the phone. Enchantress shows up at Waller’s house while she’s asleep. She can’t grab her heart from the briefcase because the locking mechanism is activated when she’s close. She goes into another room and grabs the statue containing the spirit of her brother, Incubus. In a subway at Midway City at the Downtown Business District, she snatches some guy in the bathroom and releases Incubus’s spirit into him by breaking the statue, bringing him back to life. She tells Incubus how the humans have turned on them and don’t worship them like they did eons ago. Enchantress says the humans worship machines now, so she will create a machine to destroy them all. She tells Incubus to start feeding on humans until she returns. She then switches back to Moone and reappears in the room with Flag. Crying, Moone tells Flag that if it ever comes down to her or Enchantress in the future, take out Enchantress at all costs. At the same time, Incubus turns into a giant monster, kills some people, and demolishes the subway train.

The government activates Task Force X.

They forcefully take the team out of prison, giving each an implanted chip that will cause them to explode if they disobey orders. As they’re being taken outside, Griggs gives Quinn a phone from Joker and asks for her to put in a good word for him, but she tells him he’s screwed. At the Van Criss Laboratories (a division of Wayne Corp), Joker breaks in with his group, trashes the place, and steals some tech to disable the chip in Quinn’s neck. Flag and Moone go to the subway to stop Incubus and their only solution is for Moone to transform into Enchantress. However, when she does, Enchantress just leaves them high and dry. Waller stabs the heart a few times to threaten her. Enchantress approaches Incubus to save her, and he is able to heal her completely with his power, making her even more powerful because she will share his power with her until she’s able to get her heart back. In the meantime, they start building the super weapon and destroy the city around them. At the evacuation zone at the Midway City Airport, the members of the Suicide Squad are rounded up, with Captain Boomerang being dropped off via airlift. Slipknot (Beach) is also added. Flag tells them about the chips in their necks. If they disobey, try to escape, or flat-out annoy him, they will die. Once they get their gear on, Waller lays down the law of the mission of stopping Enchantress and Incubus and how if they fail their mission, or anything happens to Flag, they will die.

As they are about to ride off, Katana (Karen Fukuhara) shows up. She carries a sword that traps the souls of her victims. With these final additions to Flag’s team, they are off to take on Enchantress and Incubus, though nobody except Flag knows of the metahumans they are about to face. As their helicopter flies towards the chaos, Quinn sees a message on the phone Griggs gave her. It’s from Joker saying he’s coming to get her. Deadshot sees the message but agrees to say nothing with a nod. The war is on, but Flag is going to find out how hard it is to lead a team of people who don’t want to be there.

My Thoughts:

Though no one can argue Suicide Squad being a bit of a letdown, there’s still a lot of entertainment value that came from the movie. It’s gotten to the point where so many people over-hated the film that I would consider it to be underrated.

First of all, I love the concept in general. It’s like The Dirty Dozen with lesser-known comic book supervillains, and it plays off this well. The first half of the film feels like the unpredictable mess it should feel like. We’re introduced to each character in a way where we’re not sure how they’ll react to dominant figures like Flag and Amanda Waller. We know the trouble with putting all of these combustible personalities in the same room, and it’s exciting. In regard to The Dirty Dozen, the film goes through the same beats. No one wants to be there at first, they eventually start to figure things out and get inspired, Rick Flag is similar in tone to Major John Reisman, etc. Obviously, it’s not a total copy, but the blueprint to making this cool idea work is evident. The film is also very stylish, with an art design that is very much it’s own. It was much more present in the first half compared to the second, but it’s something I’ll always take as a positive from this film compared to James Gunn’s standalone sequel. The cast was also great. Viola Davis was downright devious as the government worker and was exactly what was needed to keep every one of these personalities in check, Jai Courtney was a surprise, and Will Smith was as cool as ever, giving us a reminder as to why he was one of the biggest box office stars of the 2000s. The worst part about this movie not living up to expectations is that we’ll never see Ben Affleck’s solo Batman movie with Smith’s Deadshot as the villain. It would’ve been money! You see the major box office potential in the one scene they share together in this movie, and it bothers me we’ll never get to see a feature length encounter.

Then, there’s the show-stealing performance of Margot Robbie. Her Harley Quinn was everything the character needed to be. She nailed the voice and made the cringeworthy things Quinn says somehow work for a live-action film (something I thought was going to be impossible), her wickedly chaotic personality felt real, and was the perfect type of crazy that will be remembered by comic book fans for years to come. Harley Quinn is the prototypical “hot mess” where if you were dating her, you wouldn’t even mind she could snap and kill you in a heartbeat. This is the aura Quinn needs to have, and Robbie did exactly that. It’s one of those performances I don’t think could be matched by any other actress much like how Robert Downey Jr. was for Iron Man. Even for a non-comic book fan, her hotness knew no bounds. In fact, the best scene of the whole film had to be when Quinn was changing into her fighting gear to get ready and everyone just watches in awe, with her responding, “What?”. If you wanted a physical representation of what we all looked like while watching this film, this scene was it.

People may complain about the objectification of Harley Quinn, but to me, this is an outrageous complaint. You can’t deny her attractiveness, and neither can a bunch of fictional characters. Complaining about this in some forum is nitpicking at its finest. Please grow up.

Her attachment to Joker was very interesting and the flashback sequences, explaining what happened to the former psychiatrist, were enchanting to say the least. The only problem is that I wanted more. Clearly, there were some cuts made. Director David Ayer has talked before about how the studio’s interference on his movie changed what it was supposed to be, so I wonder how different this Joker/Quinn story would’ve been had Ayer’s vision been fully realized. However, with all the lore behind the two characters, their love, and their effect on others in Gotham City, I can’t help but think how much both characters would’ve benefitted had they had their own film going into this, despite what they did in this movie being a major positive. There was much more story to tell between the two, but it was so interesting, you started to care less about the mission and more about them. This is where the problem lies, giving the outspoken comic book community more fuel to their argument about the overall product. The idea was there though, with the vibrant art design and alternative soundtrack accompanying it. When you include Jared Leto’s all-in role as Joker, I was totally hooked into this “B” story. Sadly, I can’t help but understand people’s criticisms. By the end, it felt like all of the hype was for nothing. All of the promotional material billed Leto as a huge part of the film, with his new take on the classic villain being a wildly imaginative and worthwhile venture into this modernized version of the character. I was supremely excited for it, but to my disappointment, he was barely in the movie.

Again, studio interference could’ve been the issue. For the record, I would’ve gladly extended the running time for Suicide Squad another half hour just to give Joker as much screen time as possible, especially if we knew a standalone Joker/Quinn movie was never feasible.

Now, you can hate me all you want, but I’m going to say it again: I enjoyed Jared Leto’s take on the character. From the menacing laugh to his new look, Leto was unforgettable regardless of where you stand on his take of DC’s best bad guy. Adapting the look of a modern gangster was an interesting creative choice, but I liked how different it was. It really set Leto’s Joker apart from every other version we’ve seen of the character. Look, it would be impossible to replicate the perfection of Heath Ledger’s Joker, so why try it? Plus, this is a character that has been done time and time again. You have to try new things to make your Joker stake it’s claim as the new bad guy in town. Because of this, I commend Leto in trying something so strikingly fresh with the iconic villain. Though it was a little goofy, and I could’ve done with less jewelry, I enjoyed the tattooed, gangster-like style of this Joker. It fit in like a glove in the world-building of this Suicide Squad adaptation. With the correct amount of screen time, he would’ve been given a lot more credit. Right now, the hate he gets is unwarranted. People gave him more shit for the look rather than the performance because that’s all that could be focused on in the screentime he was given. With a few more scenes to make his characterization more complete, making his role more important in regard to the rest of the movie, a lot less criticism would be directed towards him.

This is entirely on the studio and David Ayer, mostly because we don’t know how important of a role Joker would’ve played in Ayer’s full cut until it’s released. What’s the most annoying thing about Suicide Squad is that it could’ve been the savior of the DCEU. Unfortunately, they botched so many elements of the film, they basically had to redo it in 2021.

For starters, let’s talk about the characters and the villains lucky enough to be pulled into this mission. For novice fans of the Suicide Squad comic, you have to explain why some of the more ludicrous characters are essential to the mission, why they’re worth the risk, and who they are in general. Now, the major players all get these backstories and cool flashbacks to give us an insight about them. However, you can tell who really matters and who doesn’t. While everyone gets their eventful asides, and they’re about to start the mission, they randomly add Slipknot to the team. What’s his power you ask? Rick Flag says, “He can climb anything”. Not only is this the most unintentionally funny “power” I’ve ever heard, but there’s so many things wrong with this introduction. First of all, he has the “superpower” of any active 5–10-year-old kid in America. Secondly, there’s no way this guy could be that much of a badass killer on par with guys like Deadshot, if all he does is climb things. Thirdly, it’s not really a power. The one time we see him “climb” something, he shoots a grappling hook into a building, and it pulls him up. Well, any jackass could do that! This isn’t a power! Why would someone like Slipknot even be considered for a mission like this? What the fuck can he really do in a scenario that would actually benefit the team that someone else can’t do? Throughout the mission, the whole team takes the stairs and Quinn takes the elevator at one point. Their escape plan even involves a helicopter. Tell me why they would need someone with the ability to climb? Oh, right. You can’t!

Actually, besides Flag, Deadshot, El Diablo, and Killer Croc, all of the other characters aren’t really worth bringing along when you think about it logically. When Amanda Waller explains the details regarding Harley Quinn, they’re all negative traits. It’s even said she’s crazier than Joker and much more unpredictable, so why the fuck is she worth the risk? Surely the negatives outweigh the positives on that one. Plus, her main weapon is a fucking baseball bat.

No, it’s not a “super” baseball bat. It’s just a regular wooden bat. Why would they risk the state of the entire United States with a legitimately insane woman with a baseball bat?

Slipknot is useless, as I’ve already mentioned, and though Captain Boomerang can fight, he’s just a thief. Why is he worth putting on a military task force? You have to give me more of a reason as to why any of these people are truly needed. Going along with problems for mainstream audiences, you also have to give everyone more of a reason as to why they couldn’t get Batman to be involved. They never said he was unavailable, and he’s much more useful than everyone sans the aforementioned four. You have to tell me as an viewer why Batman can’t be reached, and why these misfits are needed to make this team work. When Enchantress and Incubus are destroying the city and it’s making the news worldwide, wouldn’t this information reach Batman somehow? Wouldn’t he go out of his way to join the fight against this supernatural being, considering he exists in this universe too? Superman’s death is partially his fault, as is the reason as to why Waller suggests Task Force X in the first place. The entire reason for this problem existing can be rooted back to his actions. Wouldn’t Affleck’s Batman feel guilty for putting everyone in this situation and try to help in the third act? We have to get some sort of reason as to why he wouldn’t, and they never do.

Now, I did enjoy the reasoning for a task force in general because the question of “What the hell would we do if someone with someone with Superman-like powers decided to attack Earth” is a good one. We wouldn’t be able to do jack shit. A task force does make sense, and though Waller argues our cast of villains are “metahumans”, Enchantress and Killer Croc are the only characters that seem to fit this bill. This only begs the question as to why they would construct a team of non-superhuman people to defeat a force like Incubus and later Enchantress too.

Katana was just lazily thrown in the film. As the group heads off in their helicopter to start the mission, she just jumps on one as if writer David Ayer was saying, “Oh shit, I forgot about Katana. Let’s just throw her in right here. Fuck it”. It’s as if they completely forgot about her when writing this thing and just put her in last second to add another female character to the group. Enchantress had some potential, but her motivations were as about as generic as it gets. Incubus was an afterthought as well, despite being this massive, indestructible supervillain. This is why the second half of the film, despite some exciting action, never clicks. It’s because we just don’t give a fuck about the villains. They’re too basic. Even though they actually have superpowers, they’re 1000% less interesting than our ragtag group of miscreants. On a side note, I liked the scenes where she switches from Enchantress to Dr. Moone. Despite the basicness of the demigod/witch character, Cara Delevingne did a solid job at trying to make the two versions of her character work.

I did not like the casting of Joel Kinnamon. He tries his best to make me think he’s a badass, but after hearing Rick Flag could’ve been Tom Hardy, I couldn’t get past it. I just kept thinking how cool it would’ve been to have Will Smith and Tom Hardy argue back and forth. For action hero fans, it would’ve been awesome! Also, Kinnamon has this strange resemblance to DJ Qualls, and I couldn’t get over it.

The problem with the movie comes down to what I mentioned before. The first half of this film had me excited for the ride, but the second half was too generic for what we expected to be a game-changing, generational comic book film. It lost that feeling of “anything can happen” as soon as the mission begins, and it turned into a predictable team-up movie as soon as they run into trouble. They needed to be given more to do in that second half. All they do is fight a bunch of faceless bad guy soldiers on their way to fighting the two villains in the end. It almost seemed too easy. I needed more! There needed to be more infighting. Maybe Flag has more issues with his own soldiers compared to the squad and they give Scott Eastwood a bigger role, or maybe Waller is taken as a hostage, and nobody wants to save her. Then again, maybe more of Joker doing LITERALLY ANYTHING could’ve been the fix. I have heard of rumors regarding a Deadshot/Quinn romantic subplot that almost made it into the film, and I have to say, this would’ve been very interesting. The chemistry was there for sure. You still feel the romantic subtext when they interact. Even something like this could’ve changed everything. Instead, they decided to do none of it and made the rest of the film feel like a video game, with our team fighting through levels to destroy the boss in the last level.

Suicide Squad was still a lot of fun and is underrated as a whole, but it could’ve been so much better. The first half was the imaginative comic book come to life, but the disappointing payoff to it all ruined what could’ve been amazing.

Fun Fact: Writer and director David Ayer originally wanted Shia LaBeouf to play Scott Eastwood’s role, but the studio was not interested. Ryan Gosling was the original choice for Joker, but it never went anywhere. Tom Hardy, the perfect choice for Rick Flag, had to drop out of the film due to scheduling conflicts with The Revenant. Jake Gyllenhaal was asked to replace him, but he declined. For the role of Amanda Waller, Octavia Spencer and Oprah were also considered. Emma Roberts was considered for Harley Quinn as well.