One can’t
help but feel that the D.C. cinematic universe, while still hugely successful,
is stuttering. Their twin tentpole
characters’ throwdown, Batman vs.
Superman: Dawn Of Justice, derided in these very pages, threw both their
biggest names and a hugely loaded name at audiences. It turned out to be a glum, moody, largely un-dramatic
piece of drama which managed to cram so much content and yet do so little in
over two hours. Following the flawed,
muddled Man Of Steel, it didn’t exactly
make a statement of intent for D.C’s plans.
Rather than jump straight into their Justice
League main event, they’ve decided to go for something a little left field
as a spacer.
The cynic in
me says that this is their attempt to capitalise on the success of Guardians Of The Galaxy, which pitted a
group of charming, mismatched anti-heroes against an actual bad guy. Character friction, comedy and some genuinely
new faces provided an interesting new jigsaw piece in Marvel’s expanding universe. The irreverent tone, incongruous music and against-the-odds
underdog story gave Marvel an unexpected hit.
Could the formula be replicated?
With Suicide Squad D.C/Warner have tried to
introduce about a dozen new characters at once, the most familiar of which
being one who carries perhaps the most baggage in The Joker. The late Heath Ledger’s performance,
amplified by the addition of the two words before his name, is now considered
so definitive as to blow previously definitive performances by Jack Nicholson
and Cesar Romero out of the water. It couldn’t possibly be bested, could it?
Although, the film doesn’t give him a chance to prove it, I have no
doubt that Jared Leto’s authoritative gangster will be brilliant if they give
him something to do other than text and then rescue Magot Robbie’s Harley
Quinn. His inclusion reeks of a marketing
decision, because D.C. didn’t have the guts to invest in unknown characters so
they have hedged their bets and included their no.1 villain as a support act.
Harley Quinn
is a tricky one; a potentially interesting arc between her and Joker is
undercooked (possibly due to reshoots and studio-imposed cuts), but her
anarchic spirit should give the film
energy. But because all of her best
lines were in the trailers, she offers very little by way of surprises and in
terms of skill set (agile, handy with a baseball bat), one has to wonder why the
character would be recruited for ‘Task Force X’ to begin with. Another great character wasted, although
Robbie does well, undulating accent aside.
It’s perhaps
natural that headline star Will Smith would steal the film as Deadshot, and
while his character is at least given some background it is also lumbered with
terrible sub-Bad Boys dialogue. At one point, I expected him to describe a
situation as ‘whack’; that he doesn’t is the only saving grace. Jai Countney, normally as annoying as a
genital rash, manages to raise some smiles with his Boomerang character, who
otherwise has nothing to do. Jay Hernandez does good work with the repentant
pyrokinetic El Diabolo and his brief back story should have been developed
more, but doesn’t really do anything until about an hour in. Joel Kinnaman, so good in House Of Cards, is a charisma void as
team leader Rick Flagg, who tries to play straight man to Deadshot but comes
off like a walking rectangle with a goatee.
Slipknot is a waste of space and gets less screen time than I’m giving
him here. Katana could have been great
but isn’t given time to, and this leaves Enchantress, who starts off as a really
interesting proposition but ends up as Cara Delevingne belly dancing in front
of a huge CGI swirl. None of whom are as
bad as Killer Croc who does so little he’s barely worth mentioning.
Logically,
then, why would America put together a team of bad guys? What could be so bad
as to warrant such a move? The film provides some connective tissue and
explains Superman’s post-Dawn Of Justice
absence in one sentence within a montage.
Disappointingly, Enchantress turns out to be the main villain, which
ironically would have been a good match for the vulnerable-to-magic Superman. While her ‘spurned Aztec god’ angle is
interesting, it boils down to a spur-of-the-moment decision to hate humanity
and a devious plan which involves destroying all of the world’s military
equipment (I can’t be the only person thinking that this was a good thing, can
I?) with the aforementioned CGI swirl, which she calls a machine but is
actually floating scrap metal not unlike the world engine from Man Of Steel.
I’m not
normally one to let plot holes ruin my films, but when the film drives directly
into them I’ll make an exception. The
good guys win by detonating bombs near two gods who had previously been
invincible. The film betrays its own
logic here and you feel cheated by it (the Incubus character had just regrown
his own hand, but blow up the floor beneath him and he’s dead…). In terms of power sets, only Diabolo and
Killer Croc are particularly ‘powered’ so the final conflict boils down to 4 of
the team being absolutely useless against superpowered enemies; anyone who’s
been paying attention could work out how it pans out from a mile away.
The
character dynamics are all wrong, too.
Over a post-defeat drink, they go from The Hateful Eight to The
Breakfast Club, deciding that they’re family. Deadshot’s toast to ‘honour among thieves’
comes off as patronising, it’s so obvious.
None of the characters are established well enough for us to believe
that they would bond so easily over a couple of gunfights. So the ensemble fails because we a) don’t
know anything about the characters going in and b) aren’t given enough time
with any of them to make us invest in them.
David Ayer
makes some poor choices with the film as well, although rumour has it there has
been studio tomfoolery at work soften the edges. Starting with a pleasingly comic style (rap sheets
up on screen in OTT fonts) while the characters are introduced, this is
abandoned and settles down into standard military film tropes. His set pieces are all very dark and muddled
and because it’s characters you don’t especially care about shooting at lumpy
CGI humanoids who have had no introduction, it’s really difficult to feel like
there’s anything at stake during any of them.
Most
grating, though, are his musical choices.
Trying to capture the irreverent spirit (but none of the charm or
charisma) of Guardians Of The Galaxy,
seemingly incongruous songs actually become painfully obvious: ‘Sympathy Of The
Devil’ plays when we first see El Diabolo, Eminem’s ‘Look Who’s Back’ plays as
the team are tooling up, ‘House of The Rising Sun’ plays over the establishing
shot of a Louisiana prison, and the opening line of Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’ plays
while Harley Quinn is released from her cell.
It’s overwhelming sensory overload and really quite distracting.
Finally, I
can’t go without acknowledging that the entire end sequence is lifted from the
finale of Ghostbusters
(disappointingly, without marshmallow): team outmatched by a powerful witch
with some ropey CGI magic somehow manages to beat her and then one character finds
his girlfriend buried under the residue.
I’m not sure
whether Suicide Squad is an
opportunity missed or an idea half-cooked.
With the talent on board and the source material, it’s just such a shame
that none of it managed to gel. Next
time, give The Joker something to do, eh?
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