Suicide Squad is a studio executive’s attempt to recreate the magic of Guardians of the Galaxy without understanding why or how that magic worked. Warner Bros. clearly wanted a cast of wacky, troubled characters, a bunch of witty one-liners, and a heaping of bouncy, familiar pop music. Director David Ayer delivers on all those things, but not nearly enough to make a really good film. He gets a little too distracted by the flash bang of generic gun violence.

Suicide Squad is like an Avengers movie if you dial down the entertaining character interactions and dial up the fights against endless, faceless minions.

Movie Rating: 6/10 – Pretty Good. 

There is the potential for a great movie buried deep beneath the mindless, humdrum action of Suicide Squad, and overall, I’m pretty sure I mostly enjoyed the experience. I was mildly entertained, in a bland ‘I don’t hate this’ sort of way. There were enough good notes in the movie to keep me humming along.

For the most part, the characters and the actors playing them are actually really great. Will Smith as Deadshot and Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn are fantastic, and even secondary characters like Rick Flag, El Diablo and Captain Boomerang show a lot of potential. This could have been a great movie.

Instead, these great characters are simply walked through a bland, generic shoot’em up flick with a crummy plot, an overload of unnecessary characters and a severe lack of anything truly noteworthy. Despite being primarily an action movie, there are no awesome, exciting set pieces or interesting fight choreography. There are no big moments that will have people on the edge of their seats or talking about forever. And all the best jokes and one-liners were in the trailers.

Not to mention more than a few weird plotholes that undermine the entire point of the movie.

Join me after the jump for my full review! Expect FULL SPOILERS for Suicide Squad!

Read the rest of this entry →