(Slight spoilers ahead) It's been a long crawl to the end of the summer and for the box office, it hasn't been a great one. Despite the many poor films releases since June, our last big box office pop-corn film is DC's Suicide Squad. With an early August release and without much competition, the movie's being billed as the new "Guardians of the Galaxy," in terms of it's projected weekend gross of $140 million but will the poor reviews and controversial behind the scenes stories keep fans away from the theater this weekend? Suicide Squad is DC's second big film this year, equally as expensive as Batman v Superman, (which was both a commercial and critical failure) needing to make $800 million to break even. David Ayer's Anti-Hero ensemble film managed to bring in some of Hollywoods elite's who arguably, (and possibly, purposefully) out act many of their lesser known counter parts. It's not hard to guess from the trailer that Will Smith's Dead Shot, Viola Davis' Amanda Waller and Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn had most of the screen time, which benefited this film heavily, but others in the background cast fell to the same tired action movie tropes that didn't work two decades ago and certainly wouldn't now. The beginning third of the film opens with such strange editing and effects like fun statistics thrown on the screen like Captain Boomerang's fetish for Pink Unicorns is so ridiculous that it actually works but, it all disappears once we get deeper into the brooding story line. Cara Delvingne plays Enchantress, a demonic spirit who posses a female Doctor by the name of June Moone, who has become the love interest of Joel Kinnaman's Rick Flagg. While she manages to deliver two static versions of the same person, the most confusing scene is arguably one that occurs in a subway where, upon deciding that they could actually control her, Kinnaman request the evil Enchantress' help thus leading to a classic case of "well we knew that wasn't going to work out." It's hard to pick apart villains in comic book films these days because with so man interacting characters, it's rare to see one fully developed in time to get the audience behind them as well as excited for them to pull off (and of course, fail at succeeding) their diabolical plan. Fortunately for the viewers, every other character in this film is better than Delvingne's Enchantress. The back stories were, for the most part, pretty interesting and a fun break away from the dragged on fight scene towards the end against Enchantress' evil soldiers turned monsters. Deadshot's is heart felt, as is Jay Hernandez's El Diablo, while Quinn's highlights some psychological abuse at the hands of Mr. J himself. Which brings us to the second biggest problem of the film. Jared Leto has been, for months, talking only about his acting process behind becoming the Joker for Suicide Squad. Fear of living up to the incredibly high standard set by late actor, Heathe Ledger, to sending used condoms and rats to his fellow cast mates, he seemed all determined to give us a memorable version of the iconic villain, but it's memorable for all the wrong reasons. Leto's Joker becomes a manic mess without anything really dangerous or fun to do. Even in his own scene's, nothing diabolical or violent happens to establish that you're looking at a criminal with a dangerous history. It's more or so just that we should fear him because of what he's done, but it would have been nice to see him do something aside from a guttural laugh, wide eyes and shooting an automatic fire arm. It's a shame that we found out earlier today from Leto himself that quite a few scenes were left on the cutting room floor. It also doesn't help that there was apparently competing cuts of the film as well as some high pressure on director David Ayer as well. While the film failed miserably at making a believable villain of Enchantress, Davis' cold and calculated Waller really shined through, pulling the strings behind the scenes and a fun mid-credit scene lays foundation for next years Justice League. While some of the characters are fun to watch, the lack of a strong antagonist and some very poor editing choices strain this high anticipated title, leading really to a mash up of current pop hits and fun visuals that fill the first half but are virtually gone by the second. It feels as if two different directors filmed portions of this film and fitted them together. Suicide Squad is like being served a hot meal and being told you can only eat it when it's cold. Fortunately for us, DC may be able to learn from their mistakes when the sequel is released as well as a hopefully much better Joker experience in the planned solo Batman film. Until then, we'll just have to wait and see if an extended cut will be released with some alternate scenes like Batman v Superman or if we'll just have to cross our fingers and hope that Justice League can turn around DC's losing streak.
1 Comment
Scott
8/6/2016 11:46:34 pm
I finally saw the movie and although it felt choppy, I like the darker feel. It definately feels different than marvel films and I find it refreshing. However, I think they could still do better.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Gaming
|