Suicide Squad
Starring Will Smith, Margot Robbie
Directed by David Ayer
Bloated. Incomprehensible. Disastrous. Just a few words that merely scratch the surface when it comes to describing the utter debacle that is DC/Warner's latest comic book flick Suicide Squad. A group of supervillains, for reasons painfully unknown, are released from incarceration to form a government-run special ops team with a mission to defeat an ancient evil witch and stop her from opening yet another portal into a different dimension and destroying yet another city/planet. Several of these characters are intriguing; Will Smith's father figure sharpshooter Deadshot provides a glimpse of genuine heart while Margot Robbie makes the best of an awful script and brings some madcap zaniness to her Harley Quinn role. Most of the others are blink and you'll miss them throwaways, thinly sketched stereotypes, or extended cameos. The latter of these being Jared Leto's hamfisted Joker, who is barely in the plot and has nothing to do, amounting to a total waste of an iconic character and a pathetic disservice to fans. The less said about Ben Affleck's Batman showing up for a few scenes the better. Suicide Squad represents the ultimate height of manufactured pop porn. Stylistic violence, hyper sexuality, and blaring needle drop songs clumsily collide with frequent tonal shifts, jarring editing, and shoddy visual effects reminiscent of The Mummy. There was an opportunity to craft something original and edgy with the movie's premise that could have set a new benchmark for superhero films. Instead, Suicide Squad's biggest sin is that it's instantly forgettable.
