Director: David Ayer
Writer: David Ayer
Runtime: 2hr 3minutes
Plot: Superman is dead and so in preparation for the next Superman, who the American's have convinced themselves is going to be a terrorist, they have created "Task Force X" which consists of a group of criminals.
Story time: I saw this either the day it was released or the day after it was released here, and I saw it with a girl I barely know. She rang my best friend and when she didn't pick up the phone, she rang me and asked if I wanted to go see it. I was down because why not? Kelly's more a Marvel fan and Ben was working and...at the time they were the only friends I had to go see a movie with. Anyway, we went and we came out with totally opposing opinions. She absolutely adored the film and I thought it was just crap despite the fact that I wanted this to be good, I wanted to at least like this film and I didn't, it really bothered me. I've since seen it 4 more times and each time I find something astoundingly bad and new and honestly I fucking hate both myself and the film every single damn time I watch it.
I really don't know where to even start with this? Do I praise the small things or do I just go in on it and save the pleasantries for the end? Shit...Know what, I'll do a compliment sandwich. What's that?
It's where you say something positive, do the negative things, then end on a positive note. Hopefully, that will work better than just attacking...maybe.
Ok so, compliment one: Some things on the gag reel on the DVD, while not all that great, could have been included in the film. Like Will Smith sneezing, that's hilarious, absolutely shit's Margot Robbie up and she sort of stays in character when he sneezes next to her, that would have been better than the awkwardly scripted "comedic" dialogue.
Negatives...Shit how can I do this...let's go through characters first then everything else because this is such an interesting thing to watch fall apart I can't just talk about stand out negatives, I gotta go through everything. Because to learn from your mistakes, you should know where you dun goofed.
Deadshot is probably one of the better characters where character development has been attempted. Key word though attempted. It's still blatantly Will Smith doing his Will Smith-y thing which is cool and all but...it's still just that. It's kind of boring but you know I was going to say it's better than the other characters we see but like I don't know man. I don't know. Deadshot has a daughter too who's mother is very neglectful, going out at night and getting wasted leaving the girl to look after her which is of course shit and she clearly is stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to family but who would you rather place her with? The mother who apparently couldn't care less and gets wasted all the time or the father who's pulling in like...$2,0000 a hit who seems like he genuinely cares for her? I mean yeah he's a hitman but...he's got the funds and the heart to care for this child.
Harley Quinn...is not that terrible. The character's voice is irritating, and she's way too easily seduced alongside just being in this line-up to be a sex symbol. That's all she is, a sex symbol. I mean they try to get us to sympathise but she's just so fucking boring and mouthy and she's always trying to kick off with everyone that she actually comes across as really unlikable which I'm certain wasn't the goal when writing her. Any previous iteration of Quinn is sympathetic and complex and a pretty great character. So much so that she was created for the animated series (one of the best Batman things out there btw) and she was adopted into this universe. That's how great a character she is. It's actually really insulting that she was made to be a boring, mouthy, sex symbol in this. I'm sure Margot Robbie was doing her best with the material she was given but my God it just doesn't work. She was a great choice for this character when you think about it...how did anyone fuck this up?
I'll say this once, and only once. Suck my dick if you didn't like this version of the joker because it was a "silly" portrayal of the Clown Prince of Gotham. There is no way on God's polluted, mess of a planet that you can make this character 100% serious. Also, did you not see the mess they made of the whole film? Don't target this one character for being "silly" because....I mean did you see the rest of the damn film? I don't think ya did boo. This Joker is probably my favourite aside from Jack Nicholson and Mark Hamil, this is what I imagine the Joker to be. A prankster but also a ruthless gangster. This was one of my absolute favourite parts of the film, and it's such a shame that Jared Leto got fucked so hard when it came to his like...what...5 or 6 scenes? This guy deserves his own movie. I mean...the one thing I can pick apart with this guy is the fact it literally started "daddy" as a fucking trend and it was all over my social media for fucking months after this came out. It's still going in some places and you know that these girls are still following it as a trend because why would
you legitimately publish your sexual appetites on fucking Facebook? Get bent. Anyway, fight me if you don't like this Joker man. If nothing else, he was fun to watch because of how much fun Leto was having playing this character.
The Flash came up in this and I'm so proud of Ezra Miller. That's it...moving on...
Captain Boomerang. Well...at least we know Deadpool is influencing films before it was even out. It's a shame that we don't see much of this character, I mean, we get something like 10 minutes (or less)
of screen time for Deadshot and Harley but this guy gets something like...I dunno maybe 5 minutes? Maybe less, I don't know. It's just a weird thing to do, almost as if...they wanted you to focus more on Deadshot and Harley and the other characters are just side characters that you're not supposed to really care about. But why do that when the film is called Suicide Squad. It just makes no sense. Jai Courtney at least makes this role memorable in being pretty funny. Shame he gets sort of sidelined.
Killer Croc is in this movie too. Bet you didn't know that. The most interesting thing about this character is the actor behind the character, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. I'm really really sorry if I spelt any of that wrong but look what a damn cool name that is. I hope that if there is a future role for him as Croc he gets more time devoted to him because this character seems like he could have been pretty great but is reduced to spouting self-love and acting tough. He grunts a lot and manages to get a grand total of around 7 lines in the entire film. Trust me, I counted. Hate that this character gets shafted worse than the Joker.
El Diablo. Easily the most interesting character in this damn film, why? Becuase he's caused so much
pain in his life, he acknowledges that and refuses to raise his hands in violence again. Why isn't he all that talked about? He too gets sidelined for the focus to be on Harley and Deadshot. Give this guy a movie. Now. I want to see how he stopped repressing his power and started using them for his own gain. How he adapted to falling in love and having a family. How he dealt with that pain in prison. I'm always so damn mad that this character didn't get enough attention. It's made worse by the fact that with some pretty cool makeup and a pretty good performance from Jay Hernandez it's kind of a worse loss.
Then there's Rick Flag, the soldier that berates Deadshot for being a killer for hire even though he is essentially the same thing but with less pay and thinks he's on a higher moral ground, he also golfs with a 3 handicap and was originally intended to be played by Tom Hardy I think who dropped out to due to "scheduling issues". Roughly translated he didn't like the script and thought that his commitment to the terrible The Revenant was more important. I honestly don't blame him. His replacement, Joel Kinnaman, did a decent job of playing the character and I did like the character at the start of the film but there's only so much preaching I can take.
Dr June Moon is probably the worst archaeologist in the history of archaeology. She travels alone to a cave, and breaks open an ancient artefact. Yes, there is the argument that Enchantress was calling to her to free her but I kind of don't buy that shit. She's also the love interest of Rick Flag when she's not in witch form, which is Amanda Waller's way of controlling Rick to get him to do whatever she wants him to. Probably my favourite manipulative move in this whole film. Back to Moon though. There is one really awesome shot in which she calls upon Enchantress and Enchantresses hand entwines with Moon's and flips over, completing the transition between characters. That's a really cool shot too because all we see is the hand...shame we don't see that again. Cara Delavigne...God bless her she's doing her best here but this wasn't a role for her. I don't know what direction she was given toward the end of the film but it wasn't the right one. It looks as though she might actually be in pain with the way she's moving her body, which is never good for an audience member to see, I almost wanted to give her some paracetamol or something, twisting and jerking your body about like that can't be healthy. The important thing is she tried and did her best
Katana is here...I don't know why. She's introduced to us in a dew seconds of flashback and given a supposedly emotional scene before the climax where she's crying to her sword which contains the soul of her husband and I think we're meant to really feel for her but...we don't. She serves literally no purpose in the film and she would 100% do better if she was given a bigger part or even her own film because I just don't think she's used very well. Karen Fukuhara again does her best but there really isn't any payoff with the character.
Griggs is another of my favourite parts of the film, mostly because I thought he was played by John Gallagher Jr who is slowly becoming one of my favourite actors but he's not in this movie. Instead, Griggs is played by Ike Barinholtz who is actually quite funny and enjoyable to watch until he just kind of....drops out of the film altogether. Why? I don't know, he doesn't even show up at the end when everyone's back in prison.
Finally, there's Viola Davis as Amanda Waller. She is probably the coolest person in this film, she's stern but you can feel there's some sort of nasty undertone with her...shame they went overboard and made her a little bit psychotic and kills a whole room of people because they didn't have clearance for...something...I don't know what that something was, maybe it was knowing of the squad I don't know but she could have bribed them to keep their mouths shut rather than blow all the heads off. Then when the squad saves the whole fucking world she comes out holding this machine that could blow all their heads off like...no, there is no need for that at all. They saved your life twice, they saved the world and you're gonna blow their heads off too? Nuh-uh, I don't think so.
So that's it for the characters, what else is wrong with this? Well for a start there's at least 18 music cues in this and I think about 11 of them are in the first half hour all rushed together. I wouldn't even be all that bothered about it but they went to the effort to get artists to cover and create music for this film and throughout the entire thing I think about 3 were used and the rest were the original songs that were covered for the soundtrack album. I mean, I'm glad I didn't have to hear Panic at the Disco cover Bohemian Rhapsody but what's the point in having people cover and create music specifically for the film but not put it in? Also before anyone kicks off I love Panic, I'm just against people covering Bohemian Rhapsody because there's literally only one person on this planet that can sing it perfectly and he's dead.
Moving back to Enchantress, I have a few questions. What exactly was she doing when she first inhabited June Moone's body while Waller's team were searching for her heart? Was she just chilling in her swampy bath? Was she laying waste to everything she saw? I would like to know, I feel like this is an important detail. And how convenient was it that her heart was actually in the same cave as the little statue that she was found in? Not very good at hiding your heart there. Also, why was her heart not in her body? Why was she in that little statue in the first place? What is her backstory? Waller says everything they know about her is in the briefing packs but like...was the audience who never read the comics issued with that briefing pack? If so I wasn't given one and I want one because what the hell, I want at least some background rather than "here's this now accept it and carry on with no questions". I have questions movie and you ain't answering shit. There's also the fact that at one point, Enchantress brings herself out while Moone is sleeping...could she do this before? Why did she choose to do it now? What exactly was her motivation? Finally, there's how this character transitions between Moone and Enchantress. Saying "Enchantress" brings the witch out but...saying it again brings Moone back? Would it not make more sense to have her say "Moone" or something to bring her back? How does this work fellas?
Then there's the fact that Flag watches as Enchantress takes over and goes missing for a little bit then suddenly something not human starts attacking the city. What's the best course of action for that? Oh yeah, send the witch who went missing just before this shit went down into the battle and hope for the best. Of course, pat on the back guys, way to do your job well, y'all deserve medals.
Do you remember that scene where Harley Quinn is stood...somewhere and says something weird then claims it's the voices? Of course you do, it was probably the most marketed part of the film outside all the Joker's scenes. So if it's marketed as much as it was, of course, that means it's a big part of the film right? Hahaha, you thought wrong buckaroo. It's actually one tiny part of the film and has no relevance to anything outside of itself. The voices thing isn't even used outside of that part. I don't know if it was meant to be funny or if it was meant to a big part of the character but was cut out of the film and that little bit was just left in, I don't know. All I know is that that part was stupid and pointless. In fact, I actually think it was meant to be a joke because you can hear the dead air in which the film thought you were laughing at it. Unfortunately, nobody laughed, and it stayed awkward dead air.
Do you also remember that scene where Harley escapes and hangs onto a rope which is hanging from a helicopter? She has her little neck tag disarmed meaning Waller can't blow her head off so she asks Deadshot to kill her and the man who is the best shot in the world "misses" such an open shot? Even though he's been asked to do it in return of either seeing his kid or full custody of her, I don't remember but it's something to do with his daughter and he "misses" the shot, sacrificing that for a woman he's known for a day? I'll call bullshit on that one. The thing is, Harley plays along, acting like she's been shot but like...how did she know to do that? Did she just decide that the next shot fired she was going to play dead? Why? You're a free bitch, just climb that rope to your boo.
Speaking of playing dead, the Joker pulls the best stunt ever. The copter he saves Harley in gets shot down, he pushes her out in a bid to save her life but for whatever reason doesn't save himself, honestly, that makes no sense. Why would you choose to go down with the copter? Was it to fake the audience out? Of course, it was. Shame it didn't work on me though, I can tell this bullshit apart from a real death. I remember when I saw this in the cinema the girl I saw it with was almost in tears, she was so upset that they "killed" the Joker, and so were a lot of people actually. I remember a pretty audible gasp coming from a lot of the people in the almost full screening and I just didn't know why. In a way, I hoped that they did kill the Joker because at least then they would have followed through with something and done something impactful and maybe developed Harley's character a little more. I was proved right though. It was a fake out. I even said to the girl I was sat with that he'd be back at the end of the film to break Harley out of prison if that's where she ends up and I was so fucking right it almost winded me. I was so mad that I was actually able to predict the end of the fucking film. In fact, I'm still mad. I dare you to go down in flaming copter that explodes when it crashes and come out without a damned scar on you. Fuck.
Another fake death comes from the psychotic Waller. Enchantress is using her...tentacle? I don't know what it is but she's got some magic bullshit attached to Waller which is gaining government intel so that Enchantress can destroy the world. When Enchantress is defeated Waller emerges unharmed. Deadshot was also pretty sceptical of this which means the script was aware of this meaning the writers were aware of the bullshit going down. She emerges and Deadshot says something like "oh you're dead" or something like that. Maybe he's saying he'll kill her? It comes off more like "Nah, you're supposed to be dead after what you just went through" I mean, even she survives a fucking copter crash. Are those just like...bumped elbows or something? Hurts for a moment but you just move on with your life? This is a helicopter crash, even Michael Bay is telling you that's too much.
What else is there? Like I don't wanna make this too long but I have about 6 pages of notes of shit that I want to discuss or bitch about and I feel like this is already getting a bit too long. I'll just do a couple more...
There's the editing which is just...horrific. The colours, the choppiness, the way it allowed fight scenes to go on too long and the sporadic light to darkness. I know this was edited by the company that cut the trailer together but...why would you do that to the movie? Did they blow their budget on the music and only had enough left for the film to be edited by the company that did the trailer. I have nothing against the company the put the trailer together, they did a good job. The trailer got me hyped for a comic book movie which never happens. Not even with normal films so I thought y'know what, we'll try it. Just a shame that this company couldn't put a film together properly.
Another Enchantress problem that I noticed when looking at my notes is that June Moone is American and Cara Delavigne does the accent well enough but...why does Enchantress speak with an English accent when it comes to speaking to the rest of the characters? Is there some bias against English people where we're just destined to play villains in American movies? Is that racist? Speaking of racist isn't ese like n***a for the latina community yet Deadshot pretty much just refers to Diablo as ese? And moving on from racism there's some blatant misogyny too. There's a moment during the exhausting climax in which Deadshot says to Flag Quote: "- Get up there, smack her on the ass and tell her to knock this shit off." It's meant to be a joke obviously, but you just know that some people out there would take it seriously and complain about it being a line against women. There's another moment when the squad is all brought together and the final member gets out the car and punches a woman because "she had a mouth". We don't see what she did to him, we don't know if she was a mouthy cow or not so this attack just looks a little bit unprovoked.
The slo-mo in this film is also fucking ridiculous. You want this thing to speed up and be over but they choose to drag it out and make us suffer. Thought that needed pointing out.
The relationship between Harley and Joker is also disgusting. They clearly made them truly love each other because it would bring in more ticket sales and talk of what a great couple they are which totally undermines the true relationship between the two characters. I'm talking about the abuse. Why take away such a dark element which was pretty key to Harley's character? Oh right yeah because this was meant to be a funny, campy comic book movie and you obviously can't have serious issues talked about in stuff like that plus if there was abuse the film might not have gotten that all-important PG-13 rating it needed to bring in the biggest crowd and therefore higher ticket sales. Silly me haha.
Another problem which is really nitpicky but I just have to pick out is Harley's hair. As Dr Harleen Quinzel she has blonde hair. When she jumps into the acid she gets bleach blonde hair and when the joker jumps in after her his shirt and her shirt blend together to give her the blue and pink tips to her hair...I mean..the colours would have blended together and made her hair purple but whatever. Plus they kissing in a boiling vat of acid so...y'all dead. When she's in prison her hair is crazy long and has just faded blue and pink ends but when she's being transferred from the prison to I think an army base, her hair is short and has bright blue and pink hair ends again. Was she allowed a hair appointment on that transfer? I only actually noticed this on my final viewing of the film and it bothered me.
Finally, there's a moment in the climax where Deadshot is about to shoot Enchantress and he gets a vision of his daughter telling him not to because it's the only way they can be together. Why? He has to shoot Enchantress because if not he'll never see his daughter again because she'd be dead because the world would have ended. Why was this even a struggle for him to pull the trigger? It's just so fucking stupid. If this was an innocent person that he had a gun to then I'd understand it but...no.
So to complete this compliment sandwich...there's a guy in the IMDb cast list called Panda Man. Obviously referring to the guy who shoots places up wearing the most impractical panda costume ever. Just a fun little thing to note.
Anyway, that's it, I'm done, this was therapeutic and tiring at the same time and I'm glad I was able to just fully bitch about this thing even if it did take me about 7 hours to write. I'm just sad that I've had to own the DVD to be able to fucking do this. I've paid money twice to suffer through this and I'm done. Let's just hope that Wonder Woman or Justice League are any better. A'ight, I'm out, peace.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.
Plot: Superman is dead and so in preparation for the next Superman, who the American's have convinced themselves is going to be a terrorist, they have created "Task Force X" which consists of a group of criminals.
Story time: I saw this either the day it was released or the day after it was released here, and I saw it with a girl I barely know. She rang my best friend and when she didn't pick up the phone, she rang me and asked if I wanted to go see it. I was down because why not? Kelly's more a Marvel fan and Ben was working and...at the time they were the only friends I had to go see a movie with. Anyway, we went and we came out with totally opposing opinions. She absolutely adored the film and I thought it was just crap despite the fact that I wanted this to be good, I wanted to at least like this film and I didn't, it really bothered me. I've since seen it 4 more times and each time I find something astoundingly bad and new and honestly I fucking hate both myself and the film every single damn time I watch it.
I really don't know where to even start with this? Do I praise the small things or do I just go in on it and save the pleasantries for the end? Shit...Know what, I'll do a compliment sandwich. What's that?
It's where you say something positive, do the negative things, then end on a positive note. Hopefully, that will work better than just attacking...maybe.
Ok so, compliment one: Some things on the gag reel on the DVD, while not all that great, could have been included in the film. Like Will Smith sneezing, that's hilarious, absolutely shit's Margot Robbie up and she sort of stays in character when he sneezes next to her, that would have been better than the awkwardly scripted "comedic" dialogue.
Negatives...Shit how can I do this...let's go through characters first then everything else because this is such an interesting thing to watch fall apart I can't just talk about stand out negatives, I gotta go through everything. Because to learn from your mistakes, you should know where you dun goofed.
Deadshot is probably one of the better characters where character development has been attempted. Key word though attempted. It's still blatantly Will Smith doing his Will Smith-y thing which is cool and all but...it's still just that. It's kind of boring but you know I was going to say it's better than the other characters we see but like I don't know man. I don't know. Deadshot has a daughter too who's mother is very neglectful, going out at night and getting wasted leaving the girl to look after her which is of course shit and she clearly is stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to family but who would you rather place her with? The mother who apparently couldn't care less and gets wasted all the time or the father who's pulling in like...$2,0000 a hit who seems like he genuinely cares for her? I mean yeah he's a hitman but...he's got the funds and the heart to care for this child.
Harley Quinn...is not that terrible. The character's voice is irritating, and she's way too easily seduced alongside just being in this line-up to be a sex symbol. That's all she is, a sex symbol. I mean they try to get us to sympathise but she's just so fucking boring and mouthy and she's always trying to kick off with everyone that she actually comes across as really unlikable which I'm certain wasn't the goal when writing her. Any previous iteration of Quinn is sympathetic and complex and a pretty great character. So much so that she was created for the animated series (one of the best Batman things out there btw) and she was adopted into this universe. That's how great a character she is. It's actually really insulting that she was made to be a boring, mouthy, sex symbol in this. I'm sure Margot Robbie was doing her best with the material she was given but my God it just doesn't work. She was a great choice for this character when you think about it...how did anyone fuck this up?
I'll say this once, and only once. Suck my dick if you didn't like this version of the joker because it was a "silly" portrayal of the Clown Prince of Gotham. There is no way on God's polluted, mess of a planet that you can make this character 100% serious. Also, did you not see the mess they made of the whole film? Don't target this one character for being "silly" because....I mean did you see the rest of the damn film? I don't think ya did boo. This Joker is probably my favourite aside from Jack Nicholson and Mark Hamil, this is what I imagine the Joker to be. A prankster but also a ruthless gangster. This was one of my absolute favourite parts of the film, and it's such a shame that Jared Leto got fucked so hard when it came to his like...what...5 or 6 scenes? This guy deserves his own movie. I mean...the one thing I can pick apart with this guy is the fact it literally started "daddy" as a fucking trend and it was all over my social media for fucking months after this came out. It's still going in some places and you know that these girls are still following it as a trend because why would
you legitimately publish your sexual appetites on fucking Facebook? Get bent. Anyway, fight me if you don't like this Joker man. If nothing else, he was fun to watch because of how much fun Leto was having playing this character.
The Flash came up in this and I'm so proud of Ezra Miller. That's it...moving on...
Captain Boomerang. Well...at least we know Deadpool is influencing films before it was even out. It's a shame that we don't see much of this character, I mean, we get something like 10 minutes (or less)
of screen time for Deadshot and Harley but this guy gets something like...I dunno maybe 5 minutes? Maybe less, I don't know. It's just a weird thing to do, almost as if...they wanted you to focus more on Deadshot and Harley and the other characters are just side characters that you're not supposed to really care about. But why do that when the film is called Suicide Squad. It just makes no sense. Jai Courtney at least makes this role memorable in being pretty funny. Shame he gets sort of sidelined.
Killer Croc is in this movie too. Bet you didn't know that. The most interesting thing about this character is the actor behind the character, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. I'm really really sorry if I spelt any of that wrong but look what a damn cool name that is. I hope that if there is a future role for him as Croc he gets more time devoted to him because this character seems like he could have been pretty great but is reduced to spouting self-love and acting tough. He grunts a lot and manages to get a grand total of around 7 lines in the entire film. Trust me, I counted. Hate that this character gets shafted worse than the Joker.
El Diablo. Easily the most interesting character in this damn film, why? Becuase he's caused so much
pain in his life, he acknowledges that and refuses to raise his hands in violence again. Why isn't he all that talked about? He too gets sidelined for the focus to be on Harley and Deadshot. Give this guy a movie. Now. I want to see how he stopped repressing his power and started using them for his own gain. How he adapted to falling in love and having a family. How he dealt with that pain in prison. I'm always so damn mad that this character didn't get enough attention. It's made worse by the fact that with some pretty cool makeup and a pretty good performance from Jay Hernandez it's kind of a worse loss.
Then there's Rick Flag, the soldier that berates Deadshot for being a killer for hire even though he is essentially the same thing but with less pay and thinks he's on a higher moral ground, he also golfs with a 3 handicap and was originally intended to be played by Tom Hardy I think who dropped out to due to "scheduling issues". Roughly translated he didn't like the script and thought that his commitment to the terrible The Revenant was more important. I honestly don't blame him. His replacement, Joel Kinnaman, did a decent job of playing the character and I did like the character at the start of the film but there's only so much preaching I can take.
Dr June Moon is probably the worst archaeologist in the history of archaeology. She travels alone to a cave, and breaks open an ancient artefact. Yes, there is the argument that Enchantress was calling to her to free her but I kind of don't buy that shit. She's also the love interest of Rick Flag when she's not in witch form, which is Amanda Waller's way of controlling Rick to get him to do whatever she wants him to. Probably my favourite manipulative move in this whole film. Back to Moon though. There is one really awesome shot in which she calls upon Enchantress and Enchantresses hand entwines with Moon's and flips over, completing the transition between characters. That's a really cool shot too because all we see is the hand...shame we don't see that again. Cara Delavigne...God bless her she's doing her best here but this wasn't a role for her. I don't know what direction she was given toward the end of the film but it wasn't the right one. It looks as though she might actually be in pain with the way she's moving her body, which is never good for an audience member to see, I almost wanted to give her some paracetamol or something, twisting and jerking your body about like that can't be healthy. The important thing is she tried and did her best
Katana is here...I don't know why. She's introduced to us in a dew seconds of flashback and given a supposedly emotional scene before the climax where she's crying to her sword which contains the soul of her husband and I think we're meant to really feel for her but...we don't. She serves literally no purpose in the film and she would 100% do better if she was given a bigger part or even her own film because I just don't think she's used very well. Karen Fukuhara again does her best but there really isn't any payoff with the character.
Griggs is another of my favourite parts of the film, mostly because I thought he was played by John Gallagher Jr who is slowly becoming one of my favourite actors but he's not in this movie. Instead, Griggs is played by Ike Barinholtz who is actually quite funny and enjoyable to watch until he just kind of....drops out of the film altogether. Why? I don't know, he doesn't even show up at the end when everyone's back in prison.
Finally, there's Viola Davis as Amanda Waller. She is probably the coolest person in this film, she's stern but you can feel there's some sort of nasty undertone with her...shame they went overboard and made her a little bit psychotic and kills a whole room of people because they didn't have clearance for...something...I don't know what that something was, maybe it was knowing of the squad I don't know but she could have bribed them to keep their mouths shut rather than blow all the heads off. Then when the squad saves the whole fucking world she comes out holding this machine that could blow all their heads off like...no, there is no need for that at all. They saved your life twice, they saved the world and you're gonna blow their heads off too? Nuh-uh, I don't think so.
So that's it for the characters, what else is wrong with this? Well for a start there's at least 18 music cues in this and I think about 11 of them are in the first half hour all rushed together. I wouldn't even be all that bothered about it but they went to the effort to get artists to cover and create music for this film and throughout the entire thing I think about 3 were used and the rest were the original songs that were covered for the soundtrack album. I mean, I'm glad I didn't have to hear Panic at the Disco cover Bohemian Rhapsody but what's the point in having people cover and create music specifically for the film but not put it in? Also before anyone kicks off I love Panic, I'm just against people covering Bohemian Rhapsody because there's literally only one person on this planet that can sing it perfectly and he's dead.
Moving back to Enchantress, I have a few questions. What exactly was she doing when she first inhabited June Moone's body while Waller's team were searching for her heart? Was she just chilling in her swampy bath? Was she laying waste to everything she saw? I would like to know, I feel like this is an important detail. And how convenient was it that her heart was actually in the same cave as the little statue that she was found in? Not very good at hiding your heart there. Also, why was her heart not in her body? Why was she in that little statue in the first place? What is her backstory? Waller says everything they know about her is in the briefing packs but like...was the audience who never read the comics issued with that briefing pack? If so I wasn't given one and I want one because what the hell, I want at least some background rather than "here's this now accept it and carry on with no questions". I have questions movie and you ain't answering shit. There's also the fact that at one point, Enchantress brings herself out while Moone is sleeping...could she do this before? Why did she choose to do it now? What exactly was her motivation? Finally, there's how this character transitions between Moone and Enchantress. Saying "Enchantress" brings the witch out but...saying it again brings Moone back? Would it not make more sense to have her say "Moone" or something to bring her back? How does this work fellas?
Then there's the fact that Flag watches as Enchantress takes over and goes missing for a little bit then suddenly something not human starts attacking the city. What's the best course of action for that? Oh yeah, send the witch who went missing just before this shit went down into the battle and hope for the best. Of course, pat on the back guys, way to do your job well, y'all deserve medals.
Do you remember that scene where Harley Quinn is stood...somewhere and says something weird then claims it's the voices? Of course you do, it was probably the most marketed part of the film outside all the Joker's scenes. So if it's marketed as much as it was, of course, that means it's a big part of the film right? Hahaha, you thought wrong buckaroo. It's actually one tiny part of the film and has no relevance to anything outside of itself. The voices thing isn't even used outside of that part. I don't know if it was meant to be funny or if it was meant to a big part of the character but was cut out of the film and that little bit was just left in, I don't know. All I know is that that part was stupid and pointless. In fact, I actually think it was meant to be a joke because you can hear the dead air in which the film thought you were laughing at it. Unfortunately, nobody laughed, and it stayed awkward dead air.
Do you also remember that scene where Harley escapes and hangs onto a rope which is hanging from a helicopter? She has her little neck tag disarmed meaning Waller can't blow her head off so she asks Deadshot to kill her and the man who is the best shot in the world "misses" such an open shot? Even though he's been asked to do it in return of either seeing his kid or full custody of her, I don't remember but it's something to do with his daughter and he "misses" the shot, sacrificing that for a woman he's known for a day? I'll call bullshit on that one. The thing is, Harley plays along, acting like she's been shot but like...how did she know to do that? Did she just decide that the next shot fired she was going to play dead? Why? You're a free bitch, just climb that rope to your boo.
Speaking of playing dead, the Joker pulls the best stunt ever. The copter he saves Harley in gets shot down, he pushes her out in a bid to save her life but for whatever reason doesn't save himself, honestly, that makes no sense. Why would you choose to go down with the copter? Was it to fake the audience out? Of course, it was. Shame it didn't work on me though, I can tell this bullshit apart from a real death. I remember when I saw this in the cinema the girl I saw it with was almost in tears, she was so upset that they "killed" the Joker, and so were a lot of people actually. I remember a pretty audible gasp coming from a lot of the people in the almost full screening and I just didn't know why. In a way, I hoped that they did kill the Joker because at least then they would have followed through with something and done something impactful and maybe developed Harley's character a little more. I was proved right though. It was a fake out. I even said to the girl I was sat with that he'd be back at the end of the film to break Harley out of prison if that's where she ends up and I was so fucking right it almost winded me. I was so mad that I was actually able to predict the end of the fucking film. In fact, I'm still mad. I dare you to go down in flaming copter that explodes when it crashes and come out without a damned scar on you. Fuck.
Another fake death comes from the psychotic Waller. Enchantress is using her...tentacle? I don't know what it is but she's got some magic bullshit attached to Waller which is gaining government intel so that Enchantress can destroy the world. When Enchantress is defeated Waller emerges unharmed. Deadshot was also pretty sceptical of this which means the script was aware of this meaning the writers were aware of the bullshit going down. She emerges and Deadshot says something like "oh you're dead" or something like that. Maybe he's saying he'll kill her? It comes off more like "Nah, you're supposed to be dead after what you just went through" I mean, even she survives a fucking copter crash. Are those just like...bumped elbows or something? Hurts for a moment but you just move on with your life? This is a helicopter crash, even Michael Bay is telling you that's too much.
What else is there? Like I don't wanna make this too long but I have about 6 pages of notes of shit that I want to discuss or bitch about and I feel like this is already getting a bit too long. I'll just do a couple more...
There's the editing which is just...horrific. The colours, the choppiness, the way it allowed fight scenes to go on too long and the sporadic light to darkness. I know this was edited by the company that cut the trailer together but...why would you do that to the movie? Did they blow their budget on the music and only had enough left for the film to be edited by the company that did the trailer. I have nothing against the company the put the trailer together, they did a good job. The trailer got me hyped for a comic book movie which never happens. Not even with normal films so I thought y'know what, we'll try it. Just a shame that this company couldn't put a film together properly.
Another Enchantress problem that I noticed when looking at my notes is that June Moone is American and Cara Delavigne does the accent well enough but...why does Enchantress speak with an English accent when it comes to speaking to the rest of the characters? Is there some bias against English people where we're just destined to play villains in American movies? Is that racist? Speaking of racist isn't ese like n***a for the latina community yet Deadshot pretty much just refers to Diablo as ese? And moving on from racism there's some blatant misogyny too. There's a moment during the exhausting climax in which Deadshot says to Flag Quote: "- Get up there, smack her on the ass and tell her to knock this shit off." It's meant to be a joke obviously, but you just know that some people out there would take it seriously and complain about it being a line against women. There's another moment when the squad is all brought together and the final member gets out the car and punches a woman because "she had a mouth". We don't see what she did to him, we don't know if she was a mouthy cow or not so this attack just looks a little bit unprovoked.
The slo-mo in this film is also fucking ridiculous. You want this thing to speed up and be over but they choose to drag it out and make us suffer. Thought that needed pointing out.
The relationship between Harley and Joker is also disgusting. They clearly made them truly love each other because it would bring in more ticket sales and talk of what a great couple they are which totally undermines the true relationship between the two characters. I'm talking about the abuse. Why take away such a dark element which was pretty key to Harley's character? Oh right yeah because this was meant to be a funny, campy comic book movie and you obviously can't have serious issues talked about in stuff like that plus if there was abuse the film might not have gotten that all-important PG-13 rating it needed to bring in the biggest crowd and therefore higher ticket sales. Silly me haha.
Another problem which is really nitpicky but I just have to pick out is Harley's hair. As Dr Harleen Quinzel she has blonde hair. When she jumps into the acid she gets bleach blonde hair and when the joker jumps in after her his shirt and her shirt blend together to give her the blue and pink tips to her hair...I mean..the colours would have blended together and made her hair purple but whatever. Plus they kissing in a boiling vat of acid so...y'all dead. When she's in prison her hair is crazy long and has just faded blue and pink ends but when she's being transferred from the prison to I think an army base, her hair is short and has bright blue and pink hair ends again. Was she allowed a hair appointment on that transfer? I only actually noticed this on my final viewing of the film and it bothered me.
Finally, there's a moment in the climax where Deadshot is about to shoot Enchantress and he gets a vision of his daughter telling him not to because it's the only way they can be together. Why? He has to shoot Enchantress because if not he'll never see his daughter again because she'd be dead because the world would have ended. Why was this even a struggle for him to pull the trigger? It's just so fucking stupid. If this was an innocent person that he had a gun to then I'd understand it but...no.
So to complete this compliment sandwich...there's a guy in the IMDb cast list called Panda Man. Obviously referring to the guy who shoots places up wearing the most impractical panda costume ever. Just a fun little thing to note.
Anyway, that's it, I'm done, this was therapeutic and tiring at the same time and I'm glad I was able to just fully bitch about this thing even if it did take me about 7 hours to write. I'm just sad that I've had to own the DVD to be able to fucking do this. I've paid money twice to suffer through this and I'm done. Let's just hope that Wonder Woman or Justice League are any better. A'ight, I'm out, peace.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.
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