Ephemeris of the Mind (Film Review) Suicide Squad
Time to read: 2 min read
Movie Poster
We're bad guys. It's what we do.
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Review
Suicide Squad, created by John Ostrander, is one of my favourite storylines from the DC Universe. It features a team of condemned criminals who are forced to complete near suicidal black ops missions to save the world from different threats in return for reduced prison sentences. This film, with an ensemble cast consisting of big names, portrays the founding of the squad as the anti-heroes face their first major threat.
This film aims to be more fun and lighthearted than the previous DC Universe live-action films and to a certain extent it accomplishes this. The dialogue is much less serious and has more banter, and certain characters such Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and Deadshot (Will Smith) serve as good comedic foils for one another. The vibrant neon aesthetics also adds a more arcade feel to the film. There were many things wrong with the film, however.
The story is very lackluster and quite generic; the editing was very choppy and much of the film is very dark, which made much of the action hard to see. It felt like the film tried to do too much and everything felt unstructured and almost unplanned. The character development, for instance, varied greatly in quality, some members of the squad, such as Smith and Robbie’s characters received in depth character arcs but others, such as Karen Fukuhara’s Katana felt almost shoehorned in. I also thought Jared Leto’s take on the Joker was very interesting but the film also largely edited out his role.
Overall, while the film wasn’t good, it wasn’t terrible per se. The film had a lot going for it, such as an interesting premise, tons of acting talent, and a catchy soundtrack; unfortunately, the film doesn’t use its resources to the best of its abilities. The greatest sin is not to under-deliver, but to under-delivered on high expectations.
Conclusion
Underwhelming film with some decent moments.