Suicide Squad Review - Possible Spoilers!!!

The critics would have you believe that DC is making truly awful films right now so I'm going to begin this review with one simple piece of advice. IGNORE THEM! They've obviously got some gripe with DC so do not trust them and should you go to see Suicide Squad, do so as the makers intended, as a fan. Right, so now I've got that out of the way, time to get down to the serious job of reviewing this bad boy....well a whole bunch of them.....and a couple of bad gals thrown in.

Waller puts forward her case

The basic plot of suicide squad is that U.S. Intelligence Officer Amanda Waller (Viola Davies) has spent a lot of time rounding up the "worst of the worst" with a little help from a couple of well known heroes (we see Batman taking down Harley Quinn and Dead-shot while The Flash makes a cameo to catch Captain Boomerang). Her idea is a simple one. Following the (spoiler alert) death of Superman, she wants to use bad-guys to catch bad-guys thus giving the government built in deniability. If anything goes wrong then they can just blame the bad-guys. Still follow me? Well our rag tag team of baddies get called into action quickly when Enchantress (Cara Delevingne) goes rouge and that is basically the plot. As I understood it at least.

So, initial thoughts? Personally I really enjoyed it. It was a fun film as opposed to Batman Vs

Boomerang and Quinn are standouts

Supermans grimness. It was funny with Captain Boomerang and Harley Quinn offering the most laughs. It does have its problems though and I'll cover these first to get them out of the way.

The plot is bad. I loved the idea of seeing these characters in this shared universe together but it felt like the plot was there to service this idea rather than the other way round. My biggest gripe with Batman Vs Superman was that it felt like the writers had this great idea to get these characters together and then needed to come up with a threat big enough for them to actually have a challenge. That's what Suicide Squad felt like at times. The plot felt like an after thought.

While I wasn't impressed with the shallow plot, I was impressed with the characters themselves. Jai Courtney was perfect as Captain Boomerang as was Will Smith as Deadshot. Margot Robbie was a stand out too and not just because of those short shorts. It's clear that Robbie and Smith are the two biggest names here because they spend the majority of the movie centre stage. This does have the effect that the other characters never capture our attention the same way. Diablo (Jay Hernandez) possibly comes closest due to his extended back story and conflicts with what he is seen as due to his powers.

One of the plus points is the love story between Harley Quinn and her puddin', The Joker. While

The Joker and Harley Quinn, a love story for
the ages.

comic book purists may have one or two complaints with it, I liked it. It offers hope for a 'Harley and The Joker' spin off and also showed a different side to the clown prince. Previous film versions of the character have given us The Gangster Joker (Jack Nicholsons iteration from Batman) and The Anarchist Joker (Heath Ledgers version from The Dark Knight). Leto gives us a different take entirely. A Joker who is still very much a bad guy but who actually may be in love.

Leto offers a new portrayal of
The Joker

I'll admit to having severe reservations over Jared Leto as The Joker but he kinda proved me wrong. I actually liked his iteration of the most famous comic book bad guy ever. His is the most comic book Joker we've seen and Leto gets the voice (and laugh) nailed. However, the short time we get with him was probably enough. He always had the potential to over shadow the film and in a way he does but not in a bad way. He's always there in the background (due to a sub-plot involving his attempts to 'rescue' Harley) which offers a nice little departure from the main plot.

I loved the film and can forgive the bad plotting because it's been a while since I've truly enjoyed a film as much. I actually like what DC are doing with their extended universe because it's different to Marvel. I love The Avengers films and what they are doing with their whole MCU but I wouldn't want that for DC. Theirs is a much darker universe with Batman at its centre, a man they call the Dark Knight for a reason. See it on its own merits and what ever you do, don't compare it to Marvel or pull it up on its flaws because "That's not what Iron Man was like". Suicide Squad is not that kind of beast!