Film Review: Suicide Squad – Tango With Evil

paradox

8 years ago

Pumped up to be the blockbuster hit of the summer, Suicide Squad…

Did it do it for you?

I’ve always loved comic books. Call me a nerd and I’ll take it as a compliment. But I’ve never been huge on Superhero/villain movies. So, with some of my favorite villains making an appearance in Suicide Squad I naturally wanted to see it. Did I love it? Did I hate it? Well, I have some very bittersweet feelings about it.

Lost the plot?

As with a lot of media we consume these days, the plot was lacking. I mean, really lacking. If you love action, fighting and super villains then I’m sure you would have no problem with this movie and genuinely enjoy it. I, however, like to have my mind stimulated when I watch or read things. It’s frustrating to watch a film with such good potential not live up to it. Mainly just because the writing and the story were not done as well as they could have been. It’s a shame they didn’t employ a more ‘creative’ writer, I’m not saying they should have hired me, but… I wouldn’t have said no to the paycheck, hah.

Plot in a paragraph? A secret government agency decide that, because they are all expendable, they are going to recruit all the incarcerated villains to form a ‘Suicide Squad’ and complete a black ops mission. Cara Delevingne’s character (June Moon) goes slightly ape when she is possessed by Enchantress (a super ancient sorceress) and the Suicide Squad are sent in to save the world from her in exchange for time off their sentences. SPOILER: Once Enchantress is defeated, June Moon appears dead but SURPRISE! She is in fact alive and reunited with her bf. Even in a super villain movie we get a ‘happy’ ending. Yawn. Give me an action packed, fast paced movie full of adrenaline that has a realistic ending! Not everyone has a happily ever after, but watching so many films full of them, many people do expect it in their life.

Casting Call

Jared Leto – The joker

As you undoubtedly know, there has been a LOT of debate surrounding Jared Leto as The Joker. Many thought he could not pull off the role after the late Heath Ledger played the part in ‘The Dark Knight’. However, he did manage a relatively good performance considering so much negativity was thrown his way.

There has also been a lot of controversy regarding Leto’s ‘gifts’ received by fellow actors during filming. He sent a dead pig to the cast and crew, a live rat to Margot Robbie and sex toys along with a porn magazine (which he signed as The Joker) to his co-star, Karen Fukuhara (Katana).

Margot Robbie – Harley Quinn

Casting Margot Robbie was a good call from the casting team. She is young, has a lot of energy and brings a lot of raw talent to the role. Being the first time we’ve seen Harley Quinn in a big film in quite a while it was refreshing to see Robbie give her own little spin to the role.

Robbie is able to pull off being a pretty little psycho a bit too well. I’m not concerned about her mental well being at all… All jokes aside, she is a genuinely good fit for the role physically as well as acting wise. And yes, Margot Robbie is hella hot in this role, ngl. Who else wants the Harley Quinn movie, like, now!?

Will Smith – Deadshot

Will Smith makes a pretty good Deadshot. I mean, he has had a lot of experience with firearms in multiple other films, so that helps. Plus, being such a prolific actor never hurts.

He manages to bring a bit of humanization to the role. We see him interacting with his daughter during the film, who he seems to care for more than anything else in the world. It’s refreshing to see a ‘villain’ portrayed as a loving and caring father who is just doing what he has to do to look after his kid. And really enjoying it in the process too! It does make you sympathise with him, as a viewer.

Cara Delevingne – The Enchantress

Cara Delevingne is primarily a model, which explains why she spends most of the film giving moody looks at people. She looks good as Enchantress, but someone else could have looked equally as good or better.

She also spends a lot of the movie doing this weird, serpentine, demonic, belly dancing thing. I don’t know what she was going for but it was kind of unsettling to watch and did make me laugh a few times.

As a person she seems really chill and I think she would be really good in other, less challenging, acting roles. She did well though considering. She certainly wasn’t disappointing.

Amanda Waller – Viola Davis

The role of Amanda Waller almost went to Oprah! Yes, you read that correctly. Oprah! Imagine it! “You can join the squad! And you can join the squad! You can alllllll join the squad!” Yass, Oprah, yass! That would have made for a very different film indeed. I’m not sure I would be able to take it so seriously though.

In the end though, the role went to Viola Davis, and who is going to complain about that? She is a pretty dope actress and it was cool to see her in Suicide Squad, ngl.

Acting out

Jared Leto

Before filming even started Jared Leto would practice his laugh for The Joker. In public. Behind unsuspecting people. Speaking to CNBC’s Squawk Box , he said: “I worked on the laugh walking around the streets of New York and Toronto, and I kinda would walk around the streets and see what laughs would get under people’s skin.”

That’s not creepy at all… I’m just glad I wasn’t in NYC or Toronto when he was. Just saying.

Margot Robbie

During the scene that Batman captures Harley Quinn Margot Robbie revealed that she learned to hold her breath for an impressive amount of time. She learned to lower her metabolic rate (to conserve oxygen) by working with a professional free diver and could hold her breath for up to 5 minutes by the time they had finished working together.

Cara Delevingne

To get herself ready for the role of Enchantress, Cara Delevingne stripped naked and took a walk in some woods. That would be an interesting site to come across on a little woodland walk! Talking of the Suicide Squad director she said:”David asked me to go and try and find a forest and, if it was a full moon, get naked and walk through the woods with my feet in the mud, which I did. There wasn’t a full moon, but I howled like a wolf. It would have been really funny if someone had seen me.”

Toxicity

Let’s talk about the relationship between Harley Quinn and the Joker for just a minute. Whilst I love these characters individually (and the havoc they cause together at times) we need to get one thing straight. This is not a healthy relationship. You may laugh and tell me this is obvious, however some people genuinely see them as ‘relationship goals’. Don’t get me wrong, I love a psychotic, evil, twisted character as much as the next person. The amount of layers they usually have are so interesting to discover. But these two in a relationship? It’s just plain wrong to base any REAL relationship on them.

The Joker is totally abusive and manipulative towards Harley. He manipulated her into releasing him from Arkham Asylum and tricked her into falling in love with him. He was also the cause of her losing her mind. It’s his fault she ended up in a vat of toxic chemicals (the reason The Joker has his appearance and lost his mind). He basically used an innocent, naive girl to become his plaything and manipulate her feelings towards him whilst simultaneously being very abusive both physically and mentally. He emotionally blackmails her and continuously takes advantage of her.

So whilst the characters are interesting and cool in some ways, I would not recommend idolising them as ‘relationship goals’.

Comic Culture

As I mentioned above, I’m kind of a nerd when it comes to comics. So, it was really cool to see a very brief homage to Alex Ross’ ‘Tango with Evil’ cover for the 1999 Batman: Harley Quinn issue. It was also nice to see her in her traditional jester outfit which we also get a glimpse of in her trunk when she is getting changed after being released.

I also really enjoyed the fact the we got to see Harley Quinn’s origin story during Suicide Squad. I thought, if we were ever going to see it, it would have been in her own movie at some point. It was really cool to get some background information on her and the Joker during the film that a lot of the audience wouldn’t have been aware of otherwise.

Soundtrack Suicide

Ask anyone that knows me. If a movie has a good soundtrack, I will watch it. No matter how awful it is (I went to see Jennifer’s Body in the cinema. Yes. I know. Go ahead and judge me). I do have good taste too though! Kill Bill vol I & II have a killer (pun intended) soundtrack and are awesome films. So yes, I’m a sucker for a good soundtrack. Which may have been one of the reasons I wanted to see Suicide Squad. And it did not disappoint.

The soundtrack is pretty damn diverse with various genres that will appeal to all kinds of people. I guarantee nearly everyone will have at least one song there that they will love. Not only are there well know songs and covers by many amazing artists, but the original score is so good! Kudos to Steven Price.

I’m just going to go ahead and ignore Panic! at the Disco’s Bohemian Rhapsody. No one can cover Queen and pull it off. Period. There were some awesome classics thrown in the mix such as: The House of the Rising Sun by The Animals, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap by AC/DC, Paranoid by Black Sabbath. You can listen to the complete soundtrack here.

One of my favorite things they did with the soundtrack was include a cover of You Don’t Own Me by Grace (originally performed by Lesley Gore). A fun little fact – Lesley Gore had an uncredited role in the Batman tv series in 1967 in the episode That Darn Catwoman.

Verdict?

Whilst the plot left a lot to be desired, the acting, action sequences and soundtrack certainly made up for it. I know I’ll be purchasing a copy when it comes out. What did you think? Are you a DC comic/movie fan? Did it live up to the hype? Was Leto as bad as most of us expected? Let us know in the comments!

Rating: 7/10

Soundtrack rating: 10/10 (Let’s be real)

Images are from the official Suicide Squad Facebook page.

The opinions in this review are that of the writer, not The Sprout.

http://thesprout.co.uk/blog/2016/08/09/suicide-squad-review/

http://thesprout.co.uk/blog/2016/07/28/ereview-sculpting-time-andrei-tarkovsky-retrospective-1st-part-chapter/

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