Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine "Suicide Squad" Movie Reviews

Vanity Fair:
“Suicide Squad” is bad. Not fun bad. Not redeemable bad. Not the kind of bad that is the unfortunate result of artists honorably striving for something ambitious and falling short. “Suicide Squad” is just bad. It’s ugly and boring, a toxic combination that means the film’s highly fetishized violence doesn’t even have the exciting tingle of the wicked or the taboo. (Oh, how the movie wants to be both of those things.) It’s simply a dull chore steeped in flaccid machismo, a shapeless, poorly edited trudge that adds some mildly appalling sexism and even a soupçon of racism to its abundant, hideously timed gun worship. But, perhaps worst of all, “Suicide Squad” is ultimately too shoddy and forgettable to even register as revolting. At least revolting would have been something.

BuzzFeed:
Harley Quinn is an embodiment of all the conflicting things this frankly disastrous new movie, choppily written and directed [by] David Ayer, is attempting to do. She’s meant to be fun in her I’m so cra-azy way, but she’s also a woman in an abusive relationship the movie has no idea how to handle. She’s supposed to be strong, and in the literal sense, she does bash things with a baseball bat. But she’s also a psychological prisoner who has surrendered her sense of self. She’s a goth icon who talks like a 1930s gangster moll and who owns a gun reading ‘love’ and ‘hate’ on the barrel, but in her deepest heart, all she wants is to be a housewife in curlers, looking after the kids while her green-haired hubby heads off to work. She’s anarchic, but not really, and a good time, but not really, and she’s ****ed up, but not really — or at least, not really in a way the movie’s ready to take time to explore. Sure, Harley is a tricky character, but she’s been shaped into an intensely sexualized mascot for a film that yearns for edginess, but can’t get over the rounded curves of its female lead.

The New York Times:
A series of tactical skirmishes with faceless minions — semi-zombies that can be slaughtered en masse, without a second thought — leads to a big final showdown. Spoiler alert: It’s essentially the final showdown from ‘Ghostbusters’ and at least a half-dozen other recent blockbusters, with a few differences of what I guess we should call nuance. You can safely duck out of the theater and spend a good 20 minutes on the claw machine or Instagram, slipping back in to catch the final song and the sequel-teasing extra scene during the end credits.

Vulture:
How early will the fanboys who flock to see “Suicide Squad” — smug in the knowledge that they’ve won the day, that Hollywood is now desperate to cater to their tastes above all others’ — admit that they’re watching the year’s most muddled piece of storytelling? Will they say, “Enough!”? Or will they vent over the damage to their favorite characters and promptly move on to debating who should direct the next stupid, overblown “Suicide Squad” movie?

ScreenCrush:
After one of the crummiest summer movie seasons in recent memory, asking one film to redeem four months of tepid blockbusters might have been a suicide mission in and of itself. But “Suicide Squad” doesn’t even come close. From the first scene to the last, it’s an absolute mess, one whose harried pacing, jumbled narrative, and blaring soundtrack of radio hits suggests a desperate post-production attempt to reconfigure what Ayer got on set into something palatable and poppy. The movie opens with a shot of the logo for Belle Reve Prison, which serves as the Suicide Squad’s home base; the facility’s slogan is “’Til Death Do Us Part.” The direness of this movie, along with the staggering number of films yet to come in the DC cinematic universe, makes these words feel like the ultimate threat.

The San Francisco Chronicle:
If you know someone you really can’t stand — not someone you dislike, not someone who rubs you the wrong way, but someone you really loathe and detest — send that person a ticket for “Suicide Squad.” It’s the kind of torment you can wish on your worst enemy without feeling too guilty, not something to inflict permanent damage, just two hours of soul-sickening confusion and sensory torment.

Time Magazine:
Harley Quinn’s entrance is the best moment in “Suicide Squad.” After that, you can leave. Robbie is a criminally appealing actress, likable in just about every way, but that intro aside, “Suicide Squad” doesn’t serve her well. It serves no one well, least of all its audience ... Now and then there’s a dash of color, especially when Leto’s Joker appears, with his silvery capped teeth and Day-Glo hair. Leto seems to be channeling, consciously or otherwise, Richard Widmark in the 1947 noir “Kiss of Death”—that’s the one where Widmark’s truly creepy-evil character pushes an old lady in a wheelchair down the stairs. But Leto is so textbook twitchy that he barely comes off as menacing. And his scenes with Robbie have no spark, no lunatic ardor. If you can’t strike a spark with Robbie, something’s terribly wrong.

Rolling Stone:
Who stole the soul of “Suicide Squad”? I’d say it’s Ayer’s willingness to go all limp-**** and compromise his hardcore action bona fides for a PG-13 crowdpleaser that would rather ingratiate than cut deep, or even cut at all. My heart sank during the film’s big battle between the Squad and zombie soldiers. You heard me: zombies! The walking dead aren’t the only clichés that eat away at the potential in this material. Superfreaks become supersweeties and “Suicide Squad: Dawn of Dullness” (my subtitle) does the impossible. Forget “Batman v Superman” — at least it tried. This botch job makes “Fantastic Four” look good.


Of course, most professional movie reviewers are not great comic book fans.

http://uproxx.com/gammasquad/suicide-squad-bad-reviews-rotten-tomatoes-petition/2/


Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...ow=true#gallery/559d3a7ce4b05b1d028f6e5c

Wow! Those reviews are devastating! I have to admit that I was getting caught up in the moment and thought this was going to be good. I'm anxious to hear what my fellow LWers think of it, since it sounds like the critics think this is the single worst piece of cinema in history.

I looked at the names of the reviews and thought to myself: "Well, now I know I'll enjoy it. These guys hate everything."

Actually, I'll just go and see it for myself. I never trust reviews, they are made by people that are usually can't do's or wannabee's that never will.

I trust my tastes.

I think it's odd that many of the comic sites have positive reviews yet the mainstream media has negative reviews

Maybe they just don't get the Suicide Squad?

The "big boys" are douche reviews. They get paid to shoot stuff down, they shoot down stuff that isn't to their tastes. It's why I don't follow them.

Squad will have to be truly horrendous to match their reviews. Not saying it isn't, but I don't really follow people, I make up my own mind. Perhaps that's something the douchereviews don't like as well.

I also take reviews with a grain of salt. I give much more weight to fans of the source material, or to friends and family.

And of course, my own opinion.

CBR:
I'm positively thrilled to report that despite this bizarre road to release, "Suicide Squad" is a rousing and wild adventure.
"Suicide Squad" rejects standard superhero story structure in favor of cutting to the chase -- or in this case the sprawling finale. Ayer gives us 20 minutes of setup followed by 110 minutes of climax, filled with action, sass and the occasional break for heart-to-heart character reveals. It's a structure that would make most screenwriters weep, but by treating "Suicide Squad" less like a story and more like a sandbox where he can play with some of DC's more eccentric anti-heroes, Ayer delivers a deranged and deadly entertaining blockbuster that is just the shake-up this dud-studded summer needs.

Despite DCs utter failure at movie making lately, and my complete lack of faith, I'll still see it because it's Suicide Squad and I'm a sucker. Hoping Ayer is better than Snyder.

I like this. From NPR.

http://www.npr.org/sections/monkeys...g-heroine-who-helped-shape-suicide-squad

^ Lovely article Sue Pergirl.

I saw Suicide Squad last night. My thoughts are below (warning: mild spoilers):

I had really loved the trailers for this movie so even though I've never seen a Marvel movie and have only seen Man of Steel of the DCEU movies (which, except for a few technical aspects, I didn't really like) I was really excited for it.

Unfortunately, it was a thoroughly mediocre movie-going experience and whatever cheap thrills I experienced seeing some of these minor but much loved (by me) characters on screen are just diminishing with time.

First the goods:

* The opening half hour or so is extremely choppy and disjointed and filled with mismatched pop songs that only last a few seconds before being dizzyingly replaced with another one, but this is also the most comic book lorey part of the film (filling us in on all of the team's backgrounds and stuff) so this DCU lore fan (pre- New 52) was having a ball with it.

* Some of the characters surprised me. I hate Harley Quinn in the comics and have almost no interest in Captain Boomerang or (the modern) El Diablo either, but here they were some of my favourite characters.

* Jared Leto's Joker was... interesting. As most people here know, I hate the Joker more than any other comic book character so I was not at all opposed to seeing a radically different spin on him here. Unfortunately, while there were moments of inspiration (there's one bit where he sort of moves around someone like a hissing snake), either he didn't go far enough with it or too much was left on the cutting room floor.

Now the bads:

* The story is complete shit. There almost is no story. The entire plot of the movie after the mission starts (which occurs about half an hour in) can be described as "Walk down a street occasionally fighting zombies. Walk up a building occasionally fighting zombies. Walk back down a street occasionally fighting zombies. Stop for a drink in a bar. Have an anti-climactic fight with the main villain. The end."

* The main villain. First of all, I LOVE this character in the comics, and I really liked what they were doing with him/her in the opening half hour of the movie. But after that this person just stands in one spot doing a weirdly laughable dance and spouting cliched villain nonsense for the entire rest of the movie until the dumb fight at the end. Disappointing!

* Most of the Squad. Killer Croc was given almost nothing to do and no personality. Deadshot was the same cliched "cold hearted assassin with a soft spot for his daughter" you've seen in every other movie. Slipknot's screen time was obviously severely edited; he's presented in advertising and in the mission briefing scene in the film as if he's an equal member of the Squad with the others. But he's the only one we never get a background for or learn anything about, he appears well after all the others have been introduced and dies about two minutes later. He is clearly just there to be the expendable guy.

* Amanda Waller. I sort of had a love/hate relationship with this character in Ostrander's superlative series but I still had a lot of respect for her as a very unique and interesting character. They seemed to get her mostly right for the first part of this movie, but half-way through she does something so evil and cold-hearted that I lost all interest in her and could never respect her again. And I lost all support of and interest in Rick Flag for just standing around watching too. This scene should be exhibit A of people's complaints about the DCEU darkening formerly good (or in Waller's case, never this bad) characters.

I'm sure I'm forgetting things but those are the bits that stand out in my memory today. Based on this, Man of Steel and what I've heard about BvS, it's obvious to me that the DCEU definitely does not represent the DCU that I know and love. It is unfortunately probably all too representative of the Didio DCU though. God, I wish I could find a treadmill that can take me to another earth where he never took charge of that company.

Not nearly as bad as the reviews make it out to be. I enjoyed Leto's Joker and Harley Quinn was fun. Will Smith was as likable as I remember him being in anything for a while. There were some laugh out loud moments, and a nice Ostrander tribute. The squad takes a break in the action to go to a bar, and I found that scene to be funny. I agree with Blacula's assessment on Amanada Waller. It was going well with the character until that really over the top scene. I think they were trying to show how bad ass she is, and took it way too far.

I also liked it well enough. Definitely not as bad as the reviews say. It was pretty enjoyable, but not something I would watch again.

El Diablo and Deadshot were my faves.

Agree with the terrible Waller scene midway. Way to make me hate a character. I also could not feel any sympathy for Flagg after that.

Harley was fun but I don't know how I feel about her relationship with the Joker here. At least it isn't one-sided, and she is not just all about her obsession with him.

Wish Katana had more screen time.

Anyone else felt bad about the soldier who basically sacrificed himself underwater in the final battle?

Boomerang was funny enough.

I have the same thoughts on the matter

Just saw Suicide Squad. I found it entertaining.

I agree with the Waller scene being bad. Definitely out of character for her.

One other point that I didn't like as I watched the movie:

I enjoyed it more than I thought, though I agree, both the Waller/Flag scene and the Boomerang coming back scene were the low points. Smith was decent, but the character wasn't written like the 80's Lawton with the death wish (the daughter stuff came later in Secret Six).

I saw it yesterday and had a good enough time. Not the best thing ever but not even close to awful. It was nice seeing these characters onscreen and pretty well portrayed. Harley really stole the show.

Finally had a chance to see the movie with Carol and Sam.

It was a blast. They finally got so much right. Music. Direction. A good storyline that didn't follow established formulas by the previous superhero chaff.

Sam loved Deadshot's "audition" with the same spot on the target shooting. Carol loved Smith's smelling the gun for the smell of the powder.

I didn't have a problem with Waller's scene. It's a movie and they had to show in a very compressed way that of all the bad guys, she was the most evil, because not only was she ruthless and a killer, but she did it with complete government backing. She did the same thing to the feds that she did to the cons, and even told them. She got them to act against their own best interests.

I do agree about Digger showing back up, but that's the only bad spot in the movie. Well, one other thing, but thats a minor quibble for me. Croc's head was way to big for his body.

Still, it was what it should be...fast, dirty, nasty and wicked. All the elements that make a fun summer popcorn movie.

Loved it. Loved it much better than avengers. Sam called the avengers the 'baby suicide squad' after the movie.

This was a blast and we loved it.

After introductions to members of the group, a key event leads to the formation of a super team. The nascent team's first mission is forced upon them. One of their members, who can transform into something far worse, wreaks havoc in a city location causes lots of death and destruction. Finally, the team are able to transform their member back, and the whole thing is covered up.

That's the plot from the first part of Mark Millar's The Ultimates, so it was a surprise to see it here under DC and with different writer credits. I'd have hoped that John Ostrander would get a creative nod, since the rest of the ideas come from him.

That's probably why the film is a bit pedestrian in the plot department. It's not really theirs, so they have no sense of how to be flexible with it, when lifting and dropping a new cast in the story doesn't quite work. That said, it's a strong enough plot that the film still ends up as being okay. Not good, but in the okay range.

The opening was clunky, the threat reduced to fighting not very convincing ACME-minions, and the boss foe stood about, not doing a great deal.

A key addition was a Harley/Joker subplot that ran throughout. I could care buttons about the Joker, but it gave Harley a decent arc, some audience identification to Bats/Joker and a hint to a follow up.

I wonder if Deadshot was supposed to be a bit bleaker, before Will Smith got there. Floyd is a much more flawed individual in Ostrander's run than portrayed here. Mind you, so is Flag who doesn't really carry the weight of command as much in this one. Keeping that near suicidal tendency from the comics, offset by June Moone for the movie, would have been an improvement. The Deadshot change of heart as Flag slips into something darker would have made a nice crossover in the movie.

I don't think there was enough from Katana to really make her presence worthwhile. A nod from Waller that the criminals wouldn't be going in completed unchaperoned by more experienced heroes would have made a difference. I imagine Eve Eden wasn't added as 1) she was interested in Flag in the books and 2) She could have just teleported them to Moone, removing most of the film which was just walking up streets.

I've no idea why they didn't take advantage of having multiple boomerangs in flight. Boomer was reduced to close combat far too often. Comic characters are often walking stereotypes. Boomerang for example. But Diablo, a character I don't know much about, seems to hit an awful lot of these. Likewise, Katana seemed reduced into that pattern too.

I liked Waller all the way up to a certain point, that made her worse than any of her charges. Diablo seemed to have to pay the price for his past, but Waller gets to walk off. Flag being there and doing nothing summed up a lot of his character beyond the hook that kept him there (Moone).

But the casting was good, and I can't fault the acting. I didn't expect much from Cara Delevingne, but she was fine.

So, okay (a 3.25 if I was using my comics ratings)

Has anyone heard anything about SS2? I saw something a few months back about ramping up production, but can't remember where or when the movie is due.

Only what you've probably read 2019, then ramped up for a quicker release, then slowed back down in favour of a possible Birds of Prey movie. Still 2019 then at the earliest.

I hadn't heard that, Thoth. Thanks for the info. Guess I need to check into the BoP movie, first I've heard of it.

I read Dave Bautista was happy to sign up for Gunn project. So, I'd expect him to pick up a role as one of the team.

I"m thinkin' Blockbuster.