You will never forgive your late-arriving friend. Never. Because at least dozen times the friend will lean over and ask, “who is that?” or “why did they do that?” and you’ll answer, “I don’t know!” Not since The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen have I seen a film so much in need of rewriting, reshooting and reediting. Suicide Squad is like arriving at Ice Age: Collision Course without seeing any of the previous Ice Ages; maybe you’ll understand, maybe you won’t, and in the end, the product just isn’t good enough to matter.
Suicide Squad begins in prison where Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) introduces our players, including Deadshot (Will Smith) and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie). After those two, however, I think she gets bored, because the backstory becomes slighter and slighter until two or three hero-villains are given little more than names. This is a world in which Superman has lived and died. In the wake of Superman’s death, Chief Waller here has decided to arrange her own Dirty Dozen (or Dirty Nontet, Idhink. To be honest, I lost count and so did the movie) of captured, malleable evil to fight the world of superevil – and then realizes that the superevil released was one of the folks she recruited for the program. Well that just seems counter-productive.
And then Jared Leto shows up as The Joker; he doesn’t fit into any of the plans here – he’s not a prisoner and he’s not the evil being attacked; he’s just Harley’s boyfriend. And he is –hmmm, how do I put this? — AWFUL. Just awful. And not awful as in “what a great bad guy!” Awful as in “this is the worst acting I have seen all year.” Jared Leto is so over-the-top in this film, I had to come up with a top-five list:
How over-the-top is Jared Leto’s Joker?
- Neon billboards in Vegas complain that he’s too garish
- Tattoos are embarrassed for him
- Heath Ledger rose from the dead to say, “could you tone it down a notch?”
- Jim Carrey thinks his performance could stand a little subtlety
- Cartoons draw him
There were literally four or five scenes in which I did not understand what was going on. I’m not kidding. And that doesn’t include the Joker’s presence. There’s this alligator man who kinda mumbles [think Groot, just as Deadshot is a clear rip of Hawkeye or Bullseye or Target or K-Mart or whatever]. He has an underwater conflict in act III in which I didn’t know who was fighting, why they were fighting, who was winning, or why this mattered. And I never figured out why there was a freaking crocodile man in the first place; he was one of the guys who didn’t get a backstory.
It’s like Suicide Squad was a half-assed Avengers-like amalgam of several different films, but they haven’t shown us any of the precursor films. You can’t just show Margot Robbie dressed in sexy model-wear in a cage with a buffer zone of thirty feet between her bars and the wall unless you’re willing to show us why that buffer zone exists.
In retrospect, I don’t even think Suicide Squad was that bad a film. No. Hear me out. I think it had some real positives, including both Focus features. Here’s the deal, though: Suicide Squad is about four 
major rewrites shy of a taut comic thriller. Honestly, I can’t believe this film spent ten million dollars in reshoots because it still resembles a first draft, and an ill-considered one at that.
Now I’ve always wanted to know – is imitation less respected from a less respected subject matter. i.e. Does dressing impeccably as Heath Ledger’s Joker trump dressing impeccably as Jared Leto’s Joker? And why? Which, of course leads to Suicide Squad’s greatest contribution to society: cosplay.
Roll call, here we go, 1-2-3
Check that squad from A-to-Z
Oh, there’s an expert marksman called Deadshot
Kill anyone right on the spot
And a crazy gal ain’t right within
Some supermodel called Harley Quinn
Roll call, here we go, 1-2-3
Check that squad from A-to-Z
There’s a firestarter who does not play
Push him and “no way José
And hey croc man lives in the sewer
Like to swim? Come get the tour
Roll call, here we go, 1-2-3
Check that squad from A-to-Z
An Aussie throws boomerangs around
Dangerous? Not at all I’ve found
Japanese chick talks to her sword
Exposition she cannot afford
Roll call, here we go, 1-2-3
Check that squad from A-to-Z
Ancient witch like a genie
Immortal? How can she be?
Her hubby is G.I.Joe
Prefers his spouse not on the go
Roll call, here we go, 1-2-3
Check that … screw it. I’m done
No. I don’t care there are more people.
Did you hear me? I’m done.
Rated PG-13, 123 Minutes
D: David Ayer
W: David Ayer
Genre: First draft
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Cosplayers
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Movie buffs
