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Suicide Squad

Film Review

By Chloe GilholyPublished 7 years ago 5 min read
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Trailer for the film 

Suicide Squad was one of the most talked about and hyped about films in 2016. With superhero franchises and crossovers on the rise in cinema, it's very easy to see why. The film is about a team of dangerously crazy villains completing missions under the direction of Amanda Walker in exchange for reduced prison sentences and privileges. Before we get fully started on this review, I feel that I should say that I have not read any of the Suicide Squad comics, but I do know some of the characters from DC Comics. I saw it twice in the cinema and seen it several times with friends at home.

The film was loved by fans and was a financial success making over $745.6 million and had a budget of £175 million, leaving them a profit of $570.6 million. The film has been out for nearly a year now, and I can still see it holds a pretty strong influence over pop culture, but it's also divided people who love it for the action and those who dislike it for the weak story.

I'll be honest, when I first saw the film in the cinema: I loved it. I was on the edge of my seat, I was impressed with all the colour and the character signs. I loved the visual effects and my heart was racing in the action scenes. I also fell in love with the relationship of Harley Quinn and The Joker and how they seemed to be crazy but also complimented one another.

Even though I loved the film at first, I did wish that there was more of The Joker in it. I wished he played more of a bigger role as I felt he didn't do much to process the story along. I felt that he was more of a tool to push Harley Quinn's character development in the film.

After seeing the film several times and doing a bit of research, I now have a change of heart. The more I watch the film, the more I hate it and all the colours and wonderful atmosphere from seeing it the first time is dull and dead the second and a complete bore-fest on the third.

I'm now glad that The Joker isn't in the film much as I think other actors have defined and played the role of the Joker with a lot more oomph. I don't think Jared Leto was bad, I just think there are more iconic interpretations of Batman's complex archnemesis out there. Suicide Squad's Joker feels more like one of those druggies you'd find on the Jeremy Kyle show.

Further research on Harley Quinn and The Joker's relationship now makes me heavily disdain the romance between them. He's damn right horrible to her and manipulates her to the point of her submitting to him and she always ends up crawling back to him in the end so all the character development of Harley getting by on her own is very redundant. So when people say they want a relationship just like Harley Quinn's with The Joker, I want to smash things.

With that in mind, Harley Quinn is by far the best character in the whole film. She's a crazy nymphomaniac and a psychotic killer and she really stands out the most. Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn is the film's saving grace. She does a great job showing Harley Quinn's eccentric personality and secret desire to have a normal life with The Joker. Harley Quinn is now a sex icon and an inspiration to women and young girls. Lots of people dress up as her. I'm not sure if this is a blessing or a curse.

Deadshot doesn't feel like the Deadshot in the comics. Deadshot is meant to be the most dangerous assassin in the world, but Will Smith's performance makes you forget that as he shows his soft spot for his only daughter.

Most of the film focuses on Deadshot and Harley Quinn and the other characters don't get much of a chance to stand out or don't have a lot of screentime. There's that one guy who is only there five minutes and Katana, who sounds like a really interesting character, but gets criminally small screen time. They try to make you feel sorry for these villains and try to redeem them by labelling them into the worst heroes ever. That's false advertising in my opinion. They were not, nor will they ever be heroes.

Which leads to another problem with the film. It's very misleading. The trailers and advertising around the film make viewers expect a lot from the film, but it actually delivers quite a little. It promises a collection of DC's most complex and interesting villains, but only two of them get proper character development.

The dialogue is pretty wooden as well. Amanda Waller is very serious, but she doesn't really have much of a personality. Her voice is dull and I don't get how she convinced the government to let out some crazy criminals out on the street.

The main problem in the film lies in the screenplay. The cast for this film is exceptional with a lot of many well-established actors in the film, but the solid acting couldn't save this film. I think there's just so much happening at once with all the characters having their own stories but they don't mesh well together. The character's interactions feel unauthentic and most of the film made as much sense as slapping fish.

As much as I dislike the film now, I must admit I'll give it some kudos for its nice soundtrack. I liked the mixture of genres in it and liked the use of Black Sabbath's song "Paranoid" and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," though they do overuse the music quite a lot and it's pretty distracting. There's one scene where they're on the plane and "Spirit In The Sky" is playing in the background. It kind of kills the serious mood.

This film is naff and full of wasted potential. The film would have worked better as a TV series in my opinion cause they cram so much stuff in that it's hard to follow and if you took some of the characters away, then nobody would notice. I have no intentions of watching this film again, even if I do like Harley Quinn in this film.

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About the Creator

Chloe Gilholy

Former healthcare worker and lab worker from Oxfordshire. Author of ten books including Drinking Poetry and Game of Mass Destruction. Travelled to over 20 countries.

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