Suicide Squad (2016) Review

Superpowered beings have emerged from the skies and the shadows, and because of it, a wave of destruction and battles have ravaged cities and increased the number of civilian casualties. Cautious of any potential future threats, intelligence officer Amanda Waller presents a curious concept to government officials that could benefit them more than they could ever imagine: a group of expendable convicts, some imbued with powers of their own, will be lead by Special Forces standout Rick Flag. They will proceed to carry out dirty and dangerous missions in order to have their own sentences reduced, all while being closely monitored by Waller herself, who will implant small explosives in their heads to ensure that they do not stray from the path. When one of the intended recruits goes rogue, intending to annihilate all of mankind, the idea is made concrete, and the team of expendables is hastily assembled and sent to work.



In case you have been living under a rather heavy rock, Warner Bros' track record for big screen adaptations of DC Comics properties during the new decade has been rather...well, rocky to say the least. While a good number of us are anticipating future installments in this newfound universe over the course of the next five years, we seem to be doing so with arguably massive hesitations. After all, when your flagship and launching point for this was the extremely divisive Man of Steel, one can't be entirely surprised that nervousness has reached highs that no fans should ever have to experience. So, during this downtime between superhero films, the decision to bring Task Force X, also known by the more familiar, catchier-sounding "Suicide Squad" to cinemas around the country, sounded like an awfully risky thing to do. Choosing to handle a group of villains whose entire purpose is to forcefully and begrudgingly serve a higher, more noble power against their wills seems unusual. Why not focus on a more guaranteed money-maker like the Teen Titans? Or try to do a bigger, better, and more proper handling of the Green Lantern? True, we are getting those down the line, but the questions still linger in the back of your mind.


In a weird, yet tragic sort of way, the handling of Suicide Squad is not too different from that of another installment in the realm of "comic book" movies that came out just last year. You have an established property, known decently well by hardcore fans, with just enough recognizable names (be they fictional characters or real-life performers) to ensure a good box office intake and high merchandise sales. You have a talented individual sitting in the director's chair and writing the script (in this case, David Ayer, whose track record includes writing Training Day and directing End Of Watch), who has been able to provide more than their fair share of respectable and/or good motion pictures in the past. However, you are also at the mercy of your distributor, who can be rather ruthless, demanding, or pestering at times. Because of this, a myriad of problems arise, shining all too bright for even the blindest of fans to ignore. Much of the humor that was added in due to the backlash that this year's Batman v. Superman: Dawn Of Justice received for being what many called "too dark" feels incredibly forced, with one or two quips and lines out of twelve producing a chuckle. Whenever a filmmaker is forced to go back and do reshoots, or add in material against their will, it rarely ever works to the flick's advantage. Even if someone such as me thought that Batman v. Superan had far more problems than not being fun enough, this decision ends up as more of a grave misfire rather than helping to provide anything extra on the positive side of things. As I said above, there are a small handful of laughs, most coming from Will Smith's Deadshot, but that has more to do with the charismatic actor playing an exaggerated version of himself rather than the iconic ruthless assassin that he has been cast as. For somebody who is a cold, mostly humorless killer in the comics, all you end up waiting on is for him to spout his usual "aw hell nah" rhetoric that he's so well known for. For her first time appearing on the big screen, psychotic fan favorite Harley Quinn is given more than enough time to provide the laughs, even if not all of them hit (and god knows there were a LOT of gags and wisecracks that she spits out). Next to the two cameos from two particular protagonists whose names I will not give away, and an entertainingly ruthless job by Viola Davis as government official Amanda Waller, she's easily the best part of the picture, and Margot Robbie seems to be relishing every minute and moment that she gets to appear on screen. How much of that can steeped in reality and how much is rooted in fiction I'll never know, but I digress. They are the most akin to what we define as a "complete" character, which is oddly one of the main problems that Suicide Squad has, though it's far from its biggest fault.


In fact, the technical and behind-the-scenes aspects of Suicide Squad could realistically be its worst offenders. The computer-generated imagery and effects are, at their best, passable, with the highlight being the earliest version of primary antagonist The Enchantress (played by Cara Delevingne, whose performance devolves into complete B-movie camp towards the end). At their worst, they are inexcusably horrendous. There are far too many instances where they are eerily reminiscent of the work seen in Alex Proyas' Gods Of Egypt, and I assure you, that is the furthest thing from a compliment (and boy do the Enchantress and her brother make for lousy, corny villains). Suddenly, Doomsday's ugly, crowbarred appearance in Batman v. Superman isn't looking so bad after all. It also suffers from some of the choppiest editing that I've seen in a bigger budget film to date. I know that its predecessor had at least a good half hour removed from its running time, but one wonders exactly how much of Suicide Squad was left on the cutting room floor. To my knowledge, Jared Leto's Joker had a large number of his scenes removed from the theatrical print, which may partially explain as to why his character ultimately serves no purpose for being there, contributing essentially nothing to the overall main story arc during his shockingly short amount of screen time. Supporting members of Task Force X, such as Japanese swordswoman Kitana and the quirky Captain Boomerang, though certainly anticipated by readers and familiars such as myself, are barely utilized. I kept wondering if Ayer forgot that they were in the picture to begin with, and others such as Killer Croc and El Diablo, as close as they may come to being "cool," feel an awful lot like MacGuffins, and badly stereotyped ones at that. Truth be told, you could remove nearly every member of the team save for about two or three, and you would end up with nearly the same movie that we get in the end. Say what you will about Marvel's team-up movies and their occasional tendency to overcrowd things, but they attempted to make every single member have a purpose (and a more fleshed out personality) that didn't only matter until the final moments of the third act. Another gigantic snafu comes from what I can only assume was Zack Snyder's influence (he serves as executive producer here), and that is the grating, stupefyingly bad soundtrack that was added in during post-production. Similar to what that director decided to do with the false feminism disaster known as Sucker Punch, we are barraged with an endless amount of recognizable songs for nearly half of the film's length (it's enough to pack onto three LPs). I'm certain that this was meant to be their version of what Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy did with its unabashed love of songs from the 1970s and 1980s, but control is what separates those two pictures from one another. It's the movie equivalent of when your friend makes a sixty minute long playlist in iTunes, then proceeds to play every song on it for the first fifteen to twenty seconds before skipping to the next one. You just want to ask them to stop, take a breather, and remind them that you're starting to annoy every single person that you're trying to please. At the very least, they mercifully didn't play Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train" during the Joker's introduction.


Speaking of the Oscar winner's portrayal as the Joker, I was really hoping that I would not have to discuss this or even type some of those sentences in the paragraph above. However, given that so much of the marketing has been built around seeing him pop up in the picture, it feels inevitable. I am open for different interpretations of a classic character, but given that nearly every incarnation of Batman's primary adversary has at least had the common decency to make him intimidating or even frightening, the decision to write this version of the Clown Prince of Crime as nothing more than an inked, irritating, wannabe Juggalo gangster does nothing but disappoint you in the end. It's a shame, as even with the more photos that were revealed during the buildup to this movie's release, I still had some faith that there would be some semblance of a good Joker buried underneath the platinum grills and horrendous tattoos. If fans and moviegoers are satisfied with this performance, more power to them. But I dreaded seeing him every time that he appeared in the movie's two hour running time, fearful that his overacting and poor mimicry of Heath Ledger was just going to increase my disappointment with the overall product.


I know that I am occasionally labeled by friends, cohorts, and familiars as being too fickle when it comes to reviewing flicks like Suicide Squad. On more than one occasion, I have been labeled a Marvel fanboy, which...well, I can't fully argue against (though I implore that you don't get me started on the recently released X-Men: Apocalypse). At the end of the day, for as much as I think that this is a wasted opportunity and just an all-around rubbish movie, I will come to its defense. While I am currently finishing my own review for this, there is a petition to get websites such as RottenTomatoes.com shut down, due to the backlash that Suicide Squad and its DC brethren have been receiving (thank you to fellow reviewer John Squires for hilariously pointing out that the movie's distributor owns the aforementioned site as well). In a time where nerds are seemingly divided over the silliest, and most trivial of things, I implore that you direct your rage towards those who truly deserve it.


And that, my fellow geeks, is Warner Bros. Please tell them to have confidence in their directors and their vision, even if it garners mixed reviews from fans and critics alike (I'd rather witness this bringing in 50/50 opinions, rather than 30/70). Tell them that going back to shoot additional scenes to make a picture more "lighthearted" or "amusing" isn't always necessary, and that by coupling that decision with the one to noticeably edit out material that feels like it is obviously crucial, can sometimes end up turning your release into an absolute mess, harming the franchise and box office numbers in the end. Tell them to not influence someone in such a way, that they end up going to a red carpet premiere, shouting "FUCK MARVEL!" at the top of their lungs out of what we assume is due to anger, frustration, jealousy, or a combination of all three. There isn't anything wrong with enjoying a nice bowl of pasta without having the need to drown it in shredded parmesan cheese and pounds of grounded black pepper, and yelling at the kitchen staff to bring out the next dish for your guest within five minutes isn't going to help matters either. You are allowed to take things slow. There isn't a need to catch up to Marvel Studios or Fox, as it isn't like these characters are going to be forgotten about tomorrow by the public at large. At this rate, I'm more scared for Wonder Woman and Justice League than I ever thought that I was going to be.



........Of course, I'll be there opening night for both though. I have nothing better to do these days.

Batman: The Killing Joke (2016) Review

After a small group of dead bodies are discovered at a crime scene by Detective Harvey Bullock and Batman, Gotham City's sworn protector decides to pay a visit to one particular criminal, his longtime enemy The Joker, inside the confines of Arkham Asylum, hoping to unravel the meaning behind them. When he arrives, his usually harsher, more physically dangerous methods of getting someone to spill the beans take a back seat to the decision to just talk to his nemesis, in the hopes that after all of these years feuding, they should not end up killing each other in the end. Very shortly thereafter, Batman discovers that The Joker has escaped his prison. Unknown to everyone involved, the psychopath has been devising his most fiendish and sick plan to date: the kidnapping and slow, almost ritualistic torture of the city's own Gordon family, wherein he aims to prove that all it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy.

For all of the continuously negative feedback that DC Comics Inc. has been receiving over the past few years, I believe that not all of it is warranted. Yes, their live-action franchises have been of varying quality, and admittedly, I have little desire to watch that one motion picture released earlier this year ever again. And yet, there is always a beacon of hope. In the television department, we have the unabashed fun of shows such as The Flash and future releases like Justice League Action. In the realm of video games, Injustice 2, the highly-anticipated sequel to one of the better fighting games for this last generation of consoles, is set to be released within the first quarter of 2017 (if you haven't watched the Wonder Woman and Blue Beetle reveal trailer, check it out here!). Finally, as I have discussed many times before, Warner Bros. Animation has been pumping out at least two or three new animated films per year for over a decade, with several consisting of popular and beloved storylines from the pages of their own books. During last year's San Diego Comic-Con, producer and friend-of-all-nerds Bruce Timm announced that an adaptation of Alan Moore's Batman: The Killing Joke, a highly influential work whose actions and decisions still ripple throughout the pages of their biggest titles today, was in the plans and set to be released a year later. Over time, further details kept emerging, as did animatics, casting news, and all-too-brief clips of this dream that was finally becoming a reality. I was certainly excited, but even amongst all of this, I had my reservations about what the finished product would look like.

The animation is certainly a step above DC's occasional tendency to hit or miss in the straight-to-home video department. Brian Bolland's design for the Joker has always been one of my favorites, and bringing even the smallest of details to life, such as the shadows surrounding and blocking out his eyes in the infamous "apartment" scene, or his emergence from a pond of hazardous chemicals, look rather splendid. Other technical aspects, such as the score by longtime DCAU composer Kristopher Carter (Batman Beyond) are also exceptional. Obviously, the thing that will attract most fans (other than the sheer intrigue of the movie's existence) is the return of veteran Batman voice actors such as Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, and Tara Strong. As predicted, they are all in top form, with Hamill delivering one of his finest performances to date as our crazed main antagonist. Some men were just destined to stay attached to a character for as long as they live, and as much as I have respected other portrayals over the years from the likes of Heath Ledger (R.I.P.) Richard Epcar, and John DiMaggio, ol' Luke Skywalker is just irreplaceable to someone like me. Prior to the actual flick starting, the audience was even treated to a short, taped interview with the man himself, wherein he discussed his history with voicing this fictional nutjob, including how he initially thought that he would be selected for a villain such as Two-Face or Ra's Al Ghul instead. It was certainly a nice treat for every fan in attendance.

Okay, so now that we have gotten through the positive aspects of Batman: The Killing Joke, I can kick off my shoes and remove my gloves. Firstly, my fear of the source material being far too short to adapt into any sort of feature length film was realized in a way that I could have never imagined. Without trying to spoil anything for those that are reading, only the second half of The Killing Joke is dedicated to the comic of the same name. While I understand that filler is necessary when the time calls for it (I am a twenty plus year fan of the Dragon Ball franchise after all), attempting to recreate any writing style as unique as Alan Moore's just feels far too difficult to do, especially when your lead-in consists of a weak Batgirl-centric story (with a villain named Paris Franz....not making that up) that does more to harm the reputation and respect that you have for the well-known protagonists. Even if you are not well-versed with Batman outside of the big or small screens, you can meticulously pick out every single portion of this that feels like it was written solely for this picture and every other chunk that was lifted from the printed story. This is all the more shocking when you notice that this project's script was penned by the immensely talented Brian Azzarello of 100 Bullets and Wonder Woman fame. It's the cinematic equivalent of when you go to a fancy restaurant, pining for your favorite dish. Once you receive said entree, somebody that you know walks by, observes what it is that you are eating, and says "Hey, that looks pretty good. But I think it's missing something." This person proceeds to pull ingredients out of their pocket, dumping them onto your meal and making it nearly indigestable as a result, then walks away before you can get a good word in about why they think that this was a good idea.

There has also been a humongous amount of outrage surrounding said filler, as it changes and scrambles the connection between two of our four central characters of Batman: The Killing Joke. While it initially didn't make me fume as badly as it has for others, and I feel that it may have been due to the need for stirring "more controversy" just as Moore and Boland's work did back during its initial release, all it took was about two hours for me to realize that this bold decision was anything but. In fact, it was really, really bad. As a fan of cinema, I've always believed that implications are sometimes best left as just that. It reminded me of the assortment of unnecessary backstories to other madmen in the world of entertainment such as Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers, or when two characters from your favorite form of media would do something completely out of left field because producers and writers thought that a small collection of fans that wanted this could somehow outweigh the larger amount of opinions of those that didn't. Sure, there will always be an air of mystery to it that a select few want to see explained, but a majority of fans prefer to just leave things be. It also casts a broken, dim light on our titular hero that no fan of the Dark Knight would ever wish to see, and worse yet, makes another champion of the DC universe into something that even a modern day Frank Miller would shake his head at. That, or make him wish that he had thought of something so "brilliant." And before I am accused of being an elitist or purist fanboy by my fellow geeks, I am one hundred percent fine with attempting to change or add something to an adaptation. Heck, it's one of the things that is keeping AMC's Preacher, which still stands as my favorite series of graphic novels ever written, so entertaining. But when you're taking one of the very best comic books about the perplexing, dark, and surprisingly complicated relationship between the Caped Crusader and the Clown Prince of Crime, and tacking on an incredible amount of groan-inducing stupid writing, thusly twisting at least half of it into something that more closely resembles high school fan-fiction written by a misogynist masquerading as a feminist, you aren't exactly going to please a good portion of your fanbase. 

Though these following sentences may come across as childish, I am at the point where I just can not wear a fake smile (even with the help of patented Joker gas) and give this a good recommendation. Yes, the handling of the original source material is, for the most part, done decently well, but in the end, it isn't enough to lift this above the most definitive labeling of "an eternal disappointment." Personally, I feel that a shorter, more compact iteration would have worked far better, perhaps in the form of an anthology along the lines of the excellent DC Showcase Original Shorts Collection, especially when you consider that the eccentric English author behind this has a myriad of tales that have yet to receive the animated treatment (Superman: Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow? comes to mind). If you're an Alan Moore or Batman completist, I know that there isn't anything that I've said that will ultimately tell you to save your money and just stick to the graphic novel instead, but if you're paying money in the double digits to see this (I paid THIRTEEN DOLLARS to see this in a theater), I worry that you may be just as insane as any of the inmates in Arkham Asylum.

Speaking of that, I'd highly suggest that you go and watch the Killing Joke recreations in that series of games instead. They're shorter, creepier, and also feature the same top notch voice actors.