Review - Suicide Squad (2016)

     Hey guys, Chuck here. As we all know, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was, and continues to be, extremely successful and popular. This led a number of film studios to begin making plans for their own cinematic universes, including Warner Bros. with their DC Comics properties. Now, while Zack Snyder only really had a trilogy in mind, which consisted of Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, and Justice League, Warner Bros. had crafted an entire shared universe of DC movies around Snyder's films, which included a film that took a number of well-known supervillains and put them together on a black ops unit where they carried out high-risk missions in exchange for ten years taken off from their prison sentences. This is Suicide Squad.  

    Kicking off some time after the death of Superman during the climax of Batman v Superman (check out that review for details), government agent Amanda Waller, played by Viola Davis, proposes assembling what she refers to as "Task Force X," an off the books unit that consists of imprisoned super criminals, and if things go south, the criminals can be blamed for everything. The line-up of criminals Waller has in mind include sharpshooting mercenary Floyd Lawton/Deadshot, played by Will Smith, Arkham psychiatrist turned criminal psychopath Harleen Quinzel/Harley Quinn, played by Margot Robbie, Austrailian career criminal Digger Harkness/Captain Boomerang, played by Jai Courtney, mercenary Christopher Weiss/Slipknot, played by Adam Beach, the beast-like Waylon Jones/Killer Croc, played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and the pyrokinetic Chato Santana/El Diablo, played by Jay Hernandez. Another individual that Waller wants to use is the Enchantress, an ancient being currently inhabiting the body of Dr. June Moone, played by Cara Delevingne. Unfortunately, Enchantress makes her own plans and sets free her brother, Incubus, who unleashes an attack on Midway City. Enchantress soon joins him, and the two begin making a mystical weapon to wipe out all technology on Earth. However, Enchantress isn't quite whole, as her heart is in Waller's possession. 

    So, Deadshot, Diablo, Croc, and Harley are brought to Midway City from their imprisonment at Belle Reve penitentiary, while Boomerang and Slipknot are gathered from elsewhere. Each of them has a nanite in their necks, which is both a tracker and a bomb, which will be detonated if they fail the mission, get captured, or attempt to go off mission. We get a demonstration of this when Slipknot's bomb goes off in an escape attempt. While the squad is on their mission, the clown prince of crime himself the Joker, played by Jared Leto, is doing everything he can to be with Harley again, as she wasn't sent back to Arkham as he had assumed during their last encounter with Batman, played by Ben Affleck. Joker visits the facility that manufactured the nanites, and the scientist there gives him the means to disarm the nanites. With this equipment now in hand, Joker tracks Harley to Midway City and goes to her rescue. 

    Back in the city, the Suicide Squad has reached their target, having been joined by Kitana, played by Karen Fukuhara, who is there working with the squad's commander Col. Rick Flag, played by Joel Kinnaman, to keep the squad on mission. The target, who is the one person in Midway City they can't kill, is Waller herself. During a rooftop evacuation, one of the helicopter's was taken over by the Joker, who disarms Harley's nanite and she jumps for a rope to climb up to the helicopter. After getting an offer for his freedom by Waller, Deadshot attempts to kill Harley, but misses intentionally. Waller then orders the hijacked helicopter to be destroyed. Harley gets away safely, but she (and by proxy, the viewer) is led to believe that the Joker did not survive. Waller's helicopter is also taken down, and she is taken to Enchantress and Incubus, where Enchantress' heart is restored, and her full power regained. In a bar, where the squad are having drinks, Flag informs them of everything, and they agree to help him stop the Enchantress after he destroys his nanite controller, letting them go free. 

    Confronting the Enchantress, the squad uses mines left in the Subway to kill Incubus, where Diablo sacrifices himself in a fight with Incubus. The rest of the squad fights Enchantress, cutting her heart out and destroying her doomsday machine. Flag crushes her heart, killing her, restoring June, who Flag was in a relationship with, back to normal. Just as the squad gets ready to go their separate ways, Waller, with her intact controller, keeps them at bay with the threat of detonating their nanites. Waller informs them that they now have ten years shaved off of their sentences, but Deadshot wants to see his daughter, Zoe, which Waller allows him to do, under Flag's supervision. Meanwhile, Croc, gets a couch, some beer, and a TV in his cell to watch BET, Boomerang gets nothing, and Harley gets a cot, an espresso machine, and a book to read. However, her time in Belle Reve is cut short, a Joker, who somehow survived that fireball he appeared to have been killed in, shows up to bust her out. Meanwhile, Waller meets with Bruce Wayne, giving him her file on Metahumans in exchange for protection. After she advises him to stop working night, Bruce tells her to shut down Task Force X, saying "or my friends and I will do it for you."

    Suicide Squad was a mixed bag of fun moments and studio-mandated bullcrap. The performances of Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jai Courtney, Joel Kinnaman, and Viola Davis were all fantastic, the makeup and prosthetic work was fantastic, and a number of action scenes were entertaining. The scenes with Jared Leto as the Joker were fun, but there weren't nearly enough of them, and according to the director of the film, David Ayer, a majority of Leto's scenes were cut from the movie. A couple of them were restored for an extended cut of the film, which is the version I most recommend, but still, there aren't many scenes with his Joker. However, the most convoluted part of the film deals with the Enchantress and her big doomsday plot. The development of her a the villain was weak, and her big doomsday plot was extremely piss poor, and it's unfortunate because I actually really liked seeing Cara Delevingne in this movie. Overall, Suicide Squad is a missed opportunity mangled by dumb decisions by the studio. So, I'm going to give Suicide Squad a 3/5. Is there any hope with this title? Well, we did get a spin-off titled Birds of Prey, which saw the return of Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, and Warner Bros. is finishing up a standalone sequel, titled The Suicide Squad, with director James Gunn. And this new Suicide Squad movie has a lot of promise to it, so I'm looking forward to it. Not to mention that a Suicide Squad game is being developed by Rocksteady, the studio behind the Batman: Arkham series. So, we'll see. Meanwhile, keep an eye out for my next review, where we go back to the time of World War I with Wonder Woman.