Movie Review Suicide Squad

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Spoiler alerts 2016 DC’s third big super-hero movie is really a super-villain movie with a plot right out of The Dirty Dozen / Escape From New York. The film has been much maligned by the critics and though flawed, and saturated in continuity issues, it is still highly entertaining overall. Incarcerated Batman villains, Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Killer Croc, Captain Boomerang and others are trapped into saving the World when a sorceress called The Enchantress starts trying to destroy it. They are forced to wear exploding neck collars in case they try to escape as the army forces them to take on the Enchantress. Superman is indisposed following events in his last movie, and though Batman & The Flash appear early on capturing some of the villains, they play no part in the counter-attack on the city the Enchantress has already taken over. The first quarter of the movie is character back stories, followed by their recruitment, with the mission itself taking up the remaining scenes. The performances are good, especially Will Smith in restrained form as the troubled Deadshot, the only one of the crew with a real conscience and rationale for his mercenary assassin for hire actions, who finds himself surrounded by monsters and psychopathic killers. Margot Robbie is fabulous as the barking mad Harley Quinn, in love with The Joker and highly unpredictable. I love the moment she breaks a window to steal shoes in the middle of the Enchantress’s war zone. Harley wears some very revealing outfits, spending much of the film in bikini shorts and a wet tee-shirt. Jared Leto’s Joker is cleverly played but not used half enough. His only concern is to save Harley from the fray though he previously abandoned her Teddy Kennedy style in a submerged car, to be rescued by Batman. Batman tries to kiss her even though she is visibly conscious and in no need of CPR – rather a pervy moment. Harley chooses insanity to follow her demented lover by diving into a vat of chemical goo, which suggests she was already nuts anyway. Rick Flag (Joel Kinnerman taking over a role planned for Tom Hardy) plays the conflicted army leader who develops a begrudging respect for Deadshot though having little interaction with the others. The other heroic villains are criminally underused. Killer Croc is a man slowly turning into a human reptile, developing its ferocity and aggression too. He could be seen as a tragic figure, but he gets little to do but throw henchmen and minions around before planting an underwater bomb. Captain Kangaroo throws a few boomerangs at bad guys – interestingly they don’t return to him. The film uses a ridiculous number of pop songs from Eminem, The White Stripes, Rolling Stones, Queen and others to illustrate every action scene, but Boomerang’s antics really call for Charlie Drake singing My Boomerang Won’t Come Back. Sllpknot is introduced only to be killed in minutes testing the bluff of the exploding neck bombs. Only one of the Suicide Squad later ultimately commits heroic suicide. El Diablo can control fire but he is scared of his own powers so we know he will have a literal blaze of glory later on. Katana is a very odd addition to the team, actually Flag’s bodyguard, she is a lady samurai with a sword that can supposedly swallow souls, having presumably found Michael Moorcock’s Elric’s Stormbringer on Ebay. She never gets to use it properly and at one point weeps for her husband who is supposed to be trapped in its blade. Her presence is utterly pointless. Viola Davis, in a role Oprah Winfrey declined, the character of Amanda Waller, is intriguing as the Machiavellian government agent who hires the Suicide Squad and even challenges Batman/Bruce Wayne in a closing credits sequence. The Enchantress, who walks round in a bikini, twerking a lot, with a ridiculous Exorcist style voice of possession is downright silly as a main villain, who we know from the start needs her heart removing to be killed off, releasing Flag’s lover from within. There are numerous impossible escapes from death and serious injury in the film. The Enchantress causes the Squad’s helicopter to crash and roll spectacularly. Everyone emerges unscathed. Harley is trapped underwater in a car crash that has thrown her half-in and half out the window. She seems to breathe in as Batman hauls her out, and to the surface totally unhurt. Several people lashed by the Enchantress tentacles and those of her brother, Incubus, later show no signs of harm. Flag actually asks Waller how she survived being captured, and ill-treated by the Enchantress without an answer – even her clothes return to an unblemished state. Overall great fun, but largely carried by two or three characters with others seriously neglected but unlike the other movies in the franchise this one deserves sequels, especially for Harley and her boyfriend. Youtube – Charlie Drake – My Boomerang Won’t Come Back Arthur Chappell