Greetings Good People,

I finally had a chance to watch the most talked about film of the summer, Suicide Squad, and wanted to provide you all with a review. Before I get started, check out the following trailer if you haven’t seen it already.

Directed by David Ayer, Suicide Squad stars Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Cara Delevingne, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Karen Fukuhara, and Adam Beach.

Based off of the DC Comics, Suicide Squad follows U.S. intelligence officer, Amanda Waller (Davis), and her team of deranged super villains as they complete high-risk missions for the United States government. They are inadvertently being used as disposable commodities, but with a 10-year clemency on their sentences, what else do these criminals have to lose? The team consists of the hitman, Deadshot (Smith); psychopath/Joker’s lover, Harley Quinn (Robbie); pyrokinetic gangster, El Diablo (Hernandez); thief, Captain Boomerang (Courtney); half-man/half-animal, Killer Croc (Akinnuoye-Agbaje); and the mercenary, Slipknot (Beach). Archaeologist/Possessed-witch Dr. June Moone and her alter ego Enchantress (Delevingne) was originally recruited to be a part of the Squad, but Enchantress soon turns on everyone with a plan to destroy mankind due to her imprisonment and destroying her then becomes the central mission for this team. With the leadership of Colonel Rick Flag (Kinnaman), the added protection from martial artist Katana (Fukuhara), and the interferences from the Joker (Leto) all is set for this comedic, action-adventure film.

I typically don’t listen to the reviews prior to seeing a film because I want to formulate my own opinion, but in regards to this film, most of the reviews were spot on. Suicide Squad, unfortunately, did not live up to the hype. When I initially saw the Comic-Con trailer last summer, I was ecstatic because the film had a much darker/grittier tone somewhat like Christopher Nolan’s Batman franchise. However, the finished product that I saw was a little cartoonish and just plain silly at times. I’m not going to spoil any of the scenes but some of them—particularly the big showdown at the end—were just ridiculous; it was like watching The Power Rangers without their costumes or weapons fight one of the dinosaur-sized bosses.

The storyline, at times, seemed a little cluttered due to the amount of characters that they had to develop. But to be frank, there were only two characters that I paid money to see and they ended up saving this film:

It was evident within the first 10-15 minutes that Will Smith and Margot Robbie were going to be the Michael Jackson and Beyoncé of this group, but it was Jared Leto’s scenes with Robbie that kept me interested. The Joker and Harley Quinn are two of the most charismatic villains in the Batman franchise, but seeing them together live took it to another level. Leto did a great job creating more of a mafia/rockstar depiction of the Joker that just worked well with the tone of this film. And it’s been rumored that Robbie will be given a Harley Quinn spin-off, which isn’t a surprise since she knocked this character out of the park.

Although the energy of this film was decent and the motives were good, I just felt like it was a little too comical for my taste. The amount of characters that, for the most part, were irrelevant throughout this film didn’t help with the storyline that just wasn’t believable. Aside from merchandise sells, potential Halloween costumes, and possible spin-offs, this film is forgettable.

Grade of C.

Until Next Time…