Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016) Movie • Page 28

By that time there will be 6-7 movies and they'd have made a few billion dollars...

 

Favorite part of reading reaction to this movie so far: Reading things that describe, note for note, Marvel movies that people love and praise.

 

I noticed that with BvS and Civil War. Although Civil War is obviously the better film, it suffers from many of the same issues as BvS and yet I didn't see that reflected in the reviews.

 

What sort of issues were similar? Civil War was overstuffed like crazy, but I think the similarities in criticisms end there for me.

 

Haha, I made a similar argument on the podcast with Thomas about those movies. Civil War was such a mess narratively, full of annoying plot holes, bad dialogue, all over the god damn place with bad motivation for stupid decisions, power issues, the villain was awful, and the music was downright embarrassing. And it was still probably in the upper tier of the best movies Marvel has done! Heh. But, I digress.

BvS was better than it got credit for (and the UE is even better than that), still not great though. And CW was definitely worse than it gets credit for.

 

This article sums it up pretty well.

 

I wanted this to be amazing, which it's not, but I still enjoyed this a lot. The movie felt rushed and thrown together, but at the same time it was a ton of fun with some great action and entertaining characters. I love that DC keeps stretching the boundaries for superhero movies, even though they tend to miss the mark with most critics and some audiences.

Harley/Joker background was brushed over, but also would've felt out of place if it was expanded on any more. I was indifferent about Leto. Some over-the-top acting, but nothing to egregious.

Harley was fun. Deadshot was great. Boomerang was great. Katana kicked ass. Waller was good. Rick Flag was mainly good for other characters to bounce off of, though I chuckled at him randomly eating a drumstick. The rest of the crew were meh to fine. Killer Croc really got the short end of this stick here, sadly. He looked cool at least. The villain was your typical run-of-the-mill CBM big bad, which was disappointing.

I sincerely hope that Deadshot appears in more DC movies. He might be the best character in the DCEU right now.

 

What are your thoughts on this movie Jason?

 

Haven't seen it yet. Probably will go this weekend.

I saw The Nice Guys last night though. It was great.

 

Talk about a good summer flick, nice guys took the cake.

 

Civil War is ten times the movie BvS is, and I think CW is a mid-tier Marvel film. Upper mid-tier, but I don't really think the MCU has made anything really great.

That article comparing it and BvS is kind of bad, it notes parallels but doesn't note that they have different intents. It says both movies wasted cool villains in Doomsday and Crossbones, but Civil War uses Crossbones in service of an instigating conflict, BvS uses Doomsday as the final threat. It works that Crossbones is underdeveloped because he doesn't need to be anything more. It doesn't work that Doomsday is wasted because he's not a character, has no psychology, and we're supposed to be invested in him as the final bad guy/threat to our heroes, when they don't know who he is or why he matters, just that he's destroying everything.

It compares the recruitment scenes of Spider-Man and the rest of the Justice League. First off, BvS's recruitment scene isn't a recruitment scene. It's Wonder Woman looking at an email. It's not visually interesting or dramatically satisfying. It has no weight on the thematics of the film. I mean, even Wonder Woman herself barely has anything to do with the film's central conflict. She's just there, and kind of gets roped into the fight despite again, not even knowing Superman and having just met Batman. We don't know really anything about her. Spider-Man in Civil War is similarly not necessary, but the film brings him in and makes him a part of Tony Stark's arc. Spider-Man's psychology is played to contrast Tony's. The bigger issue is Hawkeye and Ant-Man, the film does not justify their place in the story. They're not necessary and aside from being fun in action, don't add anything to the film.

The biggest difference between the two is that Civil War is entertaining. It knows how to use superheroes to be fun to watch and hang out with. It has weaknesses as a film, but they're easier to forgive when the film is a good time. Batman v. Superman is a slog. Batman and Superman hate each other for most of the film, and Superman doesn't even talk to Wonder Woman, they get no moments to just be characters. That amplifies any similar weaknesses and makes them stand out more.

Civil War is a decent movie that's certainly fun. The biggest issue to me is that it mostly re-sets at the end, instead of Cap and Iron Man being on the outs, the fallout leaving unanswered questions and a weight of consequence on the end credits, Cap sends that letter that basically says "we're cool". It doesn't have the guts to really go for a downer ending, probably because that's just not what Marvel's into. Their movies are safe, they need their characters to stay mostly the same so they can keep being in movies (although I do think they've done pretty well with Tony Stark's arc throughout the films, he feels like he's been on a real journey and had ups and downs and made mistakes and done good things and is still struggling with how to be him, whereas everyone else in the MCU is basically the same as when they were first introduced). Batman v. Superman is a bad movie that's more ambitious than most MCU fare, but while that's admirable in a vacuum, the execution was misguided, boring, and had no earned moments of triumph. It doesn't feel like a setup to an exciting new universe of superheroes, it fucking kills one of its most important characters after he and Batman were on the same team for about ten minutes.

 

Not much in this film worked for me as whole. Lack of character developement (minus Deadshot and Harley). Croc looks like ass and other supporters are underutilized. Not enough banter within the group made it fall flat with selling that they're a misfit team and to give the movie the loose, fun feel they marketed it as. Cliches, cliches, cliches, and plot points that have been rehashed time and time again, especially in the 3rd act. The villain feels forced and the movie would have gone much smoother with a smaller scale villain. I feel like suicide squad could have worked a lot better as a "black ops" kind of film rather than super hero film seeing as theres very few characters here with actual powers. I liked the Joker portayal but not enough of him in there for me to develop a real opinion about him.. It'd be cool to see Harley and Deadshot return for the Batman solo movie though.

 

I agree with almost everything you said.

 

My dad didn't even realise that Crossbones was that same guy from the Winter Soldier. I would imagine the same was true for many casual moviegoers. The character wasn't utilised to his full potential.

Everything you said about Wonder Woman can be said about Spider-man: I mean, Spider-man himself barely has anything to do with the film's central conflict. He's just there, and kind of gets roped into the fight despite again, not even knowing the Avengers and having just met Iron Man.

This isn't true, they do exchange some lines during the battle with Doomsday. Admittedly it's not much but to say they don't talk at all simply isn't true.

It's not a great movie, but it is a good one, and personally I'm excited for future DC movies.

 

The only (consistently good) argument people seem to use for Marvel is the subjective "I was entertained" one. Which is fine, but there's no point to even talk about the flaws (or the crux of my entire argument) in the movies once that's the argument. If you're entertained and enjoy the movie, awesome. Case closed on that regard and a huge reason to see movies. But that doesn't negate the flaws or why I keep pointing out how bad they are (and ignored).

 

Spider-Man has a psychology. When he and Tony Stark meet, he states his motivations and they have an effect on Tony. When utilized in action and put up against Captain America, it adds thematic weight. Tony and Cap are in a philosophical disagreement, and Spider-Man represents the altruistic middle ground. He's a hero who's not weighted down by politics or bureaucracy, he's purely in this out of a moral responsibility. That's why Cap and Tony started, and now they're weighed down by external factors. I think it could have been done better, as I don't think the movie changes that much if Spider-Man is removed, but he is certainly thematically relevant and a complete character.

Is Wonder Woman? What are her motivations? Why is she at Lex's party? Why is she resistant to joining Batman and Superman? Why does she change her mind? I'm honestly asking, I haven't seen the film since theaters and I don't remember any strong, earned moments of character for Wonder Woman. Gal Gadot plays the role well and her action is good, but what does it mean?

 

That Crossbones piece was pretty poorly shot, too. Shaky cam to hell.

 

You can also say great actors but that also describes Michael Shannon and Jesse Eisenberg

 

Well, I said that the reason Civil War/Marvel movies don't get the same guff for minor flaws as Batman v. Superman/DC movies so far, is that they're more entertaining. That matters more to most people. I can be entertained by a movie and have a critical discussion about it, as I said I was entertained by Civil War but went on to detail a few problems I feel it has. I was not entertained by BvS, it's problems were a lot bigger than Civil Wars.

 

Crossbones was used the same way Batroc was used in The Winter Soldier. A minor setpiece in the beginning of the film that puts the plot in motion. It doesn't really matter if you remember him or not. He was just a glorified Hydra thug in TWS.

Similarly, no one I saw BvS with didn't realize the guy in Bruce's "vision/dream" or whatever was The Flash. Hell, I don't know that I would have known if it hadn't been spoiled for me.

Idk. Spider-Man's motivations are pretty easy to pin down. He wants to impress Tony, who he somewhat idolizes. Off-screen, Tony convinces (manipulates) Peter into believing that Cap was dangerous. Tony's motivation for Peter are a little more unclear. Maybe he needed his webbing as a non-lethal way to subdue Peter or he thought Peter's youth would make him easy to manipulate.

Any impropriety is easy to ignore because you get a pretty pitch perfect portrayal of Spider-Man.

Wonder Woman needed a digital image for some reason? Maybe she didn't understand how digital images work? Or maybe I am just being uncharitable to her story line because of my own biases.

Yeah I think she said something to him about why he brought Doomsday into the city or something.

I really hope I like SS and WW! I am looking forward to see what direction Affleck takes Batman in too!

 

And my argument is, devoid of one's subjective entertainment, they both contain similar sized flaws (and do not think one is 10x worse). I would agree with you that one's subjective entertainment, or whatever you wanna call it, has people painting over them.

 

That's a cool way to interpret his presence in the movie but in all honesty that's not how I understood it. He was shoehorned in to reboot him ready for his solo movie next year. Admittedly, his part in the film is really fun, but I don't think it was as well thought out as you suggest.

We've already had 5 Spider-man movies where we learned all about his motivations and his moral compass, so I feel like BvS had a greater challenge introducing a character who hadn't been on the big screen before... Wonder Woman's appearance in BvS was really cool, but it does leave a lot of questions for future movies to answer. Just like many Marvel movies have done before.

 

And does not describe Chris Evans or Thor.

 

Oh I think WB has their franchises stacked with great acting talent. We have yet to see what Gal Gadot can really bring to the table but all of their major roles are filled with fantastic actors. I am particularly excited to see Ezra Miller's performance.

 

This movie is too much of a shit-heap to argue Marvel vs. DC again, but I get it.