The Suicide Squad

A festive and cartoonish carnage of blood, violence, comedy, and bizarre comic book shenanigans - 6/10

by Jad Sammour

I wanted to approach this as a regular review but I am really mixed about this film so I will try to be straight to the point:

Pros:
-Characters and their dynamic: the cast does a great job; some amazing scene-stealers. There is a weird depth to the characters. Everyone had great chemistry together. Now some characters were severely underused and I wish Gunn used them more.
-Cinematography: the film was visually pleasing
-Comedy and Visual Gags: some really good jokes are in this film that go from dialogue to slapstick comedy mixed with action
-Critique: the film threw some good points about American politics and it can be considered as an allegory but it is not enough because it is still rigged with propaganda
-Fun: yes it is fun. Light (but for >16 year olds) and entertaining
-Heart: somehow this film manages to get you attached to the characters and that's good

Cons:
-Unbalanced direction that favored style over substance. It was pointlessly flashy with a weird use of different ways to film the scenes and tell the story
-Music: James Gunn used music better in Guardians of the Galaxy and the film's score was not good
-Plot: not the most original plot even though it may seem like a breaking of the comic book genre 
-Action: not the best action, mediocre
-Villain: the villain was good and weird but underused
-Drama: some of the drama, albeit essential didn't fit the ridiculous tone of the movie
-Tone: it did not know what it was and I did not know if I should take it seriously or not
-Excess: the film did feel like a try-hard to do something like Deadpool but DC and with much more freedom and it achieved that but it was too excessive to a point where the trying-hard really shows 
-Harley Quinn: underused even though she had a very interesting side-plot (story and ideology that develop her as a character). Margot Robie did a great job but she should've been way more... Harley (the energy she brought in the 2016 film and Birds of Prey seemed to be lacking and that's to blame on the writer and the director)

At the end, I think most people would enjoy The Suicide Squad because it is over-the-top and outrageously bizarre filled with a lot of comedy and the amount of action one expects from such films. The audience in the theater seemed to have really enjoyed it, however I didn't enjoy it as much as they did.

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