Just saw Suicide Squad, so these are my thoughts.
The first 30 minutes were grueling, to the point where I considered walking out of the theater. It was just boooring. The introduction of all the characters is incredibly sloppy, it’s just Amanda Waller giving exposition to some military assholes at a fancy restaurant. It’s akin to not having Man of Steel, and opening Batman v Superman with someone telling another character his story. “Clark Kent was born on a farm…”
The only saving grace of the first 30 minutes was the music. They opened the movie up with House of the Rising Sun, which I quite enjoyed. I will say the movie has an amazing soundtrack with songs like Sympathy for the Devil, Seven Nation Army, and Super Freak.
The editing was very strange, and very hard to describe. It’s very fast and jumpy, and I wasn’t a fan of it.
The performances were a mixed bag. Jai Courtney was surprisingly good, he played a very funny character, a far cry from his bland performance in Die Hard. Will Smith was absolutely great and likeable, as always, almost unbelievably so for a hitman. El Diablo was amazing, a very sympathetic but believable character. I’m definitely in the minority on this, but I wasn’t a fan of Harley Quinn, I think her performance felt very forced and like she was trying too hard. Rick Flag had the charisma of a wet brick and his southern accent sounded fake as hell, and the plot really hinges around him and his relationship to someone else, so it just didn’t work. Enchantress was straight up awful. Her performance was incredibly exaggerated, she was walking around with her hips gyrating (fuck you Ayer, no matter now attractive you make her it doesn’t make her performance good), moving her arms and head all around like some cartoon character. I’m not one to be offended on other peoples’ behalf, but at points I was embarrassed by Killer Croc. I felt that his character was vaguely racist. He only has a few lines in the movie, but they’re all barely understandable and in ebonics. There’s one point where he says “I’s wasn’t aksin’ you, bruh.” and I actually groaned.
6/10