“Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice” was meant to launch the new DC Movie Universe on a glorious note, teaming two of the great heroes (three, if you count not-in-the-title Wonder Woman) on the big screen for the first time, and serving as a springboard for an interlocking franchise that would last until the end of time. It opened big, and made a respectable amount of money, but it still underperformed expectations, in part because reviews and audience response was pretty poisonous, with very few people beyond the DC hardcore liking Zack Snyder’s film.
“Suicide Squad” was meant to be the corrective — an offbeat, bad-boy take on the superhero movie with an all-star cast, an inspired marketing campaign and buzz that, until the very last minute, was glowing. In fact, it turned out to be another brutal disappointment: with reviews that are actually worse than its predecessor (ours was one of the more moderate ones), and a worse Fri-Sat drop-off at the box office, even if the marketing campaign got people in through the door to the tune of $135 million in its first weekend.
So what went wrong, creatively speaking? Now that the film’s open and most of you have had a chance to see it, we wanted to dig in a little more with some SPOILERS and talk about what worked for us, and what didn’t (Hint: there’s a lot more in the latter category). Take a look below, and let us know what you thought of the movie in the comments.
The Best
Viola Davis
The “Doubt” and “The Help” Oscar-nominee always seemed like perfect casting as Amanda Waller, the DC Universe’s much more ruthless, devious and morally ambiguous take on Nick Fury, and indeed, that’s what she’s proven to be. Davis lends the movie the gravitas that we’ve come to expect of her, but there’s also a sly humor and a steely darkness that makes her by far the film’s most interesting character. Indeed, in some of the twists and turns she pulls off — her manipulation of Rick Flagg by setting him up in a relationship with June Moone, or killing the underlings in the control room when she’s rescued — she becomes a more chaotic and malevolent villain than Jared Leto’s version of the Joker even.
Jai Courtney
It feels weird to type this, let alone think it, but: was Jai Courtney the best thing in this movie? The Australian actor has vacillated between being bland and being a black hole of screen presence in films like “A Good Day to Die Hard,” “Divergent” and “Terminator Genisys.” But as Captain Boomerang, he seems to find his sweet spot. Bedecked with mutton-chop facial hair, bulging eyes and perpetually sipping on a tin of beer, he’s having a lot more fun than most of his cast-mates, gets some of the movie’s biggest laughs (including bolting as soon as his neck-bomb is turned off, though the film then undercuts it immediately), and even has some moments of pathos, playing nicely off Will Smith during the Harley Quinn escape sequence. Where’s this Jai Courtney been hiding?
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Jay Hernandez
After breaking out in teen sitcom “Hang Time,” Jay Hernandez was for a time a rising star, thanks to movies like ‘Crazy/Beautiful,” “Hostel” and “Carlito’s Way: Rise To Power,” but he’s mostly been quiet in recent years, it seems. But his turn in “Suicide Squad” (and, to a lesser extent, a charming appearance in “Bad Moms”) feels like it’s going to put him back on the map, because he’s really good as El Diablo. Yes, he’s the kind of Hispanic gang-banger stereotype that David Ayer seems obsessed with, but Hernandez brings the character past that, giving him a real journey and doing what no one else in the film can do and actually coming close to eliciting sympathy for his character.
Ike Barinholtz
In the movie’s very opening scene, we almost had some hope for the film, and a lot of that came down to Ike Barinholtz. The actor, who plays prison guard Griggs, is better known for cuddlier affairs like “The Mindy Project,” “Neighbors” and “Sisters,” but he feels like a perfect fit for the sensibility of the movie, or at least the movie it should have been — spiky, funny and amoral. He completely disappears from the film quite early on, but that mostly had the effect of making us wish that he’d played the Joker, rather than Leto.
The Interlocking Franchise Stuff
Marvel have sometimes faltered when it comes to getting the balance right of telling their own stories, and setting up future installments and characters. DC’s track record on that front is patchy (as the “folder full of viral videos” scene in “Batman Vs. Superman” hammered home), but for all of the flaws of “Suicide Squad,” it does at least have a pretty good handle on its crossover stuff. The brief Batman appearances feel relatively organic, the ramifications of the “death” of Superman lead nicely into the film’s story, and even The Flash’s one-shot cameo, added at the very last minute, helps the sense of a bigger world outside this story. If only they’d given as much attention to the main story…
The Occasional Glimmers Of What It Could Have Been
Look, the idea of a superhero Dirty Dozen is a great idea for a movie (indeed, “Suicide Squad” rushed to theaters to beat Sony’s “Sinister Six” movie, and we’re sure Marvel have considered a “Thunderbolts” pic at some point). And every so often, you can see how entertaining this might have been if they’d got it right. There are brief snippets of intrigue early in the second act, when Deadshot and Harley Quinn start stealthily making plans to revolt and escape, for instance, and the scene where Deadshot refuses to kill the special forces unit when they’re under attack is a compelling one. With so little actual character interplay, these moments end up feeling squandered more than anything else, but hopefully any sequel will capitalize on the basic concept more effectively.