Film: Suicide Squad

This film is a disappointment. For starters, Enchantress’ (the antagonist) reasons for destroying the world seem random and forced. There is no development of her character, who she is, or what drives her to act as she does, (is she jealous and resentful [Loci], is she trying to create a utopia [Ultron] is she just plain mad [the Joker, specifically Nolan’s]), I’m still not completely sure. It seems that Snyder did not focus on creating a captivating villain that would fascinate audiences but was more interested in special effects and action.

Now I realise that special effects and action are main staples of a good superhero movie,

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and I like a good explosion as much as the next guy, but these things replace any kind of coherent story.

But to get onto the actual Squad. Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) and Katana (Karen Fukuhara) are stereotypes. There has been no effort to develop either of them further than a cheeky Australian and a brooding ninja type. Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) did very little under his layers of prosthetics . And after having seen Guardians of the Galaxy and watched Groot (Vin Diesel) provoke feelings from the audience without ever deviating for his three word dialogue, it shows that an actor can be totally transformed into something different and quite incomprehensible and still be memorable, Killer Croc just isn’t.

 Where character development is attempted, the audience is meant to empathise with the origin and situation the individual. But the Suicide Squad is pretty crowded. If it’s not Dead Shot’s daughter living with her negligent mother, it’s Harley Quinn’s decent into madness, or Diablo’s dead family, or Katana’s dead husband’s soul. There is so much happening and each story is handled so hastily that no in-depth understanding can be achieved, making it difficult to be invested in any of the characters.

I had high hopes for this movie. I felt that it had the potential to be something original and fun, but it’s really nothing special.