05 Aug Suicide Squad Analysis

SUICIDE SQUAD

[UPDATED REVIEW – 6 April 2019]

The years have not been kind to SS, which is generally considered the worst DC film. Personally, I reserve that honor for 2017’s Justice League. But I also acknowledge that SS has problems. Big ones. My opinion has not actually changed much since the original review.

SS suffered from post-BvS corporate fear, and director David Ayers has been gracious in avoiding the now apparent meddling WB inflicted on his movie. SS stands a model of awful film editing. Suffice it to say that there is probably a solid version of the movie somewhere in WB’s archives of unused footage, but they didn’t let Ayers see his vision through, so we are stuck with…this one. Even the “extended cut” released on blu-ray was a marginal improvement, since they would not revert to the original storylines or timeline Ayers planned and shot. The whole movie is a mess.

That said, I still enjoy the hell out of watching SS from time to time. I think it has moments of greatness, particularly Robbie’s Harley Quinn, a character that Robbie is revisiting at this moment while filming a spin-off follow-up. Overall, there are more than enough fun moments to make the movie worth watching to me. But it’s a guilty pleasure of the highest order; trash I inexplicably enjoy.

With James Gunn on the verge of starting filming on its direct sequel, and WB now giving filmmakers necessary latitude to see their visions through (thanks to Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Shazam!), I think the follow-up has much, much greater potential. I just wish it had not taken the failures of BvS and SS to get there.

[ORIGINAL REVIEW – 6 August 2016]

Remember the interminable years in between Harry Potter novels, when you would get together with friends and spend hours after finishing each book to hash out plot points, discuss characters, and most importantly speculate about your theories that explain the loose ends (intentional or not.) Of course you do. Almost equal to the experience of reading the book itself is the wonderful dialogue with friends afterwards, trying to answer questions and guess what comes next.

I feel like Warner Brothers/DC Comics has a group of people making their movies that take the initial treatment or screenplay of a film and does the same thing: discusses the hell out of it. They ask each other questions; they take turns guessing the answers to those questions; and they might even look to a few comic book gurus for answers. But nobody bothers to write down the answers to integrate into the screenplay and there is no single person with the vision and authority to demand the kind of overarching strategy that a “cinematic universe” demands: long term consistency in quality.

The most obvious way these problems are manifest is in missing the mark on a crucial aspect of character development: making sure the audience understand the motivations of characters. If an audience doesn’t understand WHY a character does what they do, you have completely lost them and probably will not get them back. In a film class a while ago, character motivations were explained with a character triangle, with the three critical, interrelated questions being:
  1. What does the character WANT?
  2. What does the character NEED?
  3. What do they FEAR/what is their FLAW?
If you can answer these three questions for the protagonist(s) and the antagonist(s), then you have their motivation and the driving force of the entire narrative. In fact, if these characteristics are strongly defined enough, than the overall narrative can be pretty flimsy; see many of the Marvel films or, more extremely, anything by Terrence Malick. Strong characters with clear motivations are arguably the most important part of a film, and if you can’t even answer those three questions about your main characters, YOU SHOULD NOT START PRODUCTION OF THE MOVIE.

My current theory about DC’s cinematic universe is that they want to have fresh takes on well-known characters, so they’ve played around with the answers to these questions. I’ll even bet they know the answers these question for their reinvented characters. BUT NOBODY IS CONVEYING THE ANSWERS CLEARLY IN THEIR FILMS. And, almost as bad, instead of giving one master-storyteller the authority to objectively evaluate whether these answers are sufficiently conveyed onscreen (in a good final cut), there is a committee of business-minded studio execs who have now interfered twice in what could have been two very good films, leaving behind one seriously flawed film and one kinda flawed film.

Both Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad bear the hallmarks of this personal theory of mine, but from radically different perspectives, demonstrating that such chaos can lead to two completely different, but equally problematic, outcomes. Here’s how I suspect things went:

Man of Steel was great–I like it more each time I watch watch the film. It was different from Marvel and had some really great characters that were different from what had been done before, but often better. Many people seem to forget that Man of Steel (DC’s first entry in their cinematic universe) did better international box office than Iron Man (Marvel’s first entry in their cinematic universe) and was clearly a different take on an iconic character. But Warner Brothers simply didn’t think it made enough money, so they started meddling.
The smart thing to do would have been to release individual Superman sequel, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Flash movies, before leading up to a Justice League movie, when they introduce Green Lantern, Aquaman, and/or Martian Manhunter. Let’s be honest: that would probably have worked perfectly. Especially since they clearly had strong (and AWESOME) ideas for how they wanted Batman and Wonder Woman to be portrayed. But since Avengers made over a billion dollars ($1.5 billion, to be exact), WB decided they needed to jump the gun and get a team movie out faster. So, they crammed a Superman sequel, a Batman movie, an extended Wonder Woman cameo, and Flash/Aquaman/Cyborg teasers into BvS, which itself was a (stunningly foolish) mish-mash of two or three iconic Superman/Batman graphic novels. It was so much crammed into one movie, that it is hardly surprising that it crumpled under its own weight. In my opinion, it was surprisingly good considering how they overstuffed it.

For BvS, there was way too much story to begin with, and despite the involvement (however peripherally) of master filmmaker Christopher Nolan, nobody put their foot down and said, “We are blowing 3-4 awesome movie’s worth of material in one overly bloated film.” And the outcome was exactly that: an overly bloated film that skipped over a LOT of audience questions the filmmakers clearly knew the answers to, but never bothered to convey in the movie. This left a lot of characters with very foggy motivations–most damaging was the villain himself: Lex Luthor. WTF were they thinking there?!?! More tragic were the suddenly lost motivations of characters that were so strong in Man of Steel: Lois Lane, Perry White, and most importantly Superman himself. The Ultimate Edition (director’s cut?) of BvS did wonders to answer many of the minor questions, thereby fleshing out some character motivations that were previously MIA. Through interviews and behind-the-scenes docs, it was clear that the filmmakers, cast, and crew had a pretty solid handle on BvS and its characters, but they ultimately failed to convey their vision. Because they failed to answer too many questions the audience had, and nobody stepped in to point this out before the release.

In the aftermath of BvS, which was a critical disaster and financial disappointment, I think the studio immediately panicked with Suicide Squad. It’s well known that Squad underwent very-late reshoots: many months after the film had wrapped and very few months before its release. After seeing Squad for as second time tonight, I think Suicide Squad suffers from the panicked reaction of a rudderless ship known as Warner Brothers/DC Comics. If there is a bright side, the immediately poor decision to mess with Suicide Squad was made concurrently with the decision to finally appoint a single authority-figure over DC’s future films: Geoff Johns, who is a de facto expert on DC’s comics, characters, and stories. But that first decision kind of doomed Suicide Squad, while the second gave hope that future films will be free of the afflictions BvS and SS suffered.

So… what did I REALLY think of Suicide Squad?

To be honest, I enjoyed it WAY more than I enjoyed BvS. There is a lot that I loved about the movie. Here’s the highlights:

1. Harley Quinn, a relatively new character from ‘Batman: The Animated Series’, is awesome. Not because she is played by the staggeringly beautiful, talented Margot Robbie, who should be married to me, but because Margot’s performance perfectly captures this fantastic, funny, yet very tragic character. I am supremely glad they decided to carry over the character’s traits, look, and attitude almost wholesale from the animated series. While it’s fine to reinvent well-known characters, as they have done (to excess?) with Batman and Superman, a lesser known character like Harley Quinn benefits tremendously by simply bringing over the exact character people are familiar with from previous iterations. Harley is the funniest part of SS, has the best-defined character arc, is probably the only character whose motivations are (for the most part) crystal clear throughout the film, and is one of the few characters I NEED MORE OF IN FUTURE MOVIES. I loved Harley in Suicide Squad, and I swear that has nothing to do with my love of the future Mrs. Margot Robbie Washburn.

2. Amanda Waller was excellently portrayed by Viola Davis. A mysterious, strong-willed, powerful, uncompromising, deadly woman who transcends every stereotype to convince you that she absolutely rules over this squad of villains with an iron fist composed of her sheer force of will. There was one moment that came across very poorly in the context of this film (when she arbitrarily murders several FBI agents because “…they didn’t have the right clearance anyway.”) Although it aligned with other iterations of the character I’ve seen, within the context of this film, it felt jarring and out of place (more on that later.) But Waller was a BEAST in this movie and I loved Davis’ performance in every scene in which she appeared.

3. I really liked the subtle (though long-delayed) moments when the hodge-podge group finally started coming together. At the core of this was Flagg and Deadshot’s relationship, which was far more interesting than the other relationships each of the respective characters had in the movie: Flaggs relationship with Enchantress was poorly conveyed, and Deadshot’s relationship with his daughter was sappy af; but Flagg and Deadshot had several moments here and there that clearly showed their initial antagonism develop into mutual respect (very well done) and eventually a willingness to really sacrifice to help each other (not as well done, but there nonetheless).

4. Random Blacksite Prison Guard with a Speaking Part–I don’t know his name and I don’t care. But if you’ve seen the movie, you know who I’m talking about. That guy was given more character development and origin story than some of the actual members of the Suicide Squad. He was funny, often offensively so, and actually played a fairly crucial role in the film. It was a nice touch. *

5. The music of the movie was fun and appropriate (for the most part). That said, don’t rush out and buy the soundtrack–it doesn’t contain most of the good music. But the songs were fun, familiar, and gave a musical vibe to the film that helped the audience connect with the narrative.

6. I liked the villains, if for no other reason than they were a very asymmetric threat. Unlike most of Marvel’s movies where the hero fights himself but in bad form (Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America 2, Ant-Man, etc.) it was nice to see a threat that was overwhelming, a real challenge for the heroes, and potentially world-ending. Were the actual villains well-fleshed out? Not really, but the threat they posed was a clear and present danger. The actual device the villains were used was a 100% McGuffin of the highest order, but that didn’t bother me much. The mysterious nature of the two villains was enough to understand the magnitude of the threat and why the Suicide Squad was sent in to stop it.

7. Lastly: BATMAN. Yeah, he only has a few short scenes, but…it’s BATMAN. Already post BvS, Batman and Bruce Wayne have more heart and humor than previously, despite a total screen time of about 3 minutes and almost no dialogue.

8-ish. I’m still on the fence, for reasons I’ll divulge shortly, but I think I really liked Jared Leto’s take on The Joker. Probably the most challenging part of the film, Leto’s Joker is certainly different from anything we’ve seen before. He’s way more psychotically unhinged than Nicholson or even Ledger’s Joker performances. Unfortunately, he has relatively little screen time (I saw somewhere that it was about 8 minutes) and he kind of drifts in and out of the story at very random times (again, more on that later). But he has a pretty clear motivation and seems to be a solid personification of the Joker from Batman: The Animated Series crossed with the Arkham video games character, plus some extra crazy heavily sprinkled. I think this take on the Joker (who has been Joker-ing for a lot longer than Nicholson or Ledger’s characters) was crucial in defining Harley Quinn’s character. Insanity, complete (if twisted) trust, and obsession were the cornerstones of their relationship. I really would have liked more of Leto’s performance to decide with any finality, but my current thoughts are “I want to see more of this Joker.”

All of these things were great! And I really think they worked DESPITE some of the problems I’m about to talk about. After two viewings, I can honestly say that I really enjoyed the movie and have no problems recommending it to anyone who wants a non-Marvel-formula superhero movie.

There are two fundamental problems I have with Suicide Squad: poor casting and shitty editing.

There’s not much to say for poor casting, other than a couple performances were not great. Cara Delevingne as Enchantress was clearly the weak link in the film. She actually plays two roles: Dr. June Moone and Enchantress. Dr. Moone is given almost nothing of note to do at all, but even with little screen time, the beautiful Ms. Delevingne completely whiffed the performance. I’m happy to fault poor dialogue or limited screen time, but really, she wasn’t very good as Dr. Moone. As Enchantress, who was (spoiler alert) the main villain, Delevingne was inconsistent, shifting from scary/creepy to lame/wierd. Most of her time as Enchantress was really great–I liked the look and the overwhelming creepiness of the character. But then there were a lot of scenes where she was completely overwhelmed with mediocre CGI, jerking and twitching around like a patient with legitimate and serious auto-motor control issues.
In addition to Ms Delevingne, I think it was a mistake to cast Will Smith in the movie. He’s a mega-star actor who hasn’t done an ensemble movie since maybe Independence Day, when he was relatively unknown. Having one mega-star among a group of mostly unknown actors made for a poorly balanced ensemble. The next closest A-list star was…Margot Robbie? Who, bless her heart, has not yet risen anywhere close to Smith’s level of success. She may yet, but there is vast gulf of experience between Smith and everyone else. I understand the need for star power, particularly for securing funding for a major studio tentpole film, but the delta between Smith and the rest of the Squad was a bit much.
Also, Will Smith did a fine job playing Will Smith playing Deadshot. It was the exact same character he’s played in many great movies, but it didn’t fit in with the Squad mentality of bonding through equality of misery. The last thing I’ll say about Smith is that he is much like Tom Cruise, who almost unfailingly plays characters that are confined by certain rules the actor can demand because they are mega-stars. DC’s character of Deadshot is a heartless assassin without a conscious who has almost no loyalties. Deadshot as played by Will Smith has a touching backstory involving a daughter that he loves and will do anything for but is also a heartless assassin, we swear. You may disagree, but I felt like Deadshot’s backstory was pumped up to fit Smith’s typical roles of slight anti-hero with a heart of solid gold. It came across as too sappy and created a motivational dichotomy that was too difficult to follow throughout the film, as he shifted from heartless assassin to reluctant blackmailed father.
There were other casting choices that were iffy, but to be honest, this was still far and away the best portrayal of the Suicide Squad I’ve seen from DC.

As for the editing, this is where I speculate a little based on the evidence of the film I’ve now seen twice and I feel relatively confident saying that Suicide Squad is a film-editing disaster. A few things I noted:

1. The film starts with brief introductions to Deadshot, Harley Quinn, and Amanda Waller–all critical character introductions–before the title screen shows up. Almost immediately after the title screen, we get character introductions to…wait for it…Deadshot, Harley Quinn, and Amanda Waller. Then scattered throughout the film, we get completely random, contextually inappropriate cutscenes fleshing out bits and pieces of Deadshot and Quinn’s background. There was a scene about 3/4 of the way through the film with Harley jumping into a vat of acid at ACE Chemicals at the Joker’s request that came out of nowhere, added nothing to the moment, stopped the momentum of the film dead in its tracks, and felt like it should have been a part of a much earlier scene.

2. While 5 members of the Suicide Squad are given short, decent introductions, two of them are completely ignored until the Squad is assembled for their first mission, about a third of the way through the movie. Slipknot is shown in pictures while Waller talks about Task Force X (the Suicide Squad’s formal name), but nobody says anything about him until he shows up well after the Squad has been introduced. For people like myself that are familiar with how the Suicide Squad is controlled, I immediately knew that he would be the one on whom they demonstrate the explosive implant. I have to believe that somewhere on the cutting room floor there is a short backstory like the rest of the characters received, but it was noticeably idiotic to have a founding member simply show up out of nowhere with no introduction outside a lame-ass voiceover (“That’s Slipknot. He can climb any rope.”–that’s the whole intro right there.) And five minutes later he’s dead.
I don’t know if it’s better or worse, but Katana also simply appears out of nowhere to join the Squad when they are literally leaving the ground on a helicopter on their first mission. Then at equally random times and contextually inappropriately, little bits of her non-pertinent past are revealed in short cutscenes. Again, they totally gloss over the interesting questions (“Why is Katana protecting Flagg? Why is she a member of the Squad but not a villain or implanted with the neck explosive?”) in favor of exploring seemingly meaningless backstory information (Who cares that her sword absorbs the souls of those it has killed? How does that help anyone?) Why was she even there?
I really feel like these problems are symptomatic of what I mentioned a while ago. I’m sure a lot of people at Warners/DC know the answers to these questions. There might even be scenes that answer them sitting on the cutting room floor. But in the movie they released in theaters, I was given meaningless information instead of answers to the questions they chose to pose. It is infuriating and frustrating.

3. The tone of the movie, while overall lighter and more fun than BvS, has some pretty radical shifts to extremes. I remember watching a shitty movie called Alex Cross that did this, though it was much worse. In Alex Cross, scenes of very disturbing violence and depravity were immediately followed by scenes of light domestic bliss and happiness. It made both scenes uncomfortably unpleasant, especially as it cycled back and forth, making the whole movie almost unwatchable and certainly unenjoyable. Suicide Squad is not that bad, since it cycle back and forth rapidly. But it still managed some brief moments of stark unpleasantness. One of these was early in the film, when Harley Quinn is introduced. The playful, humorous banter between Harley and Random Blacksite Prison Guard cuts to scenes of torture and degradation towards a female character that are unpleasant and offensive. It’s very brief, but jarring changes in tone like that makes the average audience member want a little recovery time. Same with the scene where Joker breaks from prison and decides to torture Dr. Quinn. Without explanation or logical motivation, the audience is simply given another torture scene in which Joker is torturing the person that just helped free him from prison. While the scenes were not long or particularly graphic, the implied torture would have been easier to accept if there was a reason for it, and it distinctly felt like the reason was left on the cutting room floor.

4. As my buddy Kevin pointed out, movies that introduce a lot of characters need one who can be the window for the audience–a character that audience members can relate to and go on a journey with throughout the film. Think of great movies and you can probably instantly identify this arch type: Frodo Baggins, Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker, Ellen Ripley, Steve Rogers, Marty McFly, etc. They are all characters that think and act (more or less) like the audience either does think and act or wants to think and act.
In Suicide Squad, this character should have been Rick Flagg, who is the military leader of the Squad. He’s not a super-villain, like the actual members, but he is the straight role that is supposed to allow the audience members to build a relationship with the remaining characters, who probably (definitely) have traits and characteristics far beyond the experience or relate-ability of the audience. I hope that nobody watches Suicide Squad and thinks “Hey, I’m exactly like Harley Quinn!” Or The Joker. Or Killer Croc. Or Captain Boomerang. Or Diablo. Or Deadshot. They are all murderers, sociopaths, and psychopaths. If you feel like you are experiencing the real world like them, you are hopefully reading this from prison. Unlike the squad of villains, Flagg is supposed to be the straight and narrow path the audience has into this new, unfamiliar world.
But he’s not, at least in the movie we are given. Despite being informed in no uncertain terms that he is the best Special Forces warrior in the entire world, the character’s primary focus throughout the film is his romantic relationship with Dr. Moone/Enchantress. Unfortunately, we are not given any relevant information about how that relationship came about, other than it was probably manipulated into existence by Waller. But even then, it is hard to relate to a character that is clearly making irrational decisions despite a mountain of overt and subtle evidence suggesting he do otherwise.
Joel Kinneman’s performance was fine, and he was a convincing soldier in the scenes where he was focused thus, but he always drifted back to the utterly unrelatable position of a guy pining for a woman that has no substance or redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Honestly, aside from Waller and Quinn, none of the characters has very clear character triangles; it’s impossible to derive clear motivations from characters whose wants, needs, and fears/flaws are simply unknowable. That’s a real problem throughout the movie, as characters continually make decisions with random or non-existent logic.

All of these reasons support my theory that after BvS, Warners/DC panicked and demanded that director David Ayer alter the film however necessary to get a more demographically palitible film. I’m willing to bet that the reshoots were combined with some selective editing to attempt to widen the appeal of the movie for a larger audience. I strongly suspect that you cannot take a film that has been in production for nearly two years and reshoot 2-4 weeks’ worth of material 4 months before release and integrate it into said film without compromising the original vision and quality.

[Spoiler Alert: This is a huge concern I have for Rogue One…which just wrapped 5+ weeks of reshoots yesterday. With a new writer and director.]

And that brings me to the last point I want to make. Director David Ayer is a really good filmmaker. If you haven’t heard of him, it’s because his specialty is smaller, character driven films about very dark, twisted characters. He’s better known for his screenwriting than his directing, but both skillsets have resulted in a powerfully consistent repertoire. Check it out:

Screenwriter: U-571, The Fast and The Furious, Training Day, Dark Blue, S.W.A.T., Harsh Times, End of Watch, Sabotage, Fury

Director: Harsh Times, Street Kings, End of Watch, Sabotage, Fury

Look at that list, and if you haven’t seen any of those movies, try a marathon of some of them (Training Day, End of Watch, Sabotage, Fury). They are almost all dark, brooding, violent films. ALL of his films are populated with unique, well-developed characters; there are a few ensemble pieces and a few legit big successes–say what you want about the Fast & Furious movies, but that first one established some great characters that have evolved into a multi-billion-dollar franchise. Most are independent films and he has written almost every film he’s directed (with the exception of the very good Street Kings–one of Keanu Reeves’ best, most unique performances). Anyone that is familiar with Ayer’s films was pleasantly surprised and impressed that WB/DC was wise enough to choose a filmmaker with the exact right cinematic experience for a film about a team of super-villains sent to save the world on a suicide mission.
It’s a stark difference to Marvel, that has gone with a lot of relatively unknown, serviceable directors who have, for the most part, been absorbed into the MCU hive mind, which demands adherence to a relatively strict formula for success financial and critical success–a formula that is becoming a little too predictable. WB/DC has been adamant about taking a different path from Marvel (for better or worse), but has choked at the last second twice now, releasing movies that don’t seem to be aligned with the original vision of their directors.
In addition, Ayer’s is not the resume of a filmmaker that makes the mistakes found in Suicide Squad. In fact, from what I’ve read, the post-BvS internal panic at WB led the studio to demand reshoots and create their own edit of the film. Up until a matter of weeks ago, there were essentially two edits of the film: Ayer’s original cut, and WB’s eventual final cut that they believed to be more audience-accessible. I would surmise that Ayers wisely let the people with the purse strings do what they wanted to do and tacitly endorsed the studio cut, knowing that to do otherwise would be to instantly ostracize himself from the DC family, eliminating his chances at ever getting to make another film in the franchise (remember Josh Trank’s poorly conceived tweet on the eve of the release of the horrific Fant4stic?). Since Suicide Squad 2 is already unofficially confirmed with Ayer at the helm, I wouldn’t be surprised if WB said “We’ll give you the sequel, but we have to mad-adjust for audience reception of BvS and Suicide Squad is our sacrificial lamb.”
Whatever the case, I find it difficult to believe that Ayer made the editing and character mistakes evident in Suicide Squad, and suspect that WB might again release a director’s cut on blu-ray. The BvS director’s cut was unquestionably superior to the theatrical cut, and if Suicide Squad‘s commercial and critical trajectory mirrors BvS, I think that may be a way to salvage support for DC’s future plans.

When all is said and done, I really respect DC for trying something different in the superhero realm. I find both BvS and SS to be refreshing breaks from the Marvel domination of the last 8 years. It’s too bad DC didn’t get this show started earlier, because I think they would not have been at such a critical disadvantage. I think the Wonder Woman and Justice League trailers look fantastic, and I can’t wait for both movies. It sounds like DC has directly confronted the BvSissues, there just wasn’t enough time to properly adjust for Suicide Squad–they should have let Ayer see his vision through to final release. Hopefully Wonder Woman and Justice League mark the swift transition to better films with less studio interference. The stories and characters are available–we just need a return to form a la Man of Steel.

*Thanks to Robert Hayes for pointing out that Random Blacksite Prison Guard with a Speaking Part is names Captain Griggs! And for a few additional grammatical edits!

Analysis by Jim Washburn