Okay?
Good.
Suicide Squad Has No Fucks to Give
Let me preface the following post with a couple of simple facts:
I'm a huge comic book nerd geek. Seriously--been reading comics since I was knee high to a grasshopper. I was a DC Comics mega fan and a Marvel fan, too. The New Teen Titans and Batman were my favorites. I read them every month, at one point, I took three buses across town to get my favorite comic book store every Saturday morning so I could get what was new and I haunted this used and vintage bookstore at a flea market where they sold comics in the back. So when I say BIG comic book fan, I mean HUGE nerd.
Second, I have watched or do watch every comic book movie/television series. I don't always stick with them if they suck, but I've watched them all from seeing George Reeves fly in black and white on Saturday mornings when I was a kid to Christopher Reeve on the big screen to the old Batman and Robin series from the 60s to the Superfriends to Lois and Clark to Smallville and more recently--Arrow, Flash, Supergirl, Agents of Shield, Legends of Tomorrow...well, I think you get the picture.
I'm the target audience here, I get it. That is okay with me.
I FLOVED SUICIDE SQUAD
Walking into the theatre, I had some trepidation. I really didn't like Man of Steel. It was too grimy, too grey and that was never Superman to me. I get it, the Superman they are telling the story of isn't the one I grew up with. For the most part, I loved Henry Cavill, but I just didn't care for all the sturm und drang. Flash forward (pun wholly intended) to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and I seriously wasn't sure I wanted to see it. In fact, I didn't go to the theatre.
Why?
I have loved these characters for decades and I had very definitive ideas about them. I may be in the minority, but I am not that big a fan of Nolan's Batman. The films were all right and had their high points, but one of the things I think people forget about Batman is he is a bit of a borderline sociopath. The man literally hunts criminals and Bruce is his mask, not Batman is the mask for Bruce Wayne. However, that is a whole other conversation. I didn't see it in the theatre, but when it released on iTunes, I had to know.
So I got the ultimate edition and watched it. Other than wanting desperately to smack the director upside the head for his abuse of dream sequences, I actually loved the film. But here's the trick, I had zero expectations when I watched it and I set aside what I wanted to see to let them tell me their story.
From Batman to Wonder Woman, I thought they knocked it out of the park. There were some seriously intense moments and Gal Gadot did a phenomenal job as Diana Prince and Wonder Woman. Ben Affleck, to me, is probably the best Batman I'd ever seen them do and that's saying something (cause dude, there's a lot of Batman).
With this in mind, I skipped (okay no I didn't really skip) but walked into Suicide Squad with hope in my heart. I told Mini on the drive up if they got the fact that the squad aren't heroes, are the bad guys, have zero fucks to give, and don't pull goofy shit like trying to redeem the bat crap crazy ones, I'll be good with it.
Exceeded My Expectations
From the outset, we're thrust into this world of sturm und drang, we're tied immediately into the greater DC Universe they've created and they use a narrative technique to gather the squad into their cells and asylum--and I floved it.
Margot Robbie nailed the mad glee of Harley Quinn to perfection. I enjoyed Will Smith's take on Floyd Lawton. Even Joel Kinneman as Rick Flagg (who I didn't realize was in the film) came across a little dirtier, a little twisted and jaded--but damn if he wouldn't get the job done. The other characters in the Squad aren't as well known but Killer Croc and Diablo were a hoot. Katana was way underused and felt shoe-horned in, in fact the only one in the Squad I didn't like was Captain Boomerang and part of that was his accent was hard to understand in a couple of scenes and frankly, he wasn't funny.
Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, however, holy shit! She brought it, and she bitch slapped them all with it. Talk about a woman with no fucks to give and that was the thing about Waller in the comics, she had no fear of wading into the muck and getting dirty if it got the job done.
They didn't shy away from showing us just how effed up the whole situation was, and yet, they delivered to me one of the more perfect films in the genre right up there with Deadpool.
And Jared Leto as Joker? Nailed it.
The Suicide Squad is a keeper, here's hoping we get to see these fruitcakes again.
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| Had for YEARS, and need one from this movie now! |
Speaking of heroes and misfits, don't miss Heather's latest release: The Judas Contact, Boomers #1. You can read the first two chapters right here.
