By what standard are we to measure the now annual onslaught of comic book-based films? Suicide Squad is less clever than Guardians of the Galaxy, but more fun than the Avengers films, whose sense of humour is the cinematic equivalent of a dad joke. However, there is little else that one can say positively about this film.
It is difficult to watch Suicide Squad without comparing it to Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Indeed, it has clearly been modelled on it, emulating its cast of unknown comic-book characters and featuring a soundtrack filled with classic hits. But whereas Guardians of the Galaxy‘s soundtrack is a collection of forgotten gems so-square-they’re-now-hip, Suicide Squad‘s soundtrack is a rather tired set of pop/punk tracks that we have heard on countless other movie soundtracks. Rather than relating these songs to the action on screen, the film tends to relate each track to the viewer’s previous cinematic experiences. Suicide Squad‘s villainy consists not in the actions of its characters, but in its filmmakers, who have stolen a mismatch of ingredients from other films, without the faintest hint of homage or remix.
Surprisingly the film is really a Will Smith vehicle, which unfortunately takes a lot away from a premise that revolves around a group of villains. Smith plays a character who’s indiscernible from a standard Marvel hero. Deadshot spends his time only killing bad men (no women and children, that’s left to the film’s only Latino character, who is covered in gang tattoos and burns them alive with fire he shoots from his hands). This, as well as his attachment to his straight-A student daughter and a strict moral code, makes Deadshot the standard anti-hero. Leto’s Joker and Robbie’s Harley Quinn are all style with no substance. The rest of the cast are utterly forgettable, bar Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller, a C.I.A agent whose superpower is her willingness to do absolutely anything to get the job done. It is one which she uses with aplomb and only serves to further highlight the absence of real villainy among the Suicide Squad.
Given its name, Suicide Squad was always going to be in danger of having a problematic attitude towards mental illness, and it is only in this regard that it doesn’t disappoint. Mental illness is fetishised throughout, particularly in exchanges with Harley Quinn where her illness is taken to be titillating by male characters. In one such disturbing instance, a camera lingers on her provocatively as she is shown having electrocompulsive therapy performed on her. Furthermore,it is fetishised in Jared Leto’s Joker who at one point is framed from above lying in a dizzying maze of knives while he cackles. Whereas the madness of Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker was centralised on American society’s symptom borne in reaction to Batman’s repressive and authoritarian vigilantism, Leto’s Joker lies within its fetish, pulled straight from tabloid articles that call their subjects ‘sick’ and ‘damaged’.
It is hard to tell if there was ever a good film buried underneath the last minute re-shoots and studio exec interference, or if Suicide Squad was doomed from the start. One character is even introduced and shortly afterwards dispatched purely to clear up a logistical query whose answer was superfluous to the film’s plot. Flashbacks are used lazily in an attempt to give depth to characters that would otherwise be incapable of communicating on screen. Given that it consistently follows Marvel‘s attempts to murder Hollywood action cinema by filling the screen with enough spectacle that one feels like they’re observing a video game walkthrough, it’s unlikely there was ever a hope for it.
