A versus movie!
Daredevil season 2: DD vs Punisher
Batman v Superman
Captain America Civil War
X-Men Apocalypse - Good X-Men vs "evil" versions of classic X-Men
Haha
Suicide Squad 2: Villains Divided
-then
Suicide Squad 3: Villains United
Spoilers Suicide Squad - Grading & Discussion
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
Daredevil season 2: DD vs Punisher
Batman v Superman
Captain America Civil War
X-Men Apocalypse - Good X-Men vs "evil" versions of classic X-Men
Haha
Suicide Squad 2: Villains Divided
-then
Suicide Squad 3: Villains United
I think they are headed towards a Justice League vs. Suicide Squad movie. It will be a gloriously expensive trainwreck.
Could quite happily have voted D or F, but went for C only because I think there's a better film in there somewhere (hopefully we might get to see it) and, as others have said, Robbie, Smith and Davis make it just about bearable. I think Ayer is really good at ensemble/buddy action, and have liked many of his other films, including Sabotage. End of Watch has 85 on RT, Fury 77. This film only feels like an Ayer film in a few places, when it stops to breathe for some character interaction.
And if I have to sit through another fucking visually dark DC film, I'll scream
And if I have to sit through another fucking visually dark DC film, I'll scream
Funny and something of a riot describes how it went over with the audience in my theater - the jokes were landing and much laughter was had.
I don't need backstory on why an evil witch starts taking over the city any more than I need an explanation why those giant aliens in the sky are bad in the Avengers, but that's just me. Maybe there is more to that character in the source material, but if there is it worked for me without that.
Sold out cinema, not a laugh in the house.
Dull, dull film. Barring Will Smith and Viola Davis, I wasn't engaged in any of the characters, backstories (if you can call them that) or motivations.
Hugo - ugly on the inside and out, too!
Dull, dull film. Barring Will Smith and Viola Davis, I wasn't engaged in any of the characters, backstories (if you can call them that) or motivations.
- Poor, motivationless villain - AGAIN. Comic book film makers need to get their act together here. But with added logic problems when it comes to powers.... please tell me, why exactly is a witch involved in a knife fight with a man with a boomerang?
- Generally cheap looking for a $175m+ film
- Confused action direction, specifically the finale, which looks as if in post they realised how poor it looked and just added a crap load of smoke to futz out the errors
- Pretty much every single joke died
- As much as I love Margot Robbie, even she couldn't elevate this weird, unfunny Harley to likeability status. Plus, misogynistic male gaze direction in having her prance around in shorts not far off from a bikini. Ugh
- Every time Leto opened his mouth I expected him to spout off "you dirty rat". Jimmy Cagney crossed with a neon pimp gangster. Neither interesting. scary, nor strange enough to be a worthy Joker
- Cringeworthy racial stereotyping of Killer Croc - black man, pigeon English, loves watching hip-hop videos on BET
- Plot logic holes, nay, chasms. Witch can go anywhere and you keep a statue of her brother in your hotel room? You control said witch by threatening her heart, but when she goes rogue, you conveniently forget about it, send in your rogues gallery, who weren't needed, because destroying the heart kills the witch - which you know, or you wouldn't be stabbing at it for the first part of the film.
- El Diablo makes a new family in a NIGHT! Wow, imprint much?
- Deadshot. The "I love my daughter" line was played way too hard, but Smith carried this film, almost single handedly
- Apart from the fact that Viola Davis was superb as a mean, mean, lady. Shame her character's as dumb as a post
- Captain Boomerang, just like his namesake, runs away in one scene and then quickly returns in the next
- The effect of Enchantress taking over Dr Moon, her hand coming from underneath and "turning" her over/inside-out
- Enchantress' insane belly dancing magic. I mean, it's terrible, but it made me laugh
- Pink Unicorns
- El Diablo, the inferno
- The opening sequence of Waller roll-calling her crew
Hugo - ugly on the inside and out, too!
Looks like it's going to be a huge opening ($138 million dollars) so the critics can suck it
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=4213&p=.htm
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=4213&p=.htm
Suck what? It's not their job to stop you from seeing a film, they just tell you what they thought of it. What you do with that opinion is up to you. Besides, bad movies sometimes make a buttload of money. Heck, I still marvel at Transformers 4 making a billion.
A huge opening just shows that their marketing department knew how to sell it. Now, the audiences going forward will tell you how good a film they actually think it is.
Suicide Squad
My Grade: B
_______________________________________________________
DC Comics is having sort of a rough time getting their Cinematic Universe off the ground. Man of Steel was received tepidly amd Batman v. Superman was largely received very poorly from fans, audiences and critics and while it had a middling success at the Box Office the reaction seems to have driven DC to rethink their strategy; but could they be over-thinking it?
Before BvS came out the trailers to Suicide Squad looked pretty good and fun, the second trailer really made me sort of look forward to it and be on board with it but then BvS came out and we got the responses and criticisms it did at it seemed DC and Warner Brothers went into panic mode to try and get their Cinematic Universe on track, so rumors began to circulate of SS having reshoots and being re-edited to try and lighten the mood of it since one of the bigger criticisms of BvS was how dry and lack of humor and fun there was in it.
But did, DC over compensate when it came to how they handled SS? Were their attempts to "fix" SS done at too late a date for it to be done properly? I mean, there were already on their second trailer and had a release date scheduled for a few months away!
Well, in this movie you can certainly feel and see the editing and attempts to insert some more humor and levity, which the movie probably didn't strictly need, there was also a strong attempt to ride on the nostalgia wagon started by Guardians of the Galaxy by giving the movie a sound track made out of classic punk-rock style songs.
The movie centers around US military and intelligence officers collaborating to have a squad of "soldiers" they can use in the event of a large-scale event that cannot be handled by normal means and is beyond the capabilities of the current, known, active heroes. They opt to use a team of villains they have captured who have unique abilities and one person with a psychiatric disorder and leverage them into fighting for them. If they fight they get time off of their sentences and other privileges (which time off can't mean much when you're locked up for committing multiple murders so likely serving multiple life sentences); they don't seem to have much option to refuse and if they try and escape while on a mission the soldier leading their squad will activate an explosive implanted in their necks.
There's a handful of team members on this "Suicide Squad" but only two of them get any real meaningful character treatment and a third gets some pretty strong use, everyone else is pretty much wasted.
First we have Deadshot (Will Smith) an assassin with precise aim who was captured by Batman, there's El Diablo a man with pyrokenetic powers (he can conjure and create fire), Killer Croc a mutation of sorts with great physical strength, Cpt. Boomerang who.... throws boomerangs (he's the Hawkeye of the group, I guess), Katana (an expert swordswoman, and a non-criminal) and then there's Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) a former henchwoman of The Joker who suffers from severe psychiatric disorders and swings a baseball bat. I guess she's useful? Their lead by an military leader Rick Flagg who executes the orders of the government official who put this idea together, Amanda Waller.
Deadshot gets most of the backstory and character development with flashbacks and plenty of moments to see the "human side" of him, the next character to get meaningful backstory is Harley Quinn who used to be a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum when The Joker was there instead of treating him she fell to his charms and manipulations in order to help him escape. He repaid her by using electro-shock therapy to scramble her and having her drop into a vat of chemicals to bleach her skin. To a slightly lesser extend El Diablo is given a pretty strong haunted backstory which I think is probably handled the best of the three in a nice arc, Deadshot is next as his love and focus is for his daughter. Harley still pins for "Mr. J." even though he abandoned her in a crashed car underwater leaving her to be caught by Batman. The other SS characters are treated mostly as an afterthought but Killer Croc and Katana get their moments to shine during some of the battle scenes.
The squad is called into action as a powerful magical being has taken control of her "host body" and escaped the confines of Waller and Flagg's design and is now beginning her Doomsday Device of Swirling Lights, Debris and Fog.
The movie certainly has an interesting premise and an interesting set of characters who'd all have different goals and motivations, mini-arcs develop as Deadshot starts to take on more of a leadership role and is treated as more of an equal by Flagg. But as is usually the case with these types of secret missions, when the Suicide Sqaud is called into action not everything goes initially to plan and our "heroes" have to learn to nut-up, get over themselves and save the world.
The movie's biggest problem is that you can feel the editing in it; some scenes will start and build to a point and then cut. Some character motivations don't make sense and are filled with gaps and flashback scenes are sometimes awkwardly worked in. Most of the moments with the characters work and the action scene at the end is done really well even if this type of climax in a movie is played.
The movie is mostly harmed by awkward editing and an odd, and forced, use of the GotG-ish soundtrack, there's some stuff with the other characters that seem like was meant to part of something bigger like Katana's sword captures the souls of whomever is killed by it, she prays to it often as it possesses the soul of her husband, Cpt. Boomerang *seems* to have a personal story given his protection of a stuffed pony doll (maybe a daughter-driven story?) but it's never touched on and we're given pretty much nothing on Killer Croc.
At the end of the evening, I enjoyed the movie. Was it great? No. Was it bad? No. Was it anywhere near 20-something percent on Rotten Tomatoes? Hell no. The movie is decent, I came out of having a good time but I feel like there's a much better edit of this movie somewhere and we'll see it in an Unrated Home Video release.
Will Smith does a good job as Boomerang but Smith can rarely do wrong (shoots a glare at After Earth) and Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn is a lot of fun. The movie is certainly worth a watch.
My Grade: B
_______________________________________________________
DC Comics is having sort of a rough time getting their Cinematic Universe off the ground. Man of Steel was received tepidly amd Batman v. Superman was largely received very poorly from fans, audiences and critics and while it had a middling success at the Box Office the reaction seems to have driven DC to rethink their strategy; but could they be over-thinking it?
Before BvS came out the trailers to Suicide Squad looked pretty good and fun, the second trailer really made me sort of look forward to it and be on board with it but then BvS came out and we got the responses and criticisms it did at it seemed DC and Warner Brothers went into panic mode to try and get their Cinematic Universe on track, so rumors began to circulate of SS having reshoots and being re-edited to try and lighten the mood of it since one of the bigger criticisms of BvS was how dry and lack of humor and fun there was in it.
But did, DC over compensate when it came to how they handled SS? Were their attempts to "fix" SS done at too late a date for it to be done properly? I mean, there were already on their second trailer and had a release date scheduled for a few months away!
Well, in this movie you can certainly feel and see the editing and attempts to insert some more humor and levity, which the movie probably didn't strictly need, there was also a strong attempt to ride on the nostalgia wagon started by Guardians of the Galaxy by giving the movie a sound track made out of classic punk-rock style songs.
The movie centers around US military and intelligence officers collaborating to have a squad of "soldiers" they can use in the event of a large-scale event that cannot be handled by normal means and is beyond the capabilities of the current, known, active heroes. They opt to use a team of villains they have captured who have unique abilities and one person with a psychiatric disorder and leverage them into fighting for them. If they fight they get time off of their sentences and other privileges (which time off can't mean much when you're locked up for committing multiple murders so likely serving multiple life sentences); they don't seem to have much option to refuse and if they try and escape while on a mission the soldier leading their squad will activate an explosive implanted in their necks.
There's a handful of team members on this "Suicide Squad" but only two of them get any real meaningful character treatment and a third gets some pretty strong use, everyone else is pretty much wasted.
First we have Deadshot (Will Smith) an assassin with precise aim who was captured by Batman, there's El Diablo a man with pyrokenetic powers (he can conjure and create fire), Killer Croc a mutation of sorts with great physical strength, Cpt. Boomerang who.... throws boomerangs (he's the Hawkeye of the group, I guess), Katana (an expert swordswoman, and a non-criminal) and then there's Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) a former henchwoman of The Joker who suffers from severe psychiatric disorders and swings a baseball bat. I guess she's useful? Their lead by an military leader Rick Flagg who executes the orders of the government official who put this idea together, Amanda Waller.
Deadshot gets most of the backstory and character development with flashbacks and plenty of moments to see the "human side" of him, the next character to get meaningful backstory is Harley Quinn who used to be a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum when The Joker was there instead of treating him she fell to his charms and manipulations in order to help him escape. He repaid her by using electro-shock therapy to scramble her and having her drop into a vat of chemicals to bleach her skin. To a slightly lesser extend El Diablo is given a pretty strong haunted backstory which I think is probably handled the best of the three in a nice arc, Deadshot is next as his love and focus is for his daughter. Harley still pins for "Mr. J." even though he abandoned her in a crashed car underwater leaving her to be caught by Batman. The other SS characters are treated mostly as an afterthought but Killer Croc and Katana get their moments to shine during some of the battle scenes.
The squad is called into action as a powerful magical being has taken control of her "host body" and escaped the confines of Waller and Flagg's design and is now beginning her Doomsday Device of Swirling Lights, Debris and Fog.
The movie certainly has an interesting premise and an interesting set of characters who'd all have different goals and motivations, mini-arcs develop as Deadshot starts to take on more of a leadership role and is treated as more of an equal by Flagg. But as is usually the case with these types of secret missions, when the Suicide Sqaud is called into action not everything goes initially to plan and our "heroes" have to learn to nut-up, get over themselves and save the world.
The movie's biggest problem is that you can feel the editing in it; some scenes will start and build to a point and then cut. Some character motivations don't make sense and are filled with gaps and flashback scenes are sometimes awkwardly worked in. Most of the moments with the characters work and the action scene at the end is done really well even if this type of climax in a movie is played.
The movie is mostly harmed by awkward editing and an odd, and forced, use of the GotG-ish soundtrack, there's some stuff with the other characters that seem like was meant to part of something bigger like Katana's sword captures the souls of whomever is killed by it, she prays to it often as it possesses the soul of her husband, Cpt. Boomerang *seems* to have a personal story given his protection of a stuffed pony doll (maybe a daughter-driven story?) but it's never touched on and we're given pretty much nothing on Killer Croc.
At the end of the evening, I enjoyed the movie. Was it great? No. Was it bad? No. Was it anywhere near 20-something percent on Rotten Tomatoes? Hell no. The movie is decent, I came out of having a good time but I feel like there's a much better edit of this movie somewhere and we'll see it in an Unrated Home Video release.
Will Smith does a good job as Boomerang but Smith can rarely do wrong (shoots a glare at After Earth) and Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn is a lot of fun. The movie is certainly worth a watch.
So Star Trek Beyond sucked really bad since it suffered a huge drop after its opening weekend right?
According to Rottentomatoes the critic score is 26% and the audience score is 73%. Clearly audiences like it much more than critics.
It didn't have a big opening to begin with. Even with good word of mouth, it wasn't going to recover after stumbling out of the gate.
Well. I gave it a C. That's being generous.
The bright spots: Will Smith and Margot Robbie were both great in it, though gangsta-style Harley & Puddin' were not as much fun as I'd hoped. (I have a feeling much of Leto's best material was left on the cutting room floor, an understandable decision given that they wouldn't want the Joker taking over the way he has a way of doing. But still... be interested to see what it looks like in a Director's Cut.) I actually quite liked most of the cast -- shame though it is to see Adam Beach wasted on a disposable character -- and thought Viola Davis was a perfect Amanda Waller.
I actually thought the take on Enchantress was very cool, at first. But her backstory and that of her brother as forgotten gods who want to take revenge on the world is so underdeveloped that audience members who blinked would have missed it. And her ultimate development was unwittingly comical. Not only that but the overall result here is that Project X starts out by taking on a problem it created that nearly destroys the world, with Amanda Waller straight murdering a bunch of her own staff to boot. The Suicide Squad were anti-heroes in the books but they got more sympathetic treatment, and better bad guys, than this.
Reasonably entertaining popcorn flick, I mean, it's still better than the Fantastic Four movies. But nothing to write home about.
(I was amused to see Batfleck turn in a Nick Fury-style cameo in the end credit sequence.
)
I actually thought the take on Enchantress was very cool, at first. But her backstory and that of her brother as forgotten gods who want to take revenge on the world is so underdeveloped that audience members who blinked would have missed it. And her ultimate development was unwittingly comical. Not only that but the overall result here is that Project X starts out by taking on a problem it created that nearly destroys the world, with Amanda Waller straight murdering a bunch of her own staff to boot. The Suicide Squad were anti-heroes in the books but they got more sympathetic treatment, and better bad guys, than this.
Reasonably entertaining popcorn flick, I mean, it's still better than the Fantastic Four movies. But nothing to write home about.
(I was amused to see Batfleck turn in a Nick Fury-style cameo in the end credit sequence.
)
I sort of like what was done with Enchantress but did she always have to be moving and gyrating? It's hard to take a villain seriously when they look like they should be an inflatable prop outside a used car dealership.
"Now, let me take from you this file-folder full of information I already got on a flash drive in my previous movie.... Wait."
(I was amused to see Batfleck turn in a Nick Fury-style cameo in the end credit sequence.
"Now, let me take from you this file-folder full of information I already got on a flash drive in my previous movie.... Wait."
Most of the jokes are in the trailers which I've seen enough times that I didn't really laugh at them in the movie. I don't think that Boomerang's pink unicorn fetish was in anything so that was new. It got a very positive reaction from the crowded theater. Quite a lot of clapping at the end of the movie and positive buzz in the snippets of conversation I heard. A lot of preteen and teen boys were really excited of course.
The bulk of the movie takes place in Midway City. Deadshot's file places Gotham City in New Jersey.
I'm not really sure why the Joker is in the movie for the most part. I can see the need for him when they went into Harley's origin and capture by the Batman but after that he was an unneccesary impediment to the Squad's mission. I don't think that the movie needed more Joker. I'd have rather seen less of him even though I did like Leto's performance.
The actor who played Rick Flagg on Smallvile was in the movie as a military officer.
The Enchantress' movements were odd but they made her feel super creepy to me. One thing I was confused on was Amanda Waller had the Enchantress's heart which enabled her to control her yet somehow she was able to get free enough to summon her brother.
Some of the action scenes didn't work because they consisted of a character's head and a flash of a weapon killing the weird creatures.
Will Smith, Viola Davis, Margot Robbie and Jay Hernandez were all good in the movie. Jai Courtney was pretty funny especially with the characters pink unicorn fetish. Though for a guy nicknamed Captain Boomerang he barely even used them. The Flash cameo came and went in a flash.
I gave it a B+ in the poll but it's closer to a B so I wish I could change my vote. It was good but not great.
The bulk of the movie takes place in Midway City. Deadshot's file places Gotham City in New Jersey.
I'm not really sure why the Joker is in the movie for the most part. I can see the need for him when they went into Harley's origin and capture by the Batman but after that he was an unneccesary impediment to the Squad's mission. I don't think that the movie needed more Joker. I'd have rather seen less of him even though I did like Leto's performance.
The actor who played Rick Flagg on Smallvile was in the movie as a military officer.
The Enchantress' movements were odd but they made her feel super creepy to me. One thing I was confused on was Amanda Waller had the Enchantress's heart which enabled her to control her yet somehow she was able to get free enough to summon her brother.
Some of the action scenes didn't work because they consisted of a character's head and a flash of a weapon killing the weird creatures.
Will Smith, Viola Davis, Margot Robbie and Jay Hernandez were all good in the movie. Jai Courtney was pretty funny especially with the characters pink unicorn fetish. Though for a guy nicknamed Captain Boomerang he barely even used them. The Flash cameo came and went in a flash.
I gave it a B+ in the poll but it's closer to a B so I wish I could change my vote. It was good but not great.
It was neither funny nor fun enough. There wasn't much laughter in my showing, but then with only 15 people (I counted) in the cinema there wouldn't be. However, even the cinema employee on the way out asking what we thought of it wasn't very impressed and he liked superhero movies.
And I wasn't referring to The Enchantress' motivation (badly handled as it was), I was talking about how utterly awful the actress playing her was.
Exactly, what do you think a 'critic' is..? Because it seems to me that you're confusing it with the the typical IMBD forums rambling fan...
Good, I want more movies, so it'll need to be profitable.
As I said earlier, it looks to me as if DC are hovering somewhere between getting it right and screwing up and Suicide Squad hasn't pushed it in either direction. Wonder Woman is pretty rigidly set now (for good or bad) and they're going to need several more movies to hone the format.
It should be appreciated that although Marvel haven't produced anything with the kind of flaws in Batman vs Superman or Suicide Squad, Iron Man 2 wasn't very good and there are other 'disappointments'. They've had a lot of practice...
Given remarkable figures of $750m being required to break even for this film, this first week (plus the strong initial overseas) is a good step forward for the film. However, outside the animated releases of the year and Civil War, very few films have had steady second/third weeks, which this film will need to cover costs. The studios will be hoping that audience word of mouth will overwrite the current critical consensus and the heavy negative internet journo followup that seem to be spreading over regular new sites/feeds.
This film will have to pull a Deadpool - untested property that strikes rich on first week, sustains well to cap out at the $350m mark, then have a strong foreign box office, cumulatively superseding the domestic BO by 7-10%. Just to break even.
Hard work for any film, let alone one who has been suffering significant negative press for a good week now. But unlike, say, Transformers Age of Extinction, which did $250m in the US but $858m elsewhere, SS doesn't have china to bolster the figures - which in the TF case brought in an extra $320m.
Rather an uphill slog for the film.
Hugo - if there is no sequel then at least one has set up Deadshot/Harley for other DC properties