In many ways, it’s all of our fault that Suicide Squad played out the way it did.
We packed the cinemas for Guardians of the Galaxy, showing demand for superhero films that broke the mold. We pushed Harley Quinn to the forefront of nerd culture, despite never having made an appearance in a live-action Batman film. We even reacted with childlike glee to an early trailer that flawlessly melded blockbuster action, colorful violence and the most profoundly overexposed classic rock song of our times. From the eyes of Warner Brothers, it’s easy to see how Suicide Squad was the perfect pitch.

But never doubt DC Entertainment’s consistent ability to whiff an easy home run. This is the team that made a film about Batman fighting Superman, and failed to make a profit on it. One who gave the keys to their comic book kingdom to Zack Snyder, an auteur whose bombastic visions have never returned critical acclaim.
Suicide Squad isn’t just a bad film, it’s a remarkably unpleasant one. The deepest shame is that Warner Bros assembled all the right pieces for this wild ensemble, and then failed to put them together in anything resembling a good time.
Suicide Squad follows a team of various villains brought together by Amanda Waller (played by a perpetually bored Viola Davis) as a last resort defense against superhuman threats. The team is composed of far too many C-list Batman villains, each one desperately showboating for the audience’s adoration in hopes of a spinoff movie.
There’s Deadshot (Will Smith), who is morally questionable but loves his daughter. Alongside him is El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), who is morally questionable but is mourning his family. Leading them is Rick Flag, who is on the side of the law, but proves himself to be morally questionable while still loving his estranged girlfriend. Rounding out the team is Captain Boomerang (who is an Australian stereotype), Katana (who is an Asian stereotype) and Killer Croc (Who despite being a literal mutant, is given the lines of an African-American stereotype). Together, they form a closely knit fighting force that rarely talks to each other and have the chemistry of workplace acquaintances.
But the definitive star of the squad is Harley Quinn, played with genuine enthusiasm by Margot Robbie. Robbie’s performance is the only decidedly ‘good’ thing in Suicide Squad. Though that may be an award given out of pity, since the character herself is depicted as a series of ass shots and romanticized Stockholm Syndrome. Quinn doesn’t have any superpowers of which to speak, or even a hero’s path to follow. She’s absolutely useless to the team at large, only present so DC could bring a new iteration of The Joker on screen as soon as financially possible.
Leto’s take on the mad clown is one of Suicide Squad’s biggest selling points, with anecdotes about his irritating antics persisting in the media like so many stories on the Zika virus. His interpretation in the DC universe is more of a high-ranking mafia boss, with the theatrics of a mid-2000s pimp. It’s a senseless cartoon character hastily stapled into a cold realist universe. The moments shot with Leto’s Joker are far more visually interesting than anything else in the film, at least having the courage to craft bold visual moments.
Suicide Squad believes that it is a weightless, snarky action romp rich with directorial voice. Yet every move it makes feels calculated, and wholly dishonest. The first act is downright plagued by montage sequences, setting even the most banal of plot moments to a recognizable rock track.
Every action sequence is a mess of generic gunplay, constant explosions and heartless camerawork. Nothing about it feels original, complex or even decently executed.
This is popular filmmaking as understood by a boardroom, boiling down recognizable trends into their most obvious elements. The result is poured into a fully ordinary mold of studio filmmaking, pressed hard and delivered out to the public with a marketing campaign run by talents who sell the public on a predetermined personality that pulled the best ratings from a focus group. It is an embrace of everything cynical, shallow and proudly meaningless.
Follow Chris Berg on Twitter @ChrisBerg25