I think that DC did a great job with Suicide Squad. The joker and harley quinn are excellent characters (I cannot wait for a movie more about them), both actors went full out. The premise of the movie: using villians to clean up the city is an interesting concept that of course got out of hand within days. Trying to use a goddess to do your dirty work was obvious to backfire. Honestly, I was surprised how invulnerable some of the villians were walking around with bullets flying through the air (mainly harley). Overall: slightly predictable, but funny with good character interaction.

I thought this movie was great to watch. It was just good all the way around (story line, acting, etc). The only downside was having Will Smith in the movie really. I liked other movies he's in (I am Legend, After-earth)... but I didn't like him in this role, uhg, and he's in the sequel. I always hear Hollywood complain about female roles, well guess what, this film is OWNED by Margot Robbie and Cara Delevingne (and even Karen Fukuhara and Viola Davis)... so here was your female hit, and Will Smith and Ben Aflleck are the 2 sore spots (and probably took too much cash too). Who's next, Johnny Depp? Anyway, watch the film for the good parts, because they are great!!

My teenagers refused to watch this with me given the reviews, but I decided to watch it anyway. I love super hero movies. The dialogue is SO bad, you really can't stop noticing. Throughout the entire movie. It has some great actors: Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, Will Smith - but even they could not save such a bad script.

The DC movies have largely been an unmitigated disaster with bad scripts and bad direction. Ironically, some of the films that got the worse reviews were actually the better ones. Suicide Squad was a perfect example. The theme of the film was about whether supervillains could find redemption by facing a greater evil.

Suicide Squad had a large ensemble cast. That’s because it was a team put together by a government official named Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) out of some of the worse criminals in custody. That included Deadshot (Will Smith) an assassin. Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) the crazed lover of the Joker (Jared Leto). Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) a thief. El Diablo (Jay Hernandez) a former gang member who can generate flames around his body, and Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) who was a humanoid reptilian. To control these group of malcontents was Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) and Katana (Karen Fukuhara). They are put together to face off against Flag’s girlfriend who became a witch named the Enchantress (Cara Delevingne) who threatened the world.The dilemma of course was could they all play together and take care of the Enchantress or would everything fall apart? There’s the added irony that Waller was a master manipulator, was cold blooded and believed in the ends justified the means. That posed an added question of what was the difference between her and the bad guys she was trying to control?

The interesting characters is one of the engaging elements of the film. Will Smith has some great lines too such as when he tells Waller he wants the government to pay for his daughter to go to an Ivy League college and if she can’t cut it they need to “white people it” so she can pass. Davis as mentioned above is great playing a ruthless bureaucrat. Robbie also stands out as Harley Quinn.

There’s also plenty of good music that goes along with each of their appearances. The action is well made along with the effects. All together it was a great mix making this thoroughly entertaining.
C

To start with, I loved most of the actors (even Jared Leto) and really wanted to like this movie. While I could appreciate the performances of Will Smith and Margot Robbie, the movie turned out to be little more than a hot mess. First, the pacing was horrible. The movie felt like it was directed by three people, only one of whom read the source material. Second, while I can appreciate that they tried to cast the government as the primary antagonist of the piece (driving most of the story through bad decisions and mistrust), the way they did it made the whole thing feel forced and convoluted. Third, Jared Leto's portrayal of The Joker was the worst I have ever seen. Between the direction and acting, Jared Leto portrayed a cardboard caricature of The Joker as a common psychotic crime boss. There was none of the class, subtlety, or intelligence that separates The Joker from any other nutjob criminal and resulted in a flat, uninspired performance of a poorly written character. Finally, between the final script and direction, there were precious few truly enjoyable moments in the film, most of which featured a well-written and extremely well-acted Harley Quinn. Even without the overt sexuality of the character, Robbie's acting was top notch and brought nearly all of the precious few moments of levity that the rest of the film was sorely lacking. This is easily the worst of the movies in this series (though Batman v. Superman was almost as bad).

This is one of DC better movie where it is an obscure title that I read way back when I actually had to cut out an order form from a comic advertisement and then mail it in with a check from my mother. Talk about old school. I lived in Alaska and so some of my comics would come in the mail in pretty bad shape. Anyway, my biggest concern about this movie was Amanda Waller. Viola Davis proves she can do anything and just like Hugh Jackman did with Wolverine I think Viola Davis is now the only person that can do the character any justice. I was very happy with all the casting choices except I don't know why Slipknot was even in the movie? I can guess but I don't want to spoil anything. I read a few reviews that stated the more you watch movie the better it gets. I totally agree. The sound track is absolutely amazing and the attention to detail is awesome. I think that is why you have to watch it more than once. There is so many subtle details to costumes, acting, design and then "pink unicorn fetish"!?!. That almost killed me, the randomness of some of the weird details don't make the movie but just proves how much thought and creativity went into this production.

I am now catching up with the DC movies, and after I was gladly surprised by Man of Steel and Wonder Woman, I thought maybe Suicide Squad would not be so bad as the internet says it is. At the end, I am easily entertained.

Unfortunately, at the end of the movie I had to admit that it is mediocre at best. The sad part is that it has great characters. I did not think I would like Will Smith as Deadshot, but he did a great job. Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn is funny and, while she might be overly sexualized, it does not get in the way of enjoying this crazy, sweet and unpredictable character. These two characters carry the weigth of almost the entire movie.

Here is where the good things end. The rest of the characters, cool as they are conceptually, feel like they are just wandering around without knowing very well what they are doing. The biggest example is Katana. A character that appears out of nowhere, is invisible in 90% of the scenes, and suddenly is crying talking to her sword in a scene that you cannot possibly care about.

The lack of development of these characters that they deserved so much more could be forgiven if the main plot made a little more sense. Unfortunately, the whole Enchantress villain thing does not work. The bad guys do not have charisma, or time, or even a good conexion to the entire "Suicide Squad" team to even feel part of the movie. Most of the time, the Suicide Squad are fighting faceless, feeling-less minions that they just serve as cannon fooder to showcase the fighting abilities of the team. The whole thing really reminded me to the Power Rangers fighting horders of Putty minions before getting to the final fight with Rita Repulsa.

And then, there is the Joker. I am wondering if the Dark Knight has just ruined the joker for all future movies, as I feel Jared Leto was trying so hard to make something "new" and "different" that it just came wrong. This joker is not disturbing, or a psycho, or a force of evil and chaos. It is just gross, flat and unremarkable. The movie would have been much better without him altogether.

Overall, a completely forgetable movie. I will not call the time watching it wasted, if only thanks to Deadshot and Harley Quinn, and maybe the one action scene where Diablo finally unleashes his power. But definitely the weakest of the DC movies I have watched so far.

"Not bad" kinda says it - I also tossed & turned over three stars vs four.

It's telling to look at the various cover art that this movie has seen. The original showed much of the main cast, with Will Smith's Deadshot in pride of place. That's a much more accurate picture of the movie than more recent cover versions, which show only a couple of characters and focus on Harley Quinn instead.

This movie is not about Harley Quinn. She's one of the ensemble, and frankly middle of the pack at best in terms of significance and appeal.

Most of the characters are a bit dull and shallow. Possibly if you're a fan of the comics, and therefore know the characters in great depth already, then you'll see this movie quite differently. For me, too many of them had no real explanation and therefore no real significance.

The main character - the only one with real depth and a character arc - is Deadshot. While it does feel like Will Smith is a bit under-utilised in this movie, he does do an admirable job with what he has.

On reflection, a movie focused on Deadshot might actually be rather good. Maybe that's what this should have been, instead.

That all said, it's still okay as a generic action movie. Don't expect much character development, and be prepared to suspend disbelief over some weird gaps in the plot, and some contrived world rules… but if you do manage that, it's actually enjoyable.