Review: 'Suicide Squad'

PLOT: With Superman dead and a possibly meta-human threat on the way, government agent Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) assembles a team of imprisoned supervillians to do her bidding, with the promise that each will have some of their sentence commuted.

REVIEW: Like most of you, I was hoping for great things from director David Ayer’s Suicide Squad. For me, this was going to be the movie that would make or break the DCEU films at Warner Bros. I was let down by Man of Steel and Batman v Superman was littered with issues, but I’m thrilled to tell you that Suicide Squad delivered everything I hoped for and more! It was such an unexpectedly awesome movie! 

I thought the story and the characters of this film were solidly handled. The story and script were tight and this was very much a character study of all the main characters that filled it. Ayer did an incredible job developing each and every one of the main characters that were introduced in the film. A little over halfway through the movie, I actually cared for these characters and what happened to them. I was emotionally invested in each one of them, especially Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Diablo, and Rick Flagg. There were a lot of characters in the movie, but they were balanced so perfectly. I was seriously shocked by how well Ayer brought these characters to life with such precision.  

One of the things that I wasn’t expecting at all when I saw this movie was the powerful background of the characters and the explosion of emotion in the film. Don’t get me wrong, the movie was insanely fun and action-packed, but this is easily one of the most emotional comic book movies that has been made, and that includes what we’ve seen in most of the Marvel films. There was so much emotional depth in these characters. At one point, one of them shared their background story with the other Task Force X team members, and it was so powerful, I'll admit I got a little choked up. 

That being said, I do have to say that as much as I enjoyed Jared Leto’s version of The Joker, he was the least developed character in the movie and he was only in it for about 10 minutes. He was handled fine, but there’s just so much more depth to that character and this film barely scratched the surface. I hope that they explore him more in some of the other upcoming films. He’s definitely a character worth exploring, I just wasn’t personally as invested in him as most of the other characters. It was a fun new version of the villain and I think fans will be torn on him. Some of you will love him and other might hate him. The story doesn’t revolve around him, though, so ultimately I think the movie might have given us just the right amount of the Joker.

As for the actors that portrayed the characters, Margot Robbie, Will Smith, Joel Kinnaman, Jared Leto, Jay Hernandez, and Viola Davis shined in film and all gave fantastic performances. They all amazingly brought their characters to life, and they are people you don't want to mess with. They are as hardcore as hardcore can get, and that came across in their performances.

This is honestly the best DC movie to come out of Warner Bros. since Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy. It also rivals a few of the Marvel films that have been made because we’ve never seen anything like this from Marvel. The best Marvel movie I could compare it to is Guardians of the Galaxy because of the radical ensemble cast of misfit characters. I’d also say that the emotional investment in the characters is comparable to Guardians of the Galaxy, but in different ways.

On top of the well-crafted story and characters, it's got all of the cool spectacular visuals and designs to make it pop with awesomeness. Suicide Squad is a movie that you do not want to miss on the big screen! It’s a hardcore action film with a beautiful, emotion-filled story about redemption that I think fans and audiences can appreciate. This movie is a wild and fun ride and if you just let yourself be engulfed in this world, I think you'll enjoy the hell out it. 

I’ve seen that the movie is getting some bad reviews, so the movie obviously isn’t for everyone. If you didn’t like it and you don’t agree with my review, feel free to give me crap in the comments below, but you won’t change my mind. There was one thing that happened in the film that was kind of a WTF moment between Batman and Harley Quinn — I won't get into it here because I don't want to spoil anything, but I did think to myself, "what in the hell was that all about?" I didn't understand its place in the movie, it didn't really need to be there, but I didn't let it ruin the movie for me.

The film wasn't perfect, but David Ayer made something completely unique and different, and if people can’t embrace that...oh well. All I know is that I had a blast watching Suicide Squad! Some people will think I’m crazy for liking it as much as I did, but I think people are crazy for not liking it, so to each their own.