Board 8 > The critics say Yes! to Suicide Squad

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_suicide_squad

John Cena's highest rated movie!

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Wow even higher than Bumblebee

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Just watched it - truly insanely good movie. Easily James Gunn's best, I'd say.

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Im a little over halfway through and I like it but also its stressing me out because even when theres like a quiet conversation Im expecting someones head to explode or something

like bloodsport tells ratcatcher that hes going to get her out alive and I was just thinking shes about to get immediately sniped because it would be ironic...
and then that doesnt happen, which is good, but the anticipation of that kind of stuff is maybe damaging my ability to just enjoy the scenes that arent about people getting murdered
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I'll be seeing it Sunday morning with SHINEdad

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is it a new attempt at the original story or do you need to see the all time classic jared leto joker to understand

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I saw it described as a standalone sequel

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KommunistKoala posted...

is it a new attempt at the original story or do you need to see the all time classic jared leto joker to understand

I think they spend a little less time setting up the concept of the Suicide Squad, and they definitely expect you to know who Harley is already, but theres only like four returning characters and absolutely no reference to the events of the previous movie or characters from it that dont appear in this one.

Heres all the backstory you wont get:
Harley Quinn: is Harley Quinn

Captain Boomerang: criminal, Australian, throws boomerangs. He was on the team in the last movie so he and Harley are friends.

Rick Flagg: army guy, not a criminal, also on the last team so Harley also thinks hes her friend

Amanda Waller: organizes the whole thing, has basically no moral code, just cares about getting the mission completed
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ninkendo posted...

I saw it described as a standalone sequel

yeah this was weird to me. i think a "standalone sequel" is something like jumanji 2 (i.e. essentially a completely new story with no recurring characters from the previous movie). without having seen suicide squad 2 yet, this seems more like a sequel like mr. bean's holiday (i.e. a continuation of the story that makes no direct references to the previous movie).

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It was good, but not "easily James Gunn's best" as Xiahou said. Definitely well worth watching, though.

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Saw it last night for opening night in theaters. There were two other people in the theater.

I enjoyed it! It's flawed but definitely better than the first

More thoughts later

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I enjoyed it. There were a couple scenes that dragged on, and thankfully Harley picked things back up with her insanity. But yeah, it was good.

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Probably will go see a Monday matinee

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Good to hear. The trailer way back when looked great.

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I liked it! It was fun and crazy and very over the top.

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Just finished it. Not gonna lie, I think I enjoyed both GotG more than this.

It was fine, but some of the tonal shifts were rough.

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It's definitely not as good as either GotG.

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Just finished watching it and

MoogleKupo141 posted...

Im a little over halfway through and I like it but also its stressing me out because even when theres like a quiet conversation Im expecting someones head to explode or something

like bloodsport tells ratcatcher that hes going to get her out alive and I was just thinking shes about to get immediately sniped because it would be ironic...
and then that doesnt happen, which is good, but the anticipation of that kind of stuff is maybe damaging my ability to just enjoy the scenes that arent about people getting murdered

...this is right on the money. I always tense throughout slow-moving scenes like that expecting something randomly terrible to happen. Overall the movie is lot more optimistic than that though.

In the end, while I wouldn't call it amazing, it was still really enjoyable in a lot of different ways. It was very surprising, funny, and honestly had a fairly well-written plot. I enjoyed the story it told, and really liked pretty much all the characters (including the assholes, which honestly there were a lot of, but they were fun to hate).

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I didn't like it. It wasn't bad, just entirely mediocre. Definitely not Gunn's best work, though he was held back by an incredibly weak cast. Idris Elba is a good actor who does not fit this movie at all. John Cena was fun enough until the halfway point where he just... stopped? doing anything fun?? I've never been a fan of Margot Robbie, as Harley or otherwise, and this movie certainly didn't change that. King Shark was okay but he was basically Groot, and Ron Funches's take on the character is way better and I was just left wishing we had him here instead.

I don't know, I feel like this sounds harsher than I really feel. It doesn't suck, it just did nothing for me.

Yeah, it's just another average super-hero film at the end of the day. The RT score is deceptive, it has like a 74 on Metacritic, which does a better job telling you what to expect from it.

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Honestly my favorite moment was just King Shark saying "Bird." There was something how hard he went on the R and D plus knowing it was Stallone that just made me laugh.

But yeah, the tonal shifts. Like cracking a quick joke about how Weasel killed 27 children only to rant about innocent children being killed later on. Or killing Polka Dot man so comically but then having a somber moment of Ratcatcher 2 mourning him.

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Yeah I think Polka Dot Man's death really exemplified my problem with the movie. The movie just doesn't *like* any of its characters, which makes it hard for me to like them. Oh, you thought this person was funny and entertaining? Well fuck them and fuck you too, they're gonna get torn to pieces for laughs.

MrGreenonion posted...

Yeah I think Polka Dot Man's death really exemplified my problem with the movie. The movie just doesn't *like* any of its characters, which makes it hard for me to like them. Oh, you thought this person was funny and entertaining? Well fuck them and fuck you too, they're gonna get torn to pieces for laughs.

There was such a miss opportunity there, too. You spend the entire movie establishing that every person he sees looks like his mother. But imagine in that moment as the rest of the SS are heading to fight Starro, he looks at 4 versions of his mother walking away, closes his eyes, then reopens them only to see them for what they really are. Just a brief moment of characterization and growth to show that he's not a hopeless psychopath.

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I will say I loved the stuff with Ratcatcher 2.

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wasn't there just a suicide squad move a couple years ago

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MZero posted...

wasn't there just a suicide squad move a couple years ago

Yeah but it was real bad. They wanted it to be their GOTG but they fucked that up, so they got the GOTG guy to make this one.

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it is kinda weird that there's already two suicide squad movies in the DCEU and still not a single proper batman movie >_>

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TheRock1525 posted...
There was such a miss opportunity there, too.

I think you both failed to understand what you watched. That wasn't a missed opportunity, that was the moment. Don't you get that?


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MrGreenonion posted...

The movie just doesn't *like* any of its characters, which makes it hard for me to like them. Oh, you thought this person was funny and entertaining? Well fuck them and fuck you too, they're gonna get torn to pieces for laughs.

I haven't seen the new Suicide Squad movie, but this is the exact kind of thing I would have expected from it. Kind of seems like an endorsement to me

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guys its literally called SUICIDE squad not happy go lucky sunshine and rainbows squad

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Really enjoyed it, more the GotG movies.

If only because it's DC, and I enjoyed this setting a lot more. I will say the main cast in Guardians chemistry was better.

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Evillordexdeath posted...

Yeah, it's just another average super-hero film at the end of the day. The RT score is deceptive, it has like a 74 on Metacritic, which does a better job telling you what to expect from it.

74 is definitely not an average score - as movie reviews tend to be on the five point scale a score above 70 or so would mean that it is getting mostly 4s and above. Thats really good! Movie scores are not like game scores - 50 is actually average. Regardless this is a very good score and one of the better scores for a superhero movie.

If anything the Metacritic score is more of an endorsement than the Rotten Tomatoes one.

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I couldnt watch it yesterday cause Max was down

Guess Ill try again tonight?

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I thought it was great and conveys the essence of the comic book medium on film probably better than any other comic book movie.

It was above average. Its a weird dynamic because the first one was SO bad. If this was the first one, I might have been pretty happy with it.

Honesty, the Harley stuff feels like the lowest point of the movie.

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Jesse_Custer posted...

I thought it was great and conveys the essence of the comic book medium on film probably better than any other comic book movie.

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SSBM_Guy posted...

Honesty, the Harley stuff feels like the lowest point of the movie.

I did get the feeling that Harley was a studio mandate that the director would not otherwise have included.

Apparently Harley's plotline was even longer and it got trimmed in the edit during the lockdown because it really had little to do with the rest of the plot.

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Jesse_Custer posted...

I thought it was great and conveys the essence of the comic book medium on film probably better than any other comic book movie.

I think Gunn just gets it, so to speak. GotG felt similar to me. And I'll take one of these over a thousand Batman or Spider-Man movies. The 'chapters' felt like they could've been the opening splash page to the 'issue' in the style of Will Eisner. A little mini-series in 2+ hours.

Plus I got a live-action Starro the Conqueror and Arm-Fall-Off Boy, I could never completely hate it. Arm-Fall-Off Boy. Insane.

SSBM_Guy posted...

Honesty, the Harley stuff feels like the lowest point of the movie.

One thing I appreciated about this was just about when I thought 'this is taking a long time, Harley's going to kill this guy in the end just get it over with' and then she kills him. 'Oh, thanks, I was just thinking that!'

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It was fun.

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Not bad at all. Not as good as the GotGs, so I couldn't agree it's Gunn's best, but I certainly don't hate it.

I'm kinda over Margot Robbie Harley at this point, though.

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I really had a great time watching this movie. I just expected a fun romp and was happy with what I got.

I'll agree that Margot Robbie Harley doesn't really do anything for me either. Like she had some funny spots but I just don't care a whole hell of a lot? She's got nothing interesting going on for her and isn't so funny or cool that having her in the movie was an incredible boon?

Mass disappointment in Captain Boomerang dying so early. What the hell. He was the only good part of the first movie, and he's a total delight.

I did feel a vast tonal change, but I didn't take the movie tremendously seriously. When someone mentioned the movie didn't seem to care about their characters a whole lot, I felt that a lot too. In turn, I just didn't care and just enjoyed it for what it was, which may have been the intent. I'll express further disappointment in what goes on with Polka Dot Man. The conclusion to his story could have been so much better.

And King Shark just... wasn't awesome? He had some funny parts, but it was very much just a "why are you here" deal. If he wasn't in the movie, you would have to change nothing at all.

And I felt a lot of Ratcatcher 2 stuff fell pretty flat also when they tried to get emotional with it. Probably because everything else around the movie just... didn't want to take any emotional investment? So it's hard to really sell me on her emotional investment.

Hell, I thought the best part of the movie in terms of actual emotional stake was "Peacemaker... What a joke." Just because it was simple, to the point, and it hit a lot harder than a lot of things, because yeah. This dude is a fucking joke, as much as he wants to act like he's so much better. And Cena sold it so well and you could actually tell that hit Peacemaker hard. Wish Flagg didn't have to die because I love Joel Kinneman as well.

All in all, I had a fun time. That's precisely what I wanted from this film. I know I sound down on it, because it could have definitely been more if they hadn't gone halfway on a lot of ideas, but... I'll take a fun film like this, honestly.

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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

And King Shark just... wasn't awesome? He had some funny parts, but it was very much just a "why are you here" deal. If he wasn't in the movie, you would have to change nothing at all.

Everything about King Shark was revealed in the trailers/TV spots and nothing new in the movies was worth a damn.

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I didn't see a single trailer for this movie and thought King Shark was great.

watching trailers is bad imo
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MrGreenonion posted...

I did get the feeling that Harley was a studio mandate that the director would not otherwise have included.

This was the feeling I was getting too. It just felt kinda disconnected.

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Personally thought it was excellent and loved some of the style choices. It kind of sucks because this is the emptiest I've seen the theater in some time (though that may just be Delta) and four of the six people in one of our shows walked out before the halfway point. One of the couples had been talking at length with a coworker about jow much she liked the first one.

Just... a very confusing experience surrounding the movie for me.

And I wish we got a bit more from Team A, particularly Flula Borg's Javelin. What did he do? Why was he here?

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MrGreenonion posted...

Yeah I think Polka Dot Man's death really exemplified my problem with the movie. The movie just doesn't *like* any of its characters, which makes it hard for me to like them. Oh, you thought this person was funny and entertaining? Well fuck them and fuck you too, they're gonna get torn to pieces for laughs.

See, this is what I was feeling while watching it, but then after finishing it I dont think this is really the case. The intro sets up an expectation of oh no, anyone could die any time! but then no one else actually dies for like an hour and a half. Aside from Polka Dot Man, the actual main characters of the movie either make it out alive or die in a not jokey, meaningful altercation (Flagg, sort of Peacemaker but then not really). Even PDM got to survive just long enough to complete his character arc.
I think the movie likes its main group just fine, it just tricks you at the start with a bunch of joke cameo deaths.
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Mega Mana posted...

And I wish we got a bit more from Team A, particularly Flula Borg's Javelin. What did he do? Why was he here?

I felt the same way! I'm ok with the first team being disposable fodder, even if Deadpool 2 coming out a few years ago took away a little of the impact of it this time around, but I do wish their initial scenes were stretched out a little bit more, just to give them a little more characterization (especially given how good that cast was). Mongal got the cool moment of taking down the helicopter solo, but she did nothing before that to characterize her. Flula/Javelin got a couple lines, but he's hilarious and I wanted a little more from him.

Nathan Fillion's TDK got about the perfect amount of screentime though; just enough to be hilarious, given there's not a lot more that he really could've done.

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Pretty good! I think I'd put it over GotG2 as far as Gunn goes, though I am not nearly as high on that movie as people here seem to be. I basically only care about Yondu and Nebula in it so eh. This movie having a different vibe is enough to put it over for me. Bloodsport and Peacemaker were pretty enjoyable and Ratcatcher was great. Harley was great too, although I think the movie could have used more of her and integrated her better.

My only major complaint is the initial big massacre scene felt like a copout, especially with Boomerang getting shafted and Mongal punching way below her weight class. Captain Boomerang is such a waste, man. I was expecting more of an ensemble cast that gradually dies over the course of the movie but it's instead a pretty standard team movie until the end. Which I should have expected based on the trailers but...I probably would have enjoyed this more without the trailers giving so much away anyways. Ah well.

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