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SUICIDE SQUAD Movie
BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE Animated Film
SUICIDE SQUAD (2016)
Written and Directed by David AyersStarring Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jared Leto, etc
Produced by Warner Brothers
Reviewed by Humphrey Lee
“Expectation” is a word that means so many things in so many contexts to so many people. In the case of the subject of this review, DC Comics and Warner Brothers Studios’ latest attempt at getting some traction behind their DC Universe line of movies, that word expectation definitely drew its fair share of meaning and results in the days leading to its release and in these few days after. Expectations (panicky ones it seems) lead the higher ups at WB to inject some more money into the project in order to “punch it up” a bit in the wake of the response BATMAN VS SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE received. Some fans leveled expectations on this movie of it being the real big break out project for this movie Universe (and you could immediately tell who they were) and some expected more of the same humdrumness from BvS and MAN OF STEEL to carry over into this project (and you could also tell who belonged to this party as well). Now that this movie is finally out and I’ve been able to see it to make my own judgment I can officially say expectations are a bitch.
For the sake of full disclosure, and because I genuinely do feel for some people their initial impressions set the standard on projects such as this (hence the whole point of my intro above), I was firmly in the crowd of feeling like this movie was indeed that break out that DC/WB so badly needed for the sake of the financial end of things and the progress of their new universe. If for anything I wanted to see that someone at WB had woke the fuck up and learned how to point a figurative gun at anything but its own foot when pulling the trigger. As a long time lover of comics books, this new wave of comic book inspired movies, and cats because I needed another item for maximum Oxford comma, I want them all to be good and successful because I want to see more of them. And not completely selfishly, because even though I don’t have children because, ew, why would you, I would like oncoming generations of developing humans to enjoy these icons and good, quality stories with them so that the characters I grew up loving and the people who made them and continue to make them will hopefully reap something good from the influx of capital and fans. All that said, given the track record of these DC/WB properties ever since Christopher Nolan wrapped up his Batman trilogy, they deserved every bit of the expectations for these pictures the lion’s share of the populace had for them going into this feature.
And now that lead’s me to actually, you know, talk about the thing.
Keeping in theme, I feel like SUICIDE SQUAD, in its final form, ended up being the Frankenstein’s monster of everyone’s expectations heaped on it, both good and bad. Right from the start of the picture I felt my hopefulness toward the project given those involved perking up. I liked the helming of this project with David Ayers in the Director’s Chair because I felt he has a good eye for visuals and emphasizes character in his projects. And the casting, for the most part from my viewpoint and universally it felt, was mostly spot on with a big ol’ Joker sized caveat, a lot of which stemmed from fervorous Internet debates about the tattoos on the Jared Leto version of the character. Minutes into the picture you could tell that style and the characters were going to take center stage, which is a good place to start for a film in a universe needing a shot of adrenaline, and minutes after leaving the picture you could say that style probably won out over character and plot a bit too much, which draws back to that vision of a WB Exec holding a handgun pointed at their wingtips from earlier.
The best way for me to sum up how I feel about the final production of a movie called SUICIDE SQUAD that set some big ass financial numbers up this past weekend (and home-runned that expectation of it) is that every time it got something right it then unloaded one of those bullets into its own appendage. After it was all over and the mid-credits sting hit you knew you watched something that had the right idea a good bit of the time but maybe lost sight of things while trying to be overly stylish, or set up a universe that higher ups desperately want to be more coherent and engaging than it really is so far. SUICIDE SQUAD, to me at least, ended up being an overly enjoyable affair because when it bothered to take time to size up the characters and let their quirks and neurosis give shape to them, it was living up to what I expect from a comic book picture. I appreciated the energy and I did like the visual flare for the most part but the problem is that sometimes the wrong tones or emphasis on certain developments overstayed their welcome and really drowned out the movie’s potential. There was a damn great movie in here somewhere, if only it knew when to get out of its own way.
SUICIDE SQUAD is a movie featuring some of the quirkiest or cool-but-overlooked characters the DC Universe has produced over the years and yet sometimes it just forgot to feature them. The movie does have great success with Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, Will Smith’s Deadshot, and Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller for sure. The cast and how they brought the characters to life is honestly probably where an arbitrary number to try and quantify my enjoyment of the movie like 80% came from. Viola Davis absolutely nails the presence and complete inability to take no shit of Amanda Waller. Big Willie Style himself also has a nice turn taking the attitude and swagger he has built a career on and overlaying it on the framework of the world’s deadliest hitman with a weak spot in the form of his daughter. And Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn should rightly be the breakout character DC/WB so desperately wanted and that the source material deserves. Her ability to shift from mischievous to ruthless to emotionally fragile and back again is as endearing and intimidating on screen as it has been on page for a couple decades now. These big, brash personalities are the high mark to which SUICIDE SQUAD can hang its hat on for sure; the problem was there were more than just these three characters.
Not only did it feel like SUICIDE SQUAD was too big by two or three characters but it had the added shame of when those other members got what scant time they got, they more or less nailed it. Jai Courtney’s essentially comedic relief turn as Captain Boomerang gets its fair share of laughs for his mad dog attitude and truly being the one character in all these misfits that gives no fucks. But he’s also essentially reduced to being the “seriously, what is up with all this crazy shit, why are we doing this?” voice of (most) dissension. Karen Fukuhara’s Katana carries herself with equal parts grace and bad assery and instead of going into her sorrowful past in a detail that would really sell the character she essentially just gets the spotlight in some of the action choreography and two expository bits explaining her back story. And Jay Hernandez’s El Diablo almost steals the entire movie with a tragedy in his past so self-fulfilling in its heartbreak it epitomizes the kind of “more damaged than evil” core this movie was rightfully striving to build around. And after all of these this there were STILL several starring characters vying for screen time, including the goddamn Joker.
It’s easy to see why the unfortunately flaws in this film – an underdeveloped plot and some frenetic cutting – were what they were. The shame of it all is, it really didn’t have to be this way and given the entire hubbub around the production of this movie, who knows where it went wrong. In an era where Marvel is getting away with regularity two and a half hour movies spent making sure the characters come first (for the most part) the decision to cut SUICIDE SQUAD down to a relatively breezy two hours seems like someone hit a panic button somewhere. I’m trying to remain relatively spoiler free here because I know this is still a fresh release, but there’s a moment near the climatic final battle (and seen in the trailers) where the crew sits down in the midst of the chaos to have a drink at a bar. It’s there that we finally really get into the heads and motivations of the lesser half the characters, simply because they’ve had no real moments up to that point, and then we get to Smith, Robbie, and Hernandez driving home the essence of their characters. A scene that took all of five minutes of screen time up made for the core of half this cast, and given the final run time of this picture there’s no good reason why two more of these sequences couldn’t have been found out to really bring these misfits and miscreants together into that sequestered fighting force of near anti-heroes and kind of shitty people you still find yourself entertained by that has been successful in the comic books since the 80’s. And while they were at it, they could have stood to find another ten minutes for the overly neglected plot.
Again, like with the characters, I don’t know if the time spent with the plot is left on a cutting room floor somewhere or if they just assumed the overall energy and attitude of the movie would carry them on a pretty standard setup, but it’s a shame simply because it could have been rectified with just ten more minutes of establishing and defining the threat. Not so much staying spoiler free for the rest of this paragraph (for those of you who still care at this point) but the big bad of the picture ends up involving Cara Delevingne’s Enchantress and a butt load of special effects. And it starts off with its heart in the right place of playing the bipolar nature of that character and how her relationship with Squad handler Rick Flag - played by quality square-jawed action man Joel Kinnaman – gives him both a dark edge that identifies with those he’s tasked to oversee and gives Amanda Waller a hold on him. It even has roots in one of the early John Ostrander penned comic book arcs involving the witch and her brother, Incubus, which is cool in its own way. But outside of establishing a base overview of “they have primordial power!!” and assuming that the viewer see’s Waller’s enslavement of June Moon/The Enchantress as the beings desire for revenge on mankind, pretty much all development of the villains and plot beyond MacGuffin territory are abandoned. Some more time with the couple of June Moon and Rick Flag and exploring just how powerful and megalomaniacal the Enchantress being was and is becoming again could have sold this as a dangerous yet sympathetic threat, instead she is reduced mostly to lights in the sky over a major American city.
Or they could have gone with, y’know, the Goddamn Joker, but I’m not sure what their plans really are with that character at this point.
Despite my airing of grievances for two paragraphs just now though, I really did have fun with this movie. When it works it really does work. The characters the movie does rightfully emphasize as its protagonists live up to promises their paper versions made for them over the years with their presentation. They charm in their overzealous natures and pull in the right amount of sympathy for the their own reasons for being their own versions of “evil.” Yeah, I wish maybe Harley Quinn’s past as an elite psychologist had been more emphasized to drive home just exactly how far she’s fallen in her being absorbed by the Joker’s madness, and just how toxic that “relationship” is. And I’ve already stated how much of a wasted opportunity not developing the back story of some of the lesser Squad members or just straight up giving Jai Courtney’s Captain Boomerang some more ridiculous antics to enact. But the chemistry in the characters and actors is definitely there and if this movie should be proud of and take any momentum from this forward, it should be that. And I even enjoyed our limited exposure to Leto’s Joker, which was rightly a different animal from all the previous live-action renditions of the character but carried itself with the same menace. It’s really hard to say overall how things will go with that character when we’re allowed to stew in his brand of crazy – we probably didn’t even get ten minutes of the Clown Prince here – but I think Leto carried this Mistah J solidly with a combination of maniacal glee and a shifty menace to him that was always bubbling under the surface. It was the a well-executed version of the unhinged side of the Batman villain I think we’ve seen so far honestly, though some of the visual ticks he emphasized were kind of odd and somewhat sucked up some of the charisma that makes such an evil lunatic of a character so enthralling.
The shame of the problems with this film is that they are a microcosm for the problems with the DCU films in general so far: They want something they haven’t worked enough to establish. DC/WB obviously wants these movies to be what Marvel has but hasn’t laid the groundwork properly. Instead of doing the rounds and building to a sweeping epic story over several films, they made a DAWN OF JUSTICE that should have been three movies and felt painstakingly like it was that much content crammed into a two-and-a-half-hour feature. Meanwhile you can tell that the people involved in SUICIDE SQUAD wanted this to be their GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY but edgier, with a group of loveable misfits brought together under circumstances beyond their control that both have their place in the broad scheme of things yet enjoy an autonomy that lets their personalities run wild. But in that rush they leave some characters out to dry and the ties to the rest of the universe are kind of placed in there in ways that are more blatant “hey, come watch our other shit” banners than bits that add another layer of detail to the overall picture. Given the “street-level” nature of what the Suicide Squad generally does and the fact that one of the characters they rub against is the goddamn Batman, plenty of threads could have been used to entwine this property more to the universe. But that would have required the universe itself to bother to flesh itself out more beyond the two very heavy-handed movies that were the extent of it all before this picture and a guiding hand for it all that I just feel Warner Brothers doesn’t have either on their payroll or in the right position to make these wishes a reality.
And yet I still enjoyed myself, because at the two hours spent watching this I felt I got a good action movie with some good-to-great characters that charmed me. I typically hate qualifiers like “well, it’s not perfect, but…” because, no shit, no movie is perfect, and then it also feels like you’re overly defending something. I’m not here. SUICIDE SQUAD has some pacing issues and woefully under presents a couple of its lesser characters and villains. There is no forgiving that and it mars what could have been a flag bearer for this type of movie from now on down into solid 3-star action film territory. But you know what, I said the same thing of STAR TREK BEYOND when I walked out of it two weeks ago. And THOR: THE DARK WORLD three years ago. And so on. I’m not sure why this film joining a tradition of summer action fests tending to having underdeveloped villains and questionable editing is now an affront to film-making it like half the aggregate score of my examples and countless others, but it seems like a troubling thing that I think comes back to… what’s the word? Yes, expectations. These DC/WB movies so far have dug themselves into a hole that, regrettably, SUICIDE SQUAD also plants a leg into before moving onward. And Marvel pictures is still setting a standard for these types of films that the DC/WB folk obviously wish they had while spastically denying it with a “we’re doing our own thing, honest!” as transparent as Margot Robbie’s t-shirt for half this movie. So I get that with expectations for DC movies to be not so good and the superhero movie in general to handle themselves with a certain level of quality can skew standards a bit, but the level of knife sharpening I’ve witnessed this past week against this movie seems as troubling as the shenanigans Jared Leto perpetrated on his costars preparing for the movie. SUICIDE SQUAD, much like the characters that inhabit it, is a flawed entity, but also like those characters it is an oddly heartfelt and endearing experience that just needs a bit of a helping hand to triumph over its demons.
Humphrey Lee has been an avid comic book reader going on fifteen years now and a contributor to Ain't It Cool comics for quite a few as well. In fact, reading comics is about all he does in his free time and where all the money from his day job wages goes to - funding his comic book habit so he can talk about them to you, our loyal readers (lucky you). He's a bit of a social networking whore, so you can find him all over the Interwebs on sites like Twitter, The MySpaces, Facebookand a blog where he also mostly talks about comics with his free time because he hasn't the slightest semblance of a life. Sad but true, and he gladly encourages you to add, read, and comment as you will.
BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE Animated Film
Writer: Brian Azzarello (off Alan Moore)Director: Sam Liu
Studio: Warner Bros Animation
Reviewed by Masked Man
Two of the biggest sacred cows in the comicbook world were both written by Alan Moore: WATCHMEN and BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE. While WATCHMEN was made into a live-action movie a few years back, there was always rumbling of the KILLING JOKE being turned into an animated ‘dvd’ movie, well that day has come. Just so you know, THE KILLING JOKE is no sacred cow to me, I found Grant Morrison’s ARKHAM ASYLUM (from roughly the same period) more impressive. When talking about the British Invasion of comics in the 80’s.
The oddest thing about this movie, is the first quarter of the film is new material not written by Moore, mostly there to pad the length. It puts the spotlight on Batgirl, as she famously becomes a plot devise in the rest of the film. Moving passed that for the moment, Liu’s film (if I can call it that, since producer Bruce Timm is really in the driver's seat) is very faithful to comicbook. Just like Warner Bros previous adaptions of classic 80’s Batman stories: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and YEAR ONE. They even attempted to base the main characters designs off original artist, Brian Bolland’s work. You can tell they really wanted to get this film right.
On the microphone, they got BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES vets Kevin Conroy (Batman) and Mark Hamill (Joker) to return. Hamill had famously said he had given up doing Joker voice (or wanted to), but would return for THE KILLING JOKE. Batgirl is played by Tara Strong (who was her replacement voice in BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES) and her father Commissioner Gordon, is played by veteran actor Ray Wise. Though my ears greatly miss Bob Hastings, who voice Gordon on BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, but sadly passed away in 2014. Overall the acting is just fine, as you expect from a Bruce Timm production. Although, I did feel Hamill was robbed of his range with Joker here. His usual up and down, serious to silly portrayal of Joker is hammered down to a low growl for most of the film. Which does fit the tone of the movie, but leeches some of the energy out of his scenes.
So is it good? Yeah, sure. Is it one of the DCU team’s best? Nah, I won’t say that. The two biggest strikes against the movie is A) the whole Batgirl opening and B) the lackluster salesmanship of Joker’s plan. As I said, they follow the book pretty faithfully, and it comes off a bit flat on film, especially with Hamill’s reined in performance. Also, where the comicbook (colored by John Higgins) often used macabre colors to help illustrate how macabre and twisted some of these scenes are. The movie sticks to local colors. The whole mind fu(k of Gordon really has no visual bite here, the colors and storyboarding is too by the numbers for me.
That said, like any of these WB/DC animated DVD movies, the animation is great. Not feature quality of course, but much better than anything made for television. While the styles have changed since the days of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, the quality has done nothing but improve since then.
Now to point out one more flaw of the movie, which in some way is the combining of my previous A & B, they almost miss the point of Alan Moore’s story. Which I suppose in their defense is quite common. I can’t tell you how many articles I’ve read of people failing understanding the whole frick’n point of THE KILLING JOKE. Even the a fore mention Grant Morrison missed the meaning of the ending (Batman did not kill Joker because that would be contrary to the whole story). To point it out, the main point of the plot is Joker trying to vindicate himself. It’s him saying, “Yes, I’m a monster, but so would you.” In the end Batman clearly answers him, “Maybe it was just you, all the time.” The second point, which most people get, is defining the relationship of Batman and Joker. How they are in some way similar, even though they are opposites, and how this traps them in a destructive cycle. As Joker’s final joke points out, they are insane inmates, who can’t trust each other. But back to the main point, this story is really Joker vs the world, more than any other Joker story has ever been. He actually let’s his guard down in this story and you see what a vulnerable human being he is (in his own viscous way). And he wants to believe everyone is or could be just like him. But so many people miss that, like Liu and company here. As they insert a mock trial scene and an opening focusing on Batgirl, both of which dilute the premise of the story.
Ok, let’s talk about Batgirl now, as you may know, it’s the hot topic of this film. Mainly, because it fails on two levels: One, the obvious one, the story isn’t about Batgirl, so having the first quarter of a film about a character who doesn’t really tie into the rest of the film is crazy. Two, their goal was to not make Batgirl/Barbara Gordon just a plot devise/victim, but they instead of celebrating her character she comes off as deeply flawed.
In the could have / should have department, the extra footage should have been about Batman and Joker, or hell even Gordon’s relationship with the two. As the game being played here is for Gordon’s soul, if you will. Instead we get Batgirl. Mind you, I love Batgirl, but this isn’t a Batgirl story. If they were going to book end the movie with her, they should have had the balls to make her more part of the story in the bulk of the film.
In the well what did we get department (spoilers here folks), we get a look at Batgirl as she is basically saved by Batman twice and then looses her cool and goes medieval on a guy. You'd think they'd go all heroic / tragic figure on her, but you would be wrong. Then there’s the sex. I’m not sure why so many people are wrapped up with the idea of Batman having sex if every female character in his world, in costume and on roof top no less (see New 52 CATWOMAN), but they are. What does the sex add to the story? Not much, but it helps Batgirl decide to quit being Batgirl. That way, Joker doesn’t just shoot 'deer in headlights' Batgirl (superhero), he shoots Barbara Gordon (normal person). If you think that's important, there you are. Then there's the bit about Joker raping her. Well it's never directly mentioned in the comic, nor is it directly mentioned in the movie- but each one alludes to it. Considering what's on the page, it's not hard to imagine it happened. Joker even says, “When all is rape ...” in the book, so yeah. To drive the point home more, the film has an extended prostitute scene, stating Joker didn't visit them, so he must have found a new girl. So clearly more weight than the comicbook, but still left up to the viewers imagination. I did find Bruce Timm's back pedaling on that line amusing. He's far too good a storytelling to be surprised on what people took that to mean. Lastly, I wanted to touch on the whole woman in a refrigerator bit. THE KILLING JOKE is considered to be a woman in a refrigerator story (which again, is why I assume Warner Bros wanted to give Batgirl more screen time). But to defend Moore (who now has no defense, as he seemingly crams rape into everything he writes these days), THE KILLING JOKE is not a ‘woman in a refrigerator’ because, as it's defined, what's done to the woman (here Barbara Gordon) was not done, by the writer, to motivate the males of the story. No one avengers Barbara in the story, unless you consider the arresting of Joker vengeance. Batman goes after Joker to save Commissioner Gordon. In fact, it’s almost the reverse, as both Commissioner Gordon and Batman refuse to be ‘motivated’ by what Joker has done to Barbara. Now is Barbara used more as a plot devise than a character, hell yes. But then so is Commissioner Gordon. Joker and to a lessor extend Batman are the only real ‘characters’ in this story.
Wrapping up I’ll mention the epilog scene (aka more spoliers). Barbara Gordon moving on with her life as Oracle. They show this by putting the Oracle logo on her computer. They don’t explain what the logo means or what Barbara is doing, so only fans will understand that scene. But since (story telling wise) they have mismanaged every other added Batgirl scene, why should this one be different.
So this is a weird little film. It’s sure to freak out non-comicbook fans, and please most comicbook fans. The Killing Joke itself works well, but the added scenes don't integrate with it. On the Masked Man’s scale of CRAP, POOR, DECENT, GOOD, and GREAT - BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE manages a DECENT.
Proofs, co-edits & common sense provided by Sleazy G
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