Where did Suicide Squad go wrong, how would you have fixed it? (SPOILERS!)

[neoboy]

Whole script just lacked coherency and film had a terrible flow. I was also disappointed with some of the editing and I'd say there was very little relationship building even after the lacklustre bar scene.

When the fire chap said something about not losing his new family I basically just rolled my eyes as hard as I could. Australian chap also had a few decent gags but as a whole found him pretty bland and uninteresting. Margot Robbie was probably the best thing about the film and not just because of inherent lack of clothes but the new Joker didn't click with me.

I did quite like the soundtrack though, thought it was almost wasted.

 

[Marsman]

If it was so terrible would it of not flopped? It has done anything but.

In my opinion its a decent enough movie, watched it at the Printworks last Friday.

Great films can flop and **** films can do well, financially. Dredd and The Shawshank Redemption flopped, but where very good and great films, respectively. Transformers whatever, was terrible, yet made a silly amount of money. The last Pirates film, again was terrible, but yet again a bad film made silly amounts of money.

Why should these studios try harder when people happily pay to see such poor films. If it video game is poor, it won't sell. Game creators must do better in order to sell their games. When it comes to blockbuster films though, quality it seems is irrelevant. Depressing.

 

[Begbie]

Whole script just lacked coherency and film had a terrible flow. I was also disappointed with some of the editing and I'd say there was very little relationship building even after the lacklustre bar scene.

When the fire chap said something about not losing his new family I basically just rolled my eyes as hard as I could. Australian chap also had a few decent gags but as a whole found him pretty bland and uninteresting. Margot Robbie was probably the best thing about the film and not just because of inherent lack of clothes but the new Joker didn't click with me.

I did quite like the soundtrack though, thought it was almost wasted.

Yeah, an hour with a bunch of random people you barely know and their family? What awful scripting. The scripting is what got me, just full of one liners, that held no real meaning. Lack of character built up between each other. They all just fell in love with each other, for what seemed like no reason.

The more I think about it, the less I like it. The whole thing had so much potential.

Are we getting a standalone Joker movie? Or is that just a tease?

 

[SixTwoSix]

Are we getting a standalone Joker movie? Or is that just a tease?

I hope so...the poor amount of screen time Leto got isn't enough to judge him against previous actors in the role. I said in the other SS thread and i'll repeat it here, he's a proven talented actor and I feel he's got a lot to offer as Joker.

 

[SPG]

Nothing i really enjoyed it.

It is what it is.

 

[Tummy]

I hope so...the poor amount of screen time Leto got isn't enough to judge him against previous actors in the role. I said in the other SS thread and i'll repeat it here, he's a proven talented actor and I feel he's got a lot to offer as Joker.

... Leto's Joker was bad, bad. Have lost so much interest in the DC Universe; enjoyed Batfleck.

 

[Scam]

I literally just watched it. Thought it was decent enough. My expectations were kept fairly low from the reviews, so that probably helped. I'm no DC fanboy but I preferred BvS.

To me, SS just didn't need Snyder's involvement. He's not a good filmmaker at all. He got lucky with 300 which was him doing his "thing" (easy) but translating that to other films just doesn't work. BvS was "ok" because that was him doing his thing again. Zack Snyder trying to do a Deadpool/GoG-esque comedic take on superheroes is just never going to work ever. Those hating on Warner Bros should probably be hating on Snyder more.

EDIT: This has been doing the rounds ** Removed due to swearing in the article. Google "This Open Letter by an Alleged Former Warner Bros. Employee Rages at Top Executives" - EVH **

 

[Gerard]

I literally just watched it. Thought it was decent enough. My expectations were kept fairly low from the reviews, so that probably helped. I'm no DC fanboy but I preferred BvS.

To me, SS just didn't need Snyder's involvement. He's not a good filmmaker at all. He got lucky with 300 which was him doing his "thing" (easy) but translating that to other films just doesn't work. BvS was "ok" because that was him doing his thing again. Zack Snyder trying to do a Deadpool/GoG-esque comedic take on superheroes is just never going to work ever. Those hating on Warner Bros should probably be hating on Snyder more.

EDIT: This has been doing the rounds ** Removed due to swearing in the article. Google "This Open Letter by an Alleged Former Warner Bros. Employee Rages at Top Executives" - EVH **

and hearing from studio insiders that Wonder Woman is also apparently a catastrophe in waiting

Really wouldn't surprise me, seems like a character that's ok in small doses but a full movie would get tedious, ie: HULK.

 

[Destination]

Nothing i really enjoyed it.

It is what it is.

Indeed.
I fear people expected something other than that which was always going to appear.
I liked it for what it was, a bit of shooty shooty cool violence, some wit, but it wasn't meant to be a comedy.
I liked Leto, th glimpse we got. It is a sign of a wicked, dominant abusive partner in a relationship.
Margoe being the other partner, and her smiles are just knockout.

 

[fez]

I was expecting a shocker and it was half decent. There was a lot of potential and the impression I got was that Jared Leto was originally a much larger part of that film. It deffo felt like they hacked a different film together to make this one. As others have said, there is no need for a world ending event to sort out. They are not superheroes so scale down the threat. That's why batman works. Human hero, human threat.

 

[Scrutinize]

It's simple ........ DC material does not transcribe well to movies. It is too dark to make light mass market family entertainment and no one want serious r-rated superhero movies with the exception of Batman.

Tim Burton's Batman defines the DC genre perfectly. Look how bad batman got trying to make it family friendly post Burton.

Superman is equally challenging to make work.

Marvel's source material and characters translate much better into family movies whilst keeping the source material fans happy. Especially where you need full family appeal to make the big money.

With DC you can't easily achieve that. They don't have the same character appeal and gravitas that the marvel leads achieve for mass market. Plenty of good DC characters but they are really limited to enjoyment by the hardcore fans. The recent TV shows confirm it as well.

Suicide Squad is a casualty of the DC universe. They had to shoehorn batman in to make it work.

 

[TheBDog]

I enjoyed this film. But it still felt like a wasted opportunity a little by the end.

The first act was fun, and it didn't take itself very seriously and that was pretty much perfect.

Sadly, by the last act everything was happening so fast that it didn't have time to build any real tension. Which was it's biggest problem.

Since this thread already has spoilers in the title I'm just gonna jump right in;
> Joker saves Harley
> Plane gets hit
> Chucks Harley out
...in all of about 10 seconds maybe? No tension. Not really. Thanks to ALLLLL the quick cuts.

> Enchantress makes them all see visions
> El Diablo figures it out
> He (rather flatly) tells everybody it's not real
> Everybody is back
...again, this happens SO DAMN FAST that it's made redundant bcos there's no tension built up.

Also, another genuine criticism I've heard and agree with; None of the Suicide Squad apart from El Diablo do anything particularly "super". Deadshot does a trick shot in his back story, and shoots all those targets perfectly in the head but that was about it. Bit of a shame tbh. This universe is already hyper real you may as well make the action hyper real too.

Alas, the main issues I have with this film are how it doesn't flow very well, and is cut more and more poorly as the film continues.

But I enjoyed what they were going for, and I'm still hoping that DC use this and B vs S to learn that overloading films and cutting them all over place just doesn't work on the big screen. But, le sigh, WB are notorious for "intervening" with their film projects and it ending poorly. Maybe one day.

 

[Glaucus]

It's simple ........ DC material does not transcribe well to movies. It is too dark to make light mass market family entertainment and no one want serious r-rated superhero movies with the exception of Batman.

i think most people want far darker movies, its always the number one criticism. It's hollywood have become money men over the last few decades, and wont risk cutting of a percentage of their money through banning them at cinemas.
if they risked it, i bet they would be proved wrong and a good 18 film would sell more over the timespan of the various releases, than poor films but made to be inclusive of many age groups.
they've made the same mistake with predator and other films,

 

[Werewolf]

I think the main thing DC need to learn is that the Marvel films have been good in large part because they chose an overall "lead" director for the universe that had a very good track record of pulling together storylines with dozens of characters over multiple years, and then they had everyone working along that path (with I believe a number of the key people being actual comic writers, or directors who were huge fans of the comics and knew the characters).

That you should employ directors and writers that actually have some talent in making a coherent film. Preferably with several films behind them to prove it wasn't a fluke, and at least one in the "genre" (or work in TV if no film).

That reshooting and editing in large bits when you've already shot most of the film rarely makes for a coherent story, and if you're going to do it, give the continuity people some extra time and money to make sure that if for example one of your main characters has cut their hair since the original shoot makeup can afford a decent wig.
This is a minor pet hate of mine in films, when a character is changing look subtly between shots due to reshooting later on when the makeup/costume isn't quite the same or the actor has put on/lost weight and they're trying to disguise it (it's distracting as I'll often notice something has changed but not be able to put my finger on it).

That it's alright to have some humour in a "dark" film (unremitting grim dark with no humour just gets boring, whilst dark with odd bits of humour can seem even darker without it getting boring/feeling like they're going over the top), but there is a fine line between having some humour and having inappropriate humour for the sake of it because another film had a lot of humour and did well.

I enjoyed suicide squad, but it could have been much better. Visually it was very good, I liked the character designs and costumes (even if some of the characters were weak), but the story was more suited to a short, or a series.

I think even some of the characters were done very well, what we saw of them, but the whole didn't quite add up.
I'll have to admit I thought they got Harley Quinn down very well, very close to what I know of her comic book and animated versions.

On a side note, at least it wasn't BvS

and in the interests of full Disclosure, I've tended to be a Marvel comic fan in the past, most of the main DC hero characters used to strike me as pretty boring with the exception of Batman.

 

[Werewolf]

i think most people want far darker movies, its always the number one criticism. its the hollywood have become money men over the last few decades, and wont risk cutting of a percentage of their monie through banning them at cinemas.
if they risked it, i bet they would be proved wrong and a good 18 film would sell more over the timespan of the various releases, than poor films but made to be inclusive of may age groups.
they've made the same mistake with predator and other films,

Aye, they're trying to avoid making films that are too dark as they're terrified of missing out on the PG13/12A ratings which means high initial returns, whilst 15/18 rated films will never get the same initial rush at the cinema because there are less people able to see them, but will likely get a much better long term return.

It's one f the reasons I'm enjoying the various TV series for DC and Marvel characters, they're telling longer, often far darker versions of the stories.

 

[llamadal]

You say they dont have the same appeal but honestly who knew much about guardians/ant man/dead pool...etc.. other than the serious followers, even dr strange looks pretty decent - they can't hide behind that excuse.

 

[DailyGeek]

Equally love DC and Marvel, would generally choose to read DC over Marvel but there is no comparison with the films sadly.

Snyder peaked with Watchmen. I'm not sure what happened since.

Ben Affleck is the best thing to have happened to DC movies in a long time and hopefully he can restore balance with the standalone batman film and perhaps they will have faith in letting him direct more DCU output as a result.

DC has such a rich depth to it that is ignore or hugely altered for the films. DC Animation get this bit right but cinematic universe struggles for some reason.

 

[SixTwoSix]

You say they dont have the same appeal but honestly who knew much about guardians/ant man/dead pool...etc.. other than the serious followers, even dr strange looks pretty decent - they can't hide behind that excuse.

However i'm fairly sure if any of those movies had been released without the good track record Marvel had, most people wouldn't have bothered with them in the first instance.

 

[Greboth]

I agree with most of the points raised really so far. Though one thing I think that hindered SS was them having to squeeze too much in. In the space of 2 hours or so we went from introduction of characters to one big happy family which just isn't going to be the case. Marvel released Iron Man, Capt America and Thor films which through them introduced the whole Avengers cast. The backstory was set so the Avengers film could concentrate on being an Avengers film. IMO DC needed to do the same, given us a Deadshot, Joker/Harley movie (or even a Batfleck with Joker/Harley as the baddies?) maybe even a El Diablo film. Use these films to introduce the other members of SS and Amanda Waller. You could even use these individual movies to introduce more of June Moone/Enchantress.

Doing this would add more meaning to why Joker was so intent on rescuing Harley rather than 2 mins of backstory we go, could give a bigger better backstory to SS not trusting Waller, more than a couple of lines why El Diablo doesn't want to use his powers, more demonstration of the internal battle of Moone / Enchantress etc.

 

[llamadal]

However i'm fairly sure if any of those movies had been released without the good track record Marvel had, most people wouldn't have bothered with them in the first instance.

Many who dont care about the marvel universe just enjoyed them for what they are, fun entertaining movies, so no, don't agree with that in the slightest