I really wanted to like Suicide Squad, like really wanted to. It was originally appealing to me that we could finally have a darker angle on the superhero genre than the recent excess of altruistic superhero films being released. The problem was in the execution. Instead of being a complex dark film, we got a superhero procedural in the action and gender representations. Suicide Squad was good, but it could have been infinitely better. It was trying to be two different films: a dark, dramatic superhero film and a campy, comedic anti-hero film.
Disclaimer: I am not, nor was I ever, into comic books. I honestly don’t think that I’ve read any comic book in its entirety. Since I didn’t read the Suicide Squad comic, I don’t have a frame of reference to determine if the squad was poorly or well represented. Therefore, my view on the film might be different from someone who has pored over the expanded universe of DC comics. Alright, let’s have some fun.
Suicide Squad is about a group of convicts specially-picked by intelligence operative Amanda Waller (played by Viola Davis) to become part of the United States government’s special task force for super-human terrorism acts. The film comes with all of the makings of a typical action trope: a twist/unexpected turn, witty dialogue between “villain” and “hero”, and, of course, a few over-the-top, yet entertaining, action and fighting sequences. Suicide Squad is a summer Hollywood blockbuster at its core, complete with action, a star studded cast, and general use of Hollywood mechanics.
Perhaps the most evident of those mechanisms used is “the male gaze,” especially obvious in Harley Quinn’s (played by Margot Robbie) scenes. “The male gaze” is when the camera looks at a woman in an objectifying way for the viewing pleasure of the audience, who is assumed to take on the male perspective. On that note, can we get Robbie some darn pants? I know that her character, Quinn, is supposed to be crazy, but I don’t see how short shorts make for an effective superhero/villain costume.
Although Robbie is hypersexualized, the strongest character in the film seems to be a female woman of color, Viola Davis’s character Amanda Waller. The role of Waller, an intelligence operative/founder of the Suicide Squad, is one that is typically not portrayed by a woman in Hollywood films. Historically, such a strong character like Waller would be a male. The How to Get Away with Murder star owns the character of Waller, even though her character arc is somewhat trite in the redemption-action genre.
My main problem with the film was the duality of themes that it projected. Suicide Squad seemed to be switching back and forth from a film that wanted to test the limits of the superhero genre, (e.g. more complex characters, no more absolutes, a truly darker look than what we are used to) to schlocky anti-hero action scenes laced over with classic rock songs like "Sympathy for the Devil."
The director needed to pick one genre and run with it. If you want to be a dark superhero film that does not deal in moral absolutes, do it. If you want to make Ocean’s 11 (2001) meets The Avengers (2012), that’s fine too, but you can’t do both. Trying to do both prevented Suicide Squad from being a truly great film. It was searching for it’s identity, and unfortunately never fully found it. I guess DC will try again with the Justice League, scheduled to be released in November 2017. Until next time, take care of each other, and yourself. I’m Jeff at the movies.