Suicide Squad (2016)

21 Sunday Aug 2016

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Action, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Amanda Waller, Arkham Asylum, Belle Reve, Captain Boomerang, David Ayer, DC Universe, Deadshot, Drama, El Diablo, Enchantress, Harley Quinn, Jai Courtney, Jared Leto, Jay Hernandez, Joel Kinnaman, Killer Croc, Margot Robbie, Midway City, Review, Rick Flag, Task Force X, The Joker, Villains, Viola Davis, Warner Bros., Will Smith

D: David Ayer / 123m

Cast: Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cara Delevingne, Karen Fukuhara, Scott Eastwood, Adam Beach, Ike Barinholtz, David Harbour, Common, Alain Chanoine, Ben Affleck, Ezra Miller

At the beginning of 2016, DC Comics fans had two movies to look forward to in the coming year: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Suicide Squad. Anticipation for both these movies was almost stratospherically high. But Batman v Superman proved to be a messy affair that lacked coherence and couldn’t even give audiences a rousing showdown between the Caped Crusader and the Man of Steel. Critically pounded, and causing a division between fans that in some quarters got way too heated, the movie fell short of making a billion dollars at the box office, and was judged a disappointment. Earlier this month, an extended cut of the film was released on home video, and though the extra footage tidied up a few things left adrift in the theatrical cut, the general consensus was that the additional thirty minutes didn’t make it a better movie.

Fans quickly turned their attention to Suicide Squad to save the day, and the hype began all over again. In development since 2009, the movie arrives now with all the fanfare of a Second Coming. Promoted and advertised and pushed for all it’s worth (IMAX screenings feature a new, Suicide Squad-inspired countdown that’s a nice but unnecessary gimmick), this was Warner Bros.’ chance to prove that they were listening when critics and fans alike said Batman v Superman was too dark and sombre. Director David Ayer promised there would be humour, and the tone would be lighter. Has he delivered? Predictably, the answer is yes and no.

Suicide Squad is, first and foremost, just as messy as it’s DC Extended Universe predecessor. Its plotting is murky and frustratingly lacking in detail, character motivations vary wildly (sometimes in the same scene), there’s the usual over-reliance on a surfeit of destruction-porn, and no one to root for or care about, even though the script does try its best to make Deadshot (Smith) and El Diablo (Hernandez) at least halfway sympathetic. What fun there is to be had can be found in the opening twenty minutes as we’re introduced to each member of the squad, from the assassin who never misses with a gun, Deadshot, to meta-humans such as Killer Croc (Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and El Diablo, wicked witch Enchantress (Delevingne) and her human host June Moone (also Delevingne), thief extraordinaire Captain Boomerang (Courtney), and brain-fried Daddy’s Lil Monster, Harley Quinn (Robbie). Watching these characters interact with and defy authority at every turn gives hope to the direction the movie is heading in, but that hope is short-lived.

Assembled by government spook Amanda Waller (Davis), the squad is a fail-safe option if someone were to come along with Superman’s abilities and use them for evil. With explosive devices implanted in their necks to stop them absconding, the squad, led by Colonel Rick Flag (Kinnaman), are tasked with a mission in Midway City when Enchantress and her brother Incubus (Chanoine) begin building a machine that will destroy all other weapons on the planet and – well, this is one of those plot points that sounds great but is actually quite lame and badly thought out. With Flag and the squad further augmented by expert swordswoman Katana (Fukuhara), escape specialist Slipknot (Beach), and two teams of soldiers, they venture into the randomly destroyed city in search of a High Value Target to rescue. But Waller and Flag have been less than honest about the mission, and the squad must decide if working together is a more appropriate way forward than going their own ways.

It’s clear from the start that Suicide Squad wants to be edgy and smart, caustic and irreverent, and provide a great time for its audience. But as the movie progresses, and once the introductions are over, it soon becomes clear that these so-called supervillains are going to be trapped by the demands of a script that wants to show that, deep down, they’re all really good guys at heart. As a result, this leads to a watering down of the original concept – Worst.Heroes.Ever. – that should be revised to read Best.Antiheroes.Ever. Yes, they’re largely antisocial, and yes they have their issues with authority, and yes they haven’t got a problem with killing people (mostly), but by the end they’ve all bonded and are like one big happy dysfunctional family. It’s enough to tug at the heart strings.

And then there’s the Joker (Leto). Much has been made of Leto’s insistence on staying in character for the duration of the shoot – Smith has quipped that he didn’t meet Leto until after filming was completed – and the Joker’s heavily tattooed look. But it’s all immaterial as Leto is on screen for around fifteen to twenty minutes in total, in a subplot that sees him try to rescue Harley Quinn from being part of the squad. With the Joker reduced to a supporting role it’s hard to qualify Leto’s performance. Yes it’s mannered, heavily so, and completely different from any previous interpretations, but the script depicts him as a lunatic gangster figure rather than the Clown Prince of Chaos. The character has room for development, then, but right now his need to rescue Quinn keeps him working to a standard plotline and any antic diversions seem forced.

In what is fast becoming the one area in which Warner Bros. seems unable to act on the recommendations of others, Suicide Squad ramps up the destruction on offer, with endless gunfights and property devastation the order of the day. It’s all accompanied by one of recent cinema’s more overwhelming and intrusive scores (courtesy of Steven Price), a blaring cacophony of dramatic musical cues and declamatory passages that reinforce just how much the movie is like being hit repeatedly over the head (and by Harley Quinn’s mallet at that). Ayer can’t stop things from getting too overwrought in the movie’s final half hour, and inevitably any subtlety is made to hide in the shadows where it can’t interfere with anything.

Against all this the cast do their best, with Smith atoning for some recent poor choices by making Deadshot likeable and charismatic. Robbie has the most fun, and is the most fun to watch, but after a while the chirpy attitude and cheesy wisecracks begin to grate, and Ayer does away with any development the character has made as if it never happened, leaving her no different from how she was at the start. Davis essays the real villain of the piece, but once that particular “surprise” is established the character stops being interesting, as does her motivation, and she’s wisely sidelined. Kinnaman does stolid with ease but fails to make Flag memorable, while Hernandez makes El Diablo a surprisingly well-rounded character, less of a supervillain, and more Hulk-like in terms of his anger issues.

The movie is further hampered by Ayer’s insistence on giving the movie a noir feel instead of a comic book feel, and John Gilroy’s haphazard, wayward approach to the editing. Other odd moments/decisions stand out: Deadshot looking like a pimp when he’s out with his daughter; Enchantress swaying like a woman trying to keep up an invisible hula hoop; several flashbacks that slow the movie’s rhythm; a scene where El Diablo reveals a tragic consequence to his ability that feels out of place; and an origin story for Quinn that involves falling into a chemical vat for the sake of it.

Rating: 5/10 – slightly better than Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (but only slightly), Suicide Squad still has enough problems to stop it from becoming the first DC Extended Universe movie to overcome the series’ usual pitfalls; shedding its claim to being edgy and different with every minute that passes, the movie is further proof that Warner Bros. and DC need to work harder on their game plan, and that copying Marvel isn’t necessarily the right idea.

Uh-Oh! Here Comes Summer! – Furious 7 (2015) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

03 Sunday May 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Action, Avengers, Black Widow, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Crime, Deckard Shaw, Dominic Toretto, Drama, Dwayne Johnson, Hulk, Iron Man, james Wan, Jason Statham, Joss Whedon, Mark Ruffalo, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Paul Walker, Reviews, Robert Downey Jr, Sequels, Superheroes, Thor, Thriller, Ultron, Villains, Vin Diesel

Furious 7 (2015)

aka Fast and Furious 7

D: James Wan / 137m

Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, Jason Statham, Jordana Brewster, Dwayne Johnson, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Kurt Russell, Nathalie Emmanuel, Elsa Pataky, Djimon Hounsou, Tony Jaa, Ronda Rousey, John Brotherton, Lucas Black

Having bested Owen Shaw and his gang in the previous instalment, now Dominic (Diesel), Brian (Walker), Letty (Rodriguez), and what seems like every main character from the series, have to pull together – with the aid of the mysterious Mr. Nobody (Russell) to take down his vengeful brother, Deckard Shaw (Statham). Throw in the hunt for a software programme, and its creator (Emmanuel), that can track anyone anywhere in the world, a trip to Abu Dhabi, and the usual amount of hyper-realistic cartoon violence, and you have the most successful entry in the franchise to date with, at time of writing, a worldwide gross of $1,352,724,000 (making it the fourth highest grossing movie ever).

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

D: Joss Whedon / 141m

Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, James Spader, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Cobie Smulders, Anthony Mackie, Hayley Atwell, Idris Elba, Stellan Skarsgård, Linda Cardellini, Claudia Kim, Thomas Kretschmann, Andy Serkis, Julie Delpy, Henry Goodman

In an attempt to retire the Avengers from group duty, Tony Stark (Downey Jr) creates a robot that comes equipped with artificial intelligence. Only there’s a flaw: the robot, named Ultron (Spader), sees the best way of carrying out his peacekeeping mission is to wipe out the human race (and thereby ensure a peaceful world). With internal conflicts hampering their efforts to combat Stark’s creation, the introduction of Quicksilver (Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Olsen) to the mix, a showdown between the Hulk (Ruffalo) and Iron Man in his Hulkbuster suit, and Ultron planning an extinction level event, you have a sequel that has made $424,460,000 at the box office in just over a week.

And so we have the first two candidates for 2015’s Mega-Blockbuster of the Year Award. In the red corner we have the testosterone-fuelled, carmageddon-inspired Furious 7, and in the blue corner we have Avengers: Age of Ultron, the latest juggernaut designed to increase Marvel’s grip on the world and its wallet. The inclusion of their box office takes is deliberate, as this is really what both these movies are about: making as much money as possible off the back of a heavily marketable idea. That the idea is becoming stale (Furious 7) or showing signs of running out of steam already (Avengers: Age of Ultron) is neither here nor there. These movies are guaranteed crowd pleasers, and all the studios that make them have to do is give the fans enough of what they like most to ensure those big box office grosses.

It’s a well-known fact that recent entries in the Fast and Furious franchise have been built around the action sequences: the stunts come first and then a story is created around them. Such an approach isn’t exactly new, but as the series continues, it appears that the writer, Chris Morgan, is fast running out of ways to keep it as real as possible given the absurd, physics-defying world Dominic and his family live in. Morgan has scripted every movie since The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006), and this time round the law of diminishing returns has clearly set in with a vengeance. With its dodgy timescales, crude attempts at characterisation, and action sequences that go on and on and on without ever changing pace (or should that be, gear?), Furious 7 is a movie that believes in its hype so much that it’s forgotten it still needs to make an effort beyond what’s expected of it.

Of course, script revisions had to be made due to the untimely death of Paul Walker, but like so many of the cast, he’s marginalised in a movie that has too many characters and too little time to do much with them apart from put them in continual jeopardy. Brewster is sidelined in the Dominican Republic (admittedly, not so bad), Johnson winds up in hospital until needed at the end, and Walker’s contribution seems reduced to fighting Tony Jaa. But with the script showing more interest in the villains (Statham, Hounsou, Russell maybe) than its heroes, it comes as a bit of a shock to realise that the main characters have nowhere to go – everyone, even Letty with her amnesia, is still the same as they were when they first appeared. Maybe this kind of familiarity is what the fans want but ultimately it just means that future entries – and there are three more planned for release – will continue to mine the same formula and with less satisfying results.

The same problem that occurs in Furious 7 occurs in Avengers: Age of Ultron, namely what to do with so many different characters, especially the new ones. Writer/director Whedon doesn’t appear to be as sure this time round as he was on the first Avengers movie (and it may be why he won’t be helming the two Avengers: Infinity War movies). While he does effective work exploring the personalities and idiosyncrasies of the Avengers themselves – Stark’s continuing egotism, a burgeoning relationship between Bruce Banner and Black Widow (Johansson), where Hawkeye (Renner) spends his downtime – he’s less successful when it comes to the villain, the villain’s sidekicks, and the whole let’s-level-a-city-and-cause-as-much-destruction-as-possible angle.

With so many characters to deal with, it’s inevitable that some of them don’t receive as much attention as others. The introduction of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch is a case in point, with Taylor-Johnson reduced to asking people he’s knocked over if they saw that coming (and not just once), and Olsen saddled with a perma-frown as she casts spells on people. They have a back story but it doesn’t impact on how they behave in the movie, and their teaming up with Ultron seems convenient rather than a well thought out plot development. Likewise, we have appearances by Kretschmann (dispensed with too quickly), Serkis (as an intro to his character’s appearance in Black Panther), and Delpy (as Natasha Romanoff’s childhood instructor). All great actors, and all reduced to walk-ons in the service of the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe.

But all great superhero teams need a great villain, and while Ultron seems to pass muster, the main problem with him is the actor cast to play him. Now it’s not that James Spader is a terrible actor – far from it – but what’s clear from his performance is that, rather than come up with an entirely new characterisation, he’s gone for a slight deviation on Raymond Reddington from The Blacklist… and it’s been encouraged. As a result we have a robot that often sounds whimsical rather than destructive, and petulant when he should be megalomaniacal. Whedon is good at injecting comedy into his movies – here, the throwaway line “No it wasn’t” is used perfectly – but when he tries too hard, as he does with Ultron, the effect is lost, and the viewer could be forgiven for wondering if Ultron is meant to be so eccentric.

On the action front, once again we’re treated (if that’s the right word) to another massive showdown where buildings are levelled, the Avengers fight off an army of attackers (last time the Chi’tauri, this time Ultron’s robots), and the special effects budget goes through the (recently blasted) roof. The whole massive destruction approach is a huge disappointment, having been done to death already in movies such as Man of Steel (2013) and the previous Avengers outing (and even Furious 7 with its car park demolition). (If anyone is listening, please let Thanos take on the Avengers on his own when he finally “does it himself”.)

Ratings:

Furious 7: 6/10 – overblown (though no surprises there) and lacking a coherent story, Furious 7 has all the ingredients the fans love, but as a tribute to the late Paul Walker it falls short; a triumph of hype over content, someone seriously needs to look under the hood before taking this particular baby out for another drive.

Avengers: Age of Ultron: 7/10 – overblown and lacking in any real drama, Avengers: Age of Ultron skates perilously close to being Marvel’s first dud since Iron Man 2 (2010); saved by Whedon’s attention to (most of) the characters, it lumbers through its action set-pieces with all the joy of a contractual obligation.