This post will
probably earn me my own place on a suicide squad, but I’m going to say it
anyways. I’m not a big fan of superhero movies. I try to be—really. I’ve
watched (and own) a decent handful of them, but for whatever reason, they’re
just not my thing. Having said that though—since I’m a walking contradiction—I love Batman. Always have. He’s the one superhero
that I’ve always been drawn too, even as a kid with the television series, and
I think what I like most about him is that he’s in a constant struggle with himself.
Sure, now there’s probably going to be a ton of people that comment on this
telling me that all superheroes are struggling, but guess what? That’s fine and
dandy and I salute you, but I only really care about Batman.
Fun facts:
- I
dig Batman because he’s an ordinary guy (okay, I mean yeah, maybe a billionaire
isn’t ordinary, but whatever) doing something amazing.
- I
love the voice and the suit and the symbol of the bat, as well as the story
behind it.
- Bruce
Wayne’s relationship with Alfred and Lucius hits me right in the feels.
- I’ve
watched all the Batman movies (except when he was fighting Superman… not sure
how I feel about that one yet), and I’ve read a decent bit of the graphic
novels, although not nearly as many as I probably should have because I’m only
really interested in certain villains, Arkham Asylum, and the suicide squad.
- Oh,
and I’m obsessed with the Joker.
That last
one is probably the most important to me when it comes to this DC franchise.
The Joker is everything that I love in a villain—he’s brilliant, destructive,
chaotic, and has a wicked rad sense of humor. I like the idea of him being a jokester and I will probably always have
a soft spot for Jack Nicholson’s version of him, even though my heart will
forever be with Heath Ledger now because when I watched that Dark Knight, my mind exploded. That was
how I envisioned Gotham, how I imagined the mob wars going down, how I wanted
the characters to interact and push each other, but more importantly, it was
everything that I wanted in the Joker: sass, swagger, intensity, madness, and
the willingness to send a message just to keep everyone on their toes.
I could
write about the Joker forever, and maybe someday I will, but what’s relevant to
me right now is what I just saw in Suicide
Squad. Now let me perfectly honest and upfront with everyone when I say
that I was pissed off about this movie as soon as I saw the trailer for it. It
wasn’t anything like that I thought it was going to be, I wasn’t a big fan of
the character development, and when I saw what Jared Leto was doing to my man,
I about had a heart attack. BUT I figured that I couldn’t properly bitch about
this until I went and saw the movie, which I did, yesterday afternoon.
Verdict:
Disappointed, but not as much as I thought I was going to be.
I thought
Will Smith played a wonderful version of Deadshot, and I was actually really
impressed with his portrayal of him. Same with Viola Davis as Amanda Waller and
Jay Hernadez as El Diablo. Count me happy—I thought their performances were
vibrant, very relatable to the graphic novel series, and I believed what they
were selling to me. My only complaint here is that I thought the breaking line
with El Diablo should have had to be worked more---it seemed like he went from
zero to 100 pretty fast at times, and sure, that might be okay for some people,
but I like to see more psychological torment, especially in a character like
him, who for so long, refused to access that side of himself.
I can’t
talk about Killer Croc, yet. It’s too soon.
I’ve never
been more disappointed with a character representation in my life.
But now we
come to Jared Leto as the Joker, and Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. Now like I
said, when I first saw the trailer, I was angry—super angry. I thought they
were making jokes (no pun intended) out of two of my all-time favorite
characters, and in a lot of ways, I didn’t want to see the movie because of
that. So let’s start with the Joker:
- I get that playing the
Joker has to be pressure like one would believe—especially after Ledger’s portrayal
of him. So yeah, if I was going to do this role, I would want to bring
something completely different to the table and do my own thing with the
character. And truth be told, that’s what Leto did. Is it the Joker that I
love? No. But did I hate him like I thought I would? Surprisingly, not.
- I will be honest and
say that I do not like the look of mob-boss-gangster Joker. The tattoos and the
grill don’t do it for me, and nor did the laugh, which I think is a pretty deal
big here. Seriously, have a listen at the laughs over the years. Which one do
you think is the weakest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aweuxVULizg
- And that kind of brings
me to my next point. Was I entertained watching his character? Yes. In fact, my
favorite parts of the movie were when the Joker showed up and started
interacting with Harley, BUT I was never afraid of him and I didn’t think he
came off as crazy. Sure, there’s definitely a few nuts and bolts loose up
there, but I didn’t get the loose cannon, unnerved, tormented, and
genius-deviant that I wanted.
- And hello? The smile
was gone. Another one of my favorite character traits about the Joker is that
no matter how dark he is…he’s always permanently smiling. The cartoon had the razor
sharp giggle, Nicholson brought the stretched out smile with the prankster laugh
to go with it, and Ledger had the scars and the manic hysterical giggle that
made our hair stand on edge. But Leto? The laugh wasn’t there, the smile wasn’t
there, and at one point, it was drawn on his face with black marker or
something, and to me, that just felt insulting to the character.
- But I’m going to play devil’s
advocate here now and give them a pass. Something that I really did like in
means of character development was the tattoo of the smile on his hand. I
thought that worked really well with who/what they were trying to pull off with
this character, and hell, it even made me smile when it first showed up. So I’ll
give them some credit here. Not a lot. But some, because it still upset me.
Now for
dear, dear, Harley.
Like I
mentioned before, I was pretty upset when I saw how Robbie was portraying her.
When I was reading Suicide Squad, I
saw Harley as the perfect companion to the Joker: manipulative, insane, dangerous,
and a woman of strength, power, and cunning. For those of you who know me, you know
that’s what I love in female characters: someone with some bite. But was that
who showed up in the film? Yes and no.
- I
didn’t hate Harley Quinn. In fact, if you put me under a lie detector test, I
would have to tell you that I actually really liked her character. She’s
strong, intelligent, a total bad ass, but still, calm, cool, and collected. I
loved that. I dug the hair, the makeup, and even the wardrobe—which I know a
lot of women will give me shit for, but the thing about this that we have to
remember is Harley’s character is all about confidence. I mean, even her
portrayal in the graphic series is in a corset with high stiletto books. Now mind
you, I would have rather seen the actual costume because I’m a purist with
these things, but I liked her look and how she wore it. In fact, they even had
a throwback in the film where she picked up her jester costume and that
totally made me smile. As a feminist, count me proud. But that’s the only pass
I’m giving here with her looks.
- I could go on a whole
rant about the portrayal of the female form in comics, but I won’t because that’s
not what this blog post is about, but I will say that the response that I’ve
been hearing about Harley’s character isn’t that she’s this brilliant,
beautiful psychopath, but rather that they got to see her ass for most of the movie.
This is where I grow some fangs.
- Margot Robbie is
beautiful, and she looks beautiful in this film. But that’s not the point of
Harley’s character, people! What I wanted to see here was an INTELLIGENT
PREVIOUS-PSYCHOLOGIST LOSE HER IDENTITY WHEN TREATING THE JOKER AND THEN SEE HER
TRANSFORMATION. To some extent, yeah, the movie showed me this and I liked it,
but it didn’t show the struggle. I’m all about conflict, and I think that
conflict has to be earned and showed for something to be pulled off
successfully, and I didn’t buy it. I didn’t see the “I am woman, hear me roar”
element in her, and I saw it in the graphic novel series. I saw how she fell
for the Joker. I saw how she started embracing her crazy. I saw how she became strong and eventually, stood up to
the Joker and told him how she really felt. That wasn’t in the movie—maybe it
will be when she gets her own film, but Christ. Harley is a fucking a brilliant
time-bomb. She’s not just some girl in short shorts carrying a bat. Shame on
you, Hollywood. Shame.
- *Deep
breaths, Wytovich. Deep breaths.*
- So
now that I got that out, I can breathe a bit and talk about some elements I
really did like. I loved how we were first introduced to her: a dancing/hanging
ribbon act in her cell that she made out of what appeared to be a
straitjacket. See, that’s my girl right there: graceful, beautiful, calm, and
deadly. She attacked guards, had to be restrained, and all the while, she still
smiled as giggled and made sarcastic comments, and she pretty much did this throughout the entire film, which I
thought was true to her character.
- I
liked that she went rogue and made it very apparent that this was a girl who
was going to make her own decisions, and make them when she wanted and as she
pleased so high five, feminism. But while I don’t want to spoil a whole lot
here for people who haven’t read the graphic novel series, while I dig the
toxic relationship between her and the joker for the plot (and seriously folks, that’s what it is—a toxic,
abusive relationship. Let’s not romanticize it), I think there were a lot of
elements missing here that showed her strength when it comes to love and
standing up for herself, and being a woman. And again, maybe that’s why she’s
getting her own movie and we’ll see it there, but I missed that in this film,
and that tarnished it for me.
- Devil’s Advocate: did I hate what
they did to their story line, though? No. In fact, I kind of really enjoyed
seeing how the Joker and Harley interacted with each other outside of Arkham,
and I liked seeing the hold she had/has over my favorite villain. Did I buy it
though? Not completely.
So I have
some feelings. Some of them are warranted, some of them are me bitching because
I’m a purist, and some of them are legit problems that I think a lot of people
would agree on when it comes to character development. I don’t think the movie
was a total failure, but I don’t
think that it stands up to the momentum that we had with The Dark Knight series. The vibe felt off for me, the cheesy neon
colors and backdrop of the film felt weird and misplaced, and like I said, I
didn’t feel afraid of these most wanted, dangerous criminals.
Except for
Deadshot. I think he’d just about kill anyone if he had a legit reason to.
Overview:
- Would
I watch the movie again? Yes
- Would
I pay to watch the movie again? No
- Should
you pay to watch the movie in theaters? I would wait till you can rent it.