Whoa! I had to come off the internet last night after wave after wave of negativity hit me.
NOT aimed at me. At a movie. Suicide Squad.
I did say that I wondered why all the focus was on Jared Leto's Joker but, far, far more predominantly, about how tiny and tight Margot Robbie's pants were. Photos and screen shots became the fan-boy stroke image. Come on -we all knew that. And her image as Harley Quinn is being used to the point of....well, brain numbing (those tight pants appear to be a gift to comic artists).
But I did not think the movie would get this sort of reaction! Cole Delbyk at Huffington Post sums it up.
Here Are The Most Savage ‘Suicide Squad’ Reviews Before You Waste Time And Money
After months of unsettling stories about Jared Leto’s unusual penchant for gift-givingand Margot Robbie’s hot pants, “Suicide Squad” finally opens in theaters nationwide on Friday to much fanfare.
But as the first reviews for the “Batman v Superman” follow-up have begun to roll in, it’s become clear that the movie’s marketing machine has disguised what one critic called “a dizzying, deranged hot mess.” Reviews so scathing, mind you, that “Suicide Squad” die-hards have been fooled into thinking a petition to shut down Rotten Tomatoes is something that actually exists.
Read a collection of some of the most brutal below:
“Suicide Squad” is bad. Not fun bad. Not redeemable bad. Not the kind of bad that is the unfortunate result of artists honorably striving for something ambitious and falling short. “Suicide Squad” is just bad. It’s ugly and boring, a toxic combination that means the film’s highly fetishized violence doesn’t even have the exciting tingle of the wicked or the taboo. (Oh, how the movie wants to be both of those things.) It’s simply a dull chore steeped in flaccid machismo, a shapeless, poorly edited trudge that adds some mildly appalling sexism and even a soupçon of racism to its abundant, hideously timed gun worship. But, perhaps worst of all, “Suicide Squad” is ultimately too shoddy and forgettable to even register as revolting. At least revolting would have beensomething.
Harley Quinn is an embodiment of all the conflicting things this frankly disastrous new movie, choppily written and directed [by] David Ayer, is attempting to do. She’s meant to be fun in her I’m so cra-azy way, but she’s also a woman in an abusive relationship the movie has no idea how to handle. She’s supposed to be strong, and in the literal sense, she does bash things with a baseball bat. But she’s also a psychological prisoner who has surrendered her sense of self. She’s a goth icon who talks like a 1930s gangster moll and who owns a gun reading ‘love’ and ‘hate’ on the barrel, but in her deepest heart, all she wants is to be a housewife in curlers, looking after the kids while her green-haired hubby heads off to work. She’s anarchic, but not really, and a good time, but not really, and she’s fucked up, but not really — or at least, not really in a way the movie’s ready to take time to explore. Sure, Harley is a tricky character, but she’s been shaped into an intensely sexualized mascot for a film that yearns for edginess, but can’t get over the rounded curves of its female lead.
A series of tactical skirmishes with faceless minions — semi-zombies that can be slaughtered en masse, without a second thought — leads to a big final showdown. Spoiler alert: It’s essentially the final showdown from ‘Ghostbusters’ and at least a half-dozen other recent blockbusters, with a few differences of what I guess we should call nuance. You can safely duck out of the theater and spend a good 20 minutes on the claw machine or Instagram, slipping back in to catch the final song and the sequel-teasing extra scene during the end credits.
How early will the fanboys who flock to see “Suicide Squad” — smug in the knowledge that they’ve won the day, that Hollywood is now desperate to cater to their tastes above all others’ — admit that they’re watching the year’s most muddled piece of storytelling? Will they say, “Enough!”? Or will they vent over the damage to their favorite characters and promptly move on to debating who should direct the next stupid, overblown “Suicide Squad” movie?
oh shit. Well...I know it's just reviews and those can be misleading... but it looks at this rate that unless the JUSTICE LEAGUE movie is a big BIG BIG hit, DC movies will be done and dusted. Side note - off to the bank Monday to sort out my credit card. Opening a new account at a new bank. Let's see how that goes. Glad you got the package a few days ago, hope you enjoyed it, and, of course, enjoy the Expo on the weekend. See ya.
ReplyDeleteI haven’t seen this film yet (and it’s not on my list to view either- possibly for DVD) but it sounds to me like it is taken directly from the current comics i.e. senseless, muddled, violent and bland. If you work with poor source material (the current comic) you’re gonna get an awful product. I agree DC /Time Warner films are on the verge of being no more, maybe they could do a film based on one of their characters that is entertaining and based on earlier more accessible versions of the characters (i.e. as they were originally meant to be seen) – “another nail….”
ReplyDelete"...in the coffin of my childhood memories." It is surprising that with characters as strong as the DC line up, and with successful TV shows ( both old and new ) they can't get it together in the movies. Poor source material - for sure. But there is something else going on, I think, and it's to do with not knowing how to tell a story. It seem to me ( and perhaps it's something to do with too many cooks ) that story telling - the thing that makes classic movies like Casablanca classic - has been pushed aside in favour of 'WOW Factor' moments. For example - SUPES vs BATS was full of great scenes ( though dark ) ... but the story seemed to be an after thought. Almost an excuse for the action - not the reason for it. Ah well. Off to sleep.
ReplyDeleteIt's very difficult to write scripts for characters that are not from the comics and when the ones in the comics have changed so much. Suicide Squad was first seen in September...1958...1959 and was created by Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. Ordinary people. In the 1980s (1987?) it was back and written primarily by John Ostrander. The core team of the Suicide Squad consisted of Rick Flag, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, Nightshade, the Enchantress and Bronze Tiger -but if I remember (all my copies are in a box somewhere) there were other villains such as the Penguin. I can't say I really bought into the idea that the villains would work with something called "The Suicide Squad" but there were some good stories (I think Task Force X was introduced in Byrne's Legends series?). After that the DC characters have been killed, rebooted, killed, rebooted, killed, rebooted so much that from what I last saw it was..shit. The current news is that "fans" -?- are up in arms over the movie. I REALLY hope they pull off Justice League though when I saw the clips I thought it was a TV show...selected scenes, though! I think DC just lost the movie plot anyway -they have a TV universe full of Flash, Supergirl, Arrow, etc., but those are NOT in the movies though it would have made sense -just as building on the actors and TV universe created by Smallville would have meant a lot of the pre-movie world was sorted. They only care about money -if the TV Flash is so good WHY couldn't the movie version be THAT actor? Means more people will go for the TV shows than the movies.
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