Suicide Squad / Birds of Prey Films (Ayer/Yan/Gunn, 2016-2021)

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captveg
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#151 Post by captveg » Fri Aug 05, 2016 2:51 pm

Audience/fan reactions seem to very evenly distributed across the board so far. I've seen every kind from love, like, indifferent, and hate. I kinda don't know what to think going into seeing it tomorrow. I'm hoping I like it no less than than my least favorite MCU film (Thor: The Dark World), which I find mostly forgettable but entertaining enough in the moment to revisit it during MCU marathons. I just don't want it to be outright poor/bad like The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

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solaris72
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#152 Post by solaris72 » Sat Aug 06, 2016 12:24 pm


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Rayon Vert
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#153 Post by Rayon Vert » Sat Aug 06, 2016 1:10 pm

Brad and David thought it was surprisingly Ok-to-almost-good, Sarah not so much. (David saying "we didn't walk out of this one" at the beginning refers to walking out of Hillary's America.) (Includes SPOILERS.)

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tenia
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#154 Post by tenia » Sat Aug 06, 2016 3:57 pm

And as usual, White twists everything to fit his own view of the world.
What an awful read.

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domino harvey
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#155 Post by domino harvey » Sat Aug 06, 2016 5:33 pm

That entire review was one big "[citation needed]"

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captveg
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#156 Post by captveg » Sat Aug 06, 2016 10:01 pm

Some presentation inconsistencies aside (a song score that after 3-4 tracks begins to seem like someone being impatient with their iPod shuffle selections, and a music score that is unremarkable and overly intrusive), the real unfortunate culprit here is a surface level indoctrination into the team we are intended to invest in, mostly via info dump by Waller. I did enjoy a few moments, such as the Joker/Harley scenes and Boomerang's "ya mugs" temperament, but it's too little for me to say I enjoyed the movie enough to overlook my misgivings. As I'm apt to say, I don't care much for plot as I'm mostly drawn in to character and story, specifically *how* a movie is about what it's about. This film doesn't know what it wants to be about, and its characters, which are generally well cast and interesting in their own right, deserve better material. 5/10

DCEU recap for context:

Man of Steel - 10/10
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice UE - 9/10

I'm glad SS is fairly inconsequential to the DC macro story, as I feel just fine leaving it behind and not adding it to my BD shelf.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#157 Post by mfunk9786 » Sun Aug 07, 2016 12:13 am

This was a gigantic mess, the worst feature film I can remember that wasn't made with awareness of its own awfulness (i.e. I wouldn't include something like Sharknado etc). Ayer's biggest sin is his screenplay - nearly every joke falls totally flat, a bizarre combo of the expired milk that is Will Smith trying (and failing) to revitalize his wisecracking Men in Black/Independence Day peak, absolutely abysmal handling of backstories, and sequences with government officials that play like they were written with a 1,000 ton pen. The acting follows suit in all respects, as if somehow filming a movie in pouring "rain" for hours and days would show in the enthusiasm and engagement of the mixed-talent cast - imagine that. Leto's Joker is every joke made about him and more, I kept chuckling to myself about Ken Jennings' Twitter line: "I heard Jared Leto's Joker is so twisted that instead of using playing cards.....he uses Cards Against Humanity cards." There is just no menace there, no illusion that this is a remotely frightening or formidable foe for a particularly musclebound person, let alone a superhero - and of course we're mostly treated to his sentient Hot Topic of a performance in flashback, holding back most of the cringe for the inevitable Joker & Harley squeakquel. Margot Robbie is so charming that her presence here still manages to be the lone bright spot, even if I was left wondering (sometimes aloud under my breath) how anyone saw her fit in a militaristic group of fighters against powerful, ancient forces. She's unhinged, has a baseball bat and cutesy lines, and......that's what she's got. The film does a bad job of explaining her purpose in this crew, but then again, the film does a bad job at everything.

P.S: captveg, I laughed out loud at the "impatient with their iPod shuffle selections" thing - the soundtrack to this film is like someone's recent KaZaA download list from any given early '00s computer - you can smell the inaccurate filenames and poor encoding if you sniff hard enough. Man, Eminem's music has aged very poorly. It was just missing a Smash Mouth "All Star" needle drop.

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Ribs
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#158 Post by Ribs » Sun Aug 07, 2016 12:29 am

This was really not good of course, but I've had my new most uncomfortable moment in a theater ever at the entire theater bursting out in laughter as Batman punched a woman in the face.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#159 Post by mfunk9786 » Sun Aug 07, 2016 12:33 am

Having seen about a minute of Affleck Batman thanks to this film, I never want to see another second.

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captveg
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#160 Post by captveg » Sun Aug 07, 2016 3:05 am

Batman was meh in this movie. The Bruce Wayne scene was solid though.

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Luke M
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#161 Post by Luke M » Sun Aug 07, 2016 9:48 am

Ribs wrote:This was really not good of course, but I've had my new most uncomfortable moment in a theater ever at the entire theater bursting out in laughter as Batman punched a woman in the face.
I was sitting next to a group of college-aged guys and after the shot of Harley lying in her cell unconscious, one of them joked out loud, "I got dibs!" Casual rape jokes in public are hell of a thing.

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dx23
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#162 Post by dx23 » Sun Aug 07, 2016 9:32 pm

I expected this movie to be bad when it was announced, but after seeing it, I can say it's horrible and even worse than Green Lantern. Besides the fact that the writers, producers and directors either neglected the source material or borrowed ideas from the 2 worse source materials (New 52 DC Universe and the Injustice: Gods Among Us game), this movie is simply horribly written, edited, acted and directed. Viola Davis was good as Waller, but here again, these idiots at WB completely missed the point of her character, one of the most interesting ones in the past 25 years of the DC Universe. Same with Robbie and Harley. As for the rest, it was simply horrible. These people are supposed to be villains, cold blooded killers, not bad people with good intentions. I don't need to feel sympathy towards Deadshot. He's a cold blooded bounty hunter and that's why he's supposed to be good for the Suicide Squad.

I really like Jared Leto as an actor. He has worked hard to shed the image of pretty boy and become an incredible actor in the process. Still, his version of the Joker is unbearable. Part has to be blamed as how the character was written for the movie, where the fucking writers believe that the Joker really cares about Harley (he's never cared for her at all as it has been a completely physically, mentally, verbally and manipulative relationship on every single version of the characters until now). But Leto needs to get some of the blame too for the Joker's failure as he came out looking like if Kevin from Home Alone had grown up and become a Joker cosplayer.

What bothers me the most besides this being another completely missed opportunity by DC/WB is the fact that people have come to accept mediocrity as good or better. This whole anti-Rotten Tomatoes bullshit is fanboy mentality at its worst. Suicide Squad has a really good source material and could have become the Guardians of the Galaxy of the DC Cinematic Universe. Instead, it is another mediocre installment for the whole DC films and the fifth one so far (Green Lantern, Jonah Hex, Man of Steel and Batman v Superman being the previous 4). It goes again by saying that the people at WB see these properties with contempt. They only care about them making money and while Disney is letting Marvel do their own thing without too much intervention, WB is doing everything they can to fuck DC up. From idiotic focus groups and bad reviews leading to future movie re-shoots and Zack Snyder, the man who hates comic books, leading the charge, WB has shot themselves on the foot once again. It feels like they didn't learn anything from Superman IV and Batman & Robin.

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captveg
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#163 Post by captveg » Sun Aug 07, 2016 9:46 pm

LOL at saying Snyder hates comic books.

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dx23
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#164 Post by dx23 » Sun Aug 07, 2016 9:55 pm

captveg wrote:LOL at saying Snyder hates comic books.
Well, he basically said that when he did Watchmen.
"Heavy Metal magazine, so she got me a subscription. You could call it €high-brow€ comics, but to me, that comic book was just pretty sexy! I had a buddy who tried getting me into €normal€ comic books, but I was all like, €No one is having sex or killing each other. This isn€™t really doing it for me.€ I was a little broken, that way. So when Watchmen came along, I was, €This is more my scene.€

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captveg
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#165 Post by captveg » Sun Aug 07, 2016 10:13 pm

Because there's only one type of comics, am I right? And you are judge, jury and executioner about what the "right" comics are for people to like. Ok then.

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dx23
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#166 Post by dx23 » Sun Aug 07, 2016 10:46 pm

captveg wrote:Because there's only one type of comics, am I right? And you are judge, jury and executioner about what the "right" comics are for people to like. Ok then.
There's tons of types of comic books and he can like and dislike what he wants. My issue is that he dislikes superhero comic books especially when he's put at the helm of bringing these "normal" comic books to the big screen. Those normal comic books where people don't have explicit sex and kill each other are the ones he's fucking up because he doesn't like the source material.

Basically it would be like if someone disliked normal sports like basketball, baseball and football yet was given the reigns to run ESPN. Doesn't make fucking sense and it shows on the final product. I don't get why you really go out of your way to defend the indefensible.

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captveg
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#167 Post by captveg » Sun Aug 07, 2016 10:50 pm

Because Man of Steel is excellent and BvS is really great. But I don't get why you have to spend so much time trying to justify your dislike of Snyder, so the feeling is mutual.

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dx23
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#168 Post by dx23 » Sun Aug 07, 2016 11:13 pm

captveg wrote:Because Man of Steel is excellent and BvS is really great. But I don't get why you have to spend so much time trying to justify your dislike of Snyder, so the feeling is mutual.
No, they are not. You are in a minority liking those two films, which have been critical failures and have not reached the financial potential that the studio expected of them. I'm not justifying my dislike for Snyder either. You made a snarky remark to my comment about Snyder not liking comic books and I provided an interview in which he states that. It's simply that Suicide Squad is another failure under his belt since he was put as the visionary producer behind these films. It seems that I'm not the only one disappointed in him since he's basically been supplanted by Geoff Johns as the Kevin Feige for the DC Cinematic Universe.

Snyder, Ayers and WB have been killing all the unfulfilled potential the DC Universe has. You keep denying this by simply stating that you like the movies. Well, like I said before, you are in the same minority as Armond White. Again, my biggest gripe is that mediocrity is being accepted as good by fanboys and that DC will keep sinking their properties instead of simply fixing the obvious issues that they have.

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captveg
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#169 Post by captveg » Sun Aug 07, 2016 11:29 pm

dx23 wrote:No, they are not. You are in a minority liking those two films, which have been critical failures and have not reached the financial potential that the studio expected of them. I'm not justifying my dislike for Snyder either. You made a snarky remark to my comment about Snyder not liking comic books and I provided an interview in which he states that.
So, the measure of success is critical opinion upon first release? So I guess you think Carpenter's The Thing is a bad film?

Or are you saying that box office is the measure of success? I point to The Thing again.

Also, can I point out that Man of Steel's RT score is over 50%, which means a "majority of critics" liked it? Or what about general audience scores, which are above 65% for both? Is 65% now a minority %?

I made a snarky remark because you speak in hyperbole and absolutes like you are the God of Film, and I think that's horseshit.

You provided a quote where Snyder says he didn't connect to traditional comics when he was younger. Then you assume that he never had since. That's reading more into it than what he said. There are plenty of interviews where he discusses his love of Superman and Batman. They aren't hard to find.
dx23 wrote:It's simply that Suicide Squad is another failure under his belt since he was put as the visionary producer behind these films. It seems that I'm not the only one disappointed in him since he's basically been supplanted by Geoff Johns as the Kevin Feige for the DC Cinematic Universe.

Snyder, Ayers and WB have been killing all the unfulfilled potential the DC Universe has. You keep denying this by simply stating that you like the movies. Well, like I said before, you are in the same minority as Armond White. Again, my biggest gripe is that mediocrity is being accepted as good by fanboys and that DC will keep sinking their properties instead of simply fixing the obvious issues that they have.
Keep the hate alive, LOL. So salty.

I won't lie to you to say I think MoS is less than excellent no matter how much you want me to conform. Fuck that. You can pound sand for all I care. I'm not gonna ever like Suicide Squad but I don't bitch and moan about it. If you don't like where the DCEU is going stop going to see them. No one is holding a gun to your head. I want these films to be great and 2/3 times I've been satisfied. If you just want me to repeat your thoughts as my thoughts you never will be satisfied, so maybe stop trying.

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domino harvey
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#170 Post by domino harvey » Sun Aug 07, 2016 11:36 pm

Both sides of this debate will be well-served to not cast aspersion on each other. Saying the DC movies are comparatively less-popular or well-received than their Marvel brethren or even other big budget tentpoles is not an outrageous claim. Also, LOLz of all kinds and other hip net/txtspeak haz no place here, please refrain. Claiming Snyder hates comic books based on his earlier, extremely mild derision towards them from years prior, is not especially convincing or likely. Snyder may or may not be well-suited to superhero franchises, DC or otherwise, depending on your viewpoint, but it seems ridiculous to accuse anyone of devoting whole years of their life to initiating and creating movies on a subject matter they hate

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captveg
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#171 Post by captveg » Sun Aug 07, 2016 11:39 pm

I think that's the first time I've ever been called hip, sarcastically or otherwise.

Also note I never stated the MCU films were not more popular. Of course they are.

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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#172 Post by carmilla mircalla » Sun Aug 07, 2016 11:41 pm

100% serious here:

Jai Courtney was the best in the whole movie. I'm glad Tom Hardy left that role.

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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#173 Post by The Narrator Returns » Sun Aug 07, 2016 11:43 pm

Tom Hardy actually left the Rick Flag role.

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captveg
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#174 Post by captveg » Sun Aug 07, 2016 11:44 pm

carmilla mircalla wrote:100% serious here:

Jai Courtney was the best in the whole movie. I'm glad Tom Hardy left that role.
I really liked Courtney, but he was always Boomerang. The role Hardy dropped out of was Flag, played by Joel Kinnaman.
Last edited by captveg on Mon Aug 08, 2016 12:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

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carmilla mircalla
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Re: Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)

#175 Post by carmilla mircalla » Mon Aug 08, 2016 12:22 am

wow. I stand very corrected. Well it's good to know Courtney was always in mind, then. However now that I know Hardy left the Flagg role that is a major disappointment beyond words. Kinnaman is the trash can for me.

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