Movie Talk - Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman

Before I get to Justice League, I wanted to make this important pit stop. Here are the other DCEU movies: Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman. I got to see both of these in theaters when they were released. I thought I’d hold off getting to them until now. Since I wanted to see these again, I was able to find them both for pretty decent prices. That definitely came in handy with Suicide Squad since… well, that would be spoiling, wouldn’t it?

Suicide Squad

The movie was released during August of 2016 and it was directed by David Ayer. The movie is about the formation of Task Force X, aka “The Suicide Squad.” Government official Amanda Waller forms a team of supervillains in order to use them on covert missions. Their first mission comes up quickly because the Enchantress, one of the squad members, goes rogue and takes over Midway City. The Squad is supposed to go in and achieve their objective without failing. If they don’t, they’ll be discarded and blamed for the incident.

Ooo... this makes for a good trailer shot!

I thought this was okay for the most part. It has its problems but it is an entertaining watch. All of that goes down the cast ensemble. Pretty much everyone (save a couple) fit their roles well. This might be the first time I thought Jai Courtney and Joel Kinnerman (that accent was a little much) were actually kind of likable. My favorites were Will Smith as Deadshot, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Jay Hernandez as El Diablo, and Viola Davis as Amanda Waller. I just want to give who ever got Viola Davis in that role a huge hug because that was perfect casting.

Perfect.

If you want to see the Suicide Squad form up and do their thing, you definitely get that here. There are even some cameos from other heroes and they are pretty effective. The Joker and Captain Boomerang are involved, so you can guess who they are. The action is good for the most part. It can be a little shaky here and there, but it is entertaining. At times, the songs used for certain characters actually work. You can throw in Kanye West’s “Black Skinhead” anywhere and it’ll work for me.

Now, this does have some problems. The villain isn’t all that good. While having one of the Squad as the bad guy was interesting, it wasn’t handled well. The only stuff the Enchantress did that was okay was creating those soldiers and displaying her “awesome” hip moves. Those hips definitely don’t lie. Then, there’s Jared Leto’s weird rendition of the Joker. They tried to do something different with him and I can’t say it worked here. I know why he’s in the movie, but was he really needed that much?

Deadshot: So... you hooked up with Shakira? 

Rick Flag: Yeah. So? Can we try not to kill my girlfriend? I like those hips!

The movie can also be a bit uneven.  You get some dull moments here and there. We even get a few weird moments for some characters. I know Waller is pretty cold, but there was something she did here that I don’t think she’d normally do. Some characters like Katana and Killer Croc are left with little to do. The pop songs that got used felt uneeded. Some of them worked, but others didn’t.  It was like someone forgot to turn off the dang radio or something. Also, it looked like someone just saw Guardians of the Galaxy and thought that could work for the Squad. In the end, while it isn’t that good, I can’t call it a total loss.

Well... "meh."

Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman was released during June of this year. It’s pretty much the origin of Diana, princess of Themyiscara. During the tail end of World War 1, Steve Trevor’s plane crashes on the island and Diana gets her first taste of the outside world. She leaves her people to help Steve with the war since she believes Ares is behind it. When she reaches the outside world, she learns that things aren’t so black and white. She also finds out that she is more powerful than she thinks she is.

Okay, it's official. This is the best Suicide Squad.

I thought this was pretty good one. Pretty much everything is firing on all cylinders here. The whole cast is good. Gal Gadot is still pretty cool as Wonder Woman. I liked that she got to do more than just kick loads of butt. She gets to do the whole range here and she even eats ice cream. I also liked her relationship with Captain Kir—I mean, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). The rest of the cast is also a treat. Etta Candy was funny and Steve’s team was pretty cool.  The Amazons of Themyiscara (I’ll never spell that right) were also quite nice. Ares as the villain was even pretty cool as well.

Funny moment.

The story is your standard origin story and it succeeds for the most part. I thought it was interesting to set this during WW1. Diana gets to learn about herself and the world at large. The humor is also really good here. The locations were quite nice even though there’s some CGI used. It’d be tough to get a war-torn London these days. The action was really good here. If you like her in Batman V. Superman, you’ll definitely like her here. The scene where we see her in the full costume was pretty awesome.

Beautiful.

While I liked the movie, it did have a couple of issues. While I liked Ares, he did feel a little underwritten. I did like the twist with his character. The rest of the villainous characters were fine, though. The final act felt a little rushed since a lot of stuff is thrown at us. Other those things and a couple of small things, this was a good movie. We finally have a female-led superhero movie that is actually good!

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In the end, we got one subpar movie and one pretty good movie. While opinions may vary, I can say that these two are successes in my mind. I have more to say about the DCEU as a whole, but I’ll save that for later. I’ve gotta get ready for work, so I’m outta here. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and if you are going to have an evil supervillain team, leave off the witch.