The entry was hailed as DC's equivalent of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy in that it would be a fun, offbeat, albeit slightly darker, story in a universe of gods and monsters. The problem is that the writers failed to develop any sense of agency in its characters and simply threw them into a blender to make a very bad tasting super-villain smoothie. Like one of those avocado vegan ones that no one likes. Here are the mistakes that knocked the film off course.
Too many team members
The total number of squad members is eight. That's eight characters, none of which have ever been seen on the big screen, that have to be introduced plus the villain and supporting cast. Some of the squad, like Deadshot and Harley, were center stage, while others were on the periphery, which is fine, but since they all had some sort of personal story, it got very crowded. They didn't need all those characters since some of them did nothing of use. Here's what their lineup should have been:
- Deadshot: the marksman
- Harley Quinn: the vixen
- Killer Croc: the muscle
- Captain Boomerang: the thief OR Katana: the assassin
- El Diablo: the firepower
- Rick Flag, the team leader.
This lineup emphasizes different skills that a special operations team should have. It's not too crowded, all the characters can maintain their stories without stepping on the others and everyone would get a chance to shine in the final fight. In the current version, Boomerang, Katana, and Slipknot did nothing for the story and were, at best, fighting for screen time.
Wrong Villain
The first act of the film that introduces the squad was the strongest part of the film. Once the main villain enacted her evil plan, the entire premise of the film was pointless. SPOILER ALERT ***The Enchantress was intended as a member of the squad, but she betrayed her overlords and created some giant, and extremely vague, spell to destroy the world. *** This is a pretty public spectacle with beams of light into the sky and everything. Shit gets real very early on, and zonce that happens, its already a bigger problem than a group of untrustworthy misfits should be handling. Batman and the Flash both appear in the character intros, and Wonder Woman was seen in the last film, yet when everything hits the fan, they're nowhere to be found.
The Suicide Squad should be fighting something a little more grounded and hidden. Something that wouldn't draw the attention of the major superheroes until its too late. Keep in mind, the squad is formed by the government. They should be fighting the government's enemies, not the world's enemies. It's a small, but necessary, distinction that defines the dysfunctional relationship between the squad and their handlers. The CW show Arrow handled this relationship a lot better. I'm not saying the villain couldn't be planning to destroy the world, but it should have been much more subtle.
Wasting the Joker
This is related to the last point, but the Joker was completely wasted in the main story. While the intro between Harley and the Joker hits most of the right story points, there's one critical component missing: abuse. The pair have a wildfire romance and crazy passion, but at no point does the Joker mistreat Harley as he's known to do frequently in the comics and animated media. This steers Harley's story in the wrong direction, since she spends a lot of time expressing how much she misses her "puddin". Joker has only a couple scenes in the main story where he momentarily delays the squad's mission in an attempt to rescue Harley. It's a short beat that goes nowhere.
The story would have been stronger if the Joker was more central to the conflict. Harley's story should have been about her break with the Joker. The primary reason her character is considered so powerful in the comics is that she suffered a very abusive relationship with the Joker and eventually left him to come into her own, with a few relapses. This film was in the perfect position to tell the story of how the Joker turned her, abused her, and she eventually overcame that to be part of the squad. Alas, the opportunity was wasted. Harley is one of the film's few perks, but the Joker is just a piece of forced backstory.
Rushing to Nowhere
A good twenty minutes of the film is spent introducing all the members of the squad. After that, it's like the film decided it was moving too slow and rushed into the main conflict. I mean one scene has the government approving the idea to form the squad, the next scene has the villain very publicly starting her evil plan, and the next scene after that is the squad being deployed to deal with it. This team hasn't been tested as a group, hasn't been trained to work together, nothing to develop them as a team rather than just cannon fodder. They're just thrown into the deep end with the tenuous hope they can save the day. Like I said, the nature of the situation called for other things to be tried before using the Suicide Squad. On top of that, it should have been a much slower burn. Something akin to a covert operation that goes wrong. Most of the film felt like a really long and drawn out climax, rather than a gradual buildup to a showdown.
Conclusions
It puts the DC universe in a sad state when, so far, the controversial Man of Steel is easily the strongest entry. It's difficult to speculate why so many odd scripting decisions were made, but I think the simple answer is too many different cooks in the kitchen. Marvel Studios has a unified front of directors, writers, and producers who understand their characters and the direction each film needs to go to contribute to the larger whole. I sense that Warner Bros. has a conflict between directors and writers who know the characters vs studio execs who are want to replicate previous successes vs producers trying to coddle to complaints and criticism.
Someone on Reddit posted the situation quite accurately.
"Every time I walk into a Marvel film, I wonder if it will be the bad one. Every time I walk into a DC film, I wonder if it will be the good one."
When audiences walk into Wonder Woman next year. They'll still be wondering.
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