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'Suicide Squad': Wham, Bam, No Thank You, Ma'am

rottentomatoes.com
Don't strive for these 'Suicide Squad' goals.

If all you want is a couple of hours of steady boom crash wham bam, "Suicide Squad" is the movie for you. However, boom crash wham bam is all you're going to get.

The plot is the same old Dirty Dozen schtick about the squad of death row criminals let loose to do a dirty job for the government, combined with the old bit about rescuing the hostages that are being held by the REALLY bad guys.

But don't worry about that. "Suicide Squad" is unconcerned about telling a story that about an hour in, the leader of the good guys finally explains to the good guys what they're trying to do. And by that time, you won't care anymore.

The good guys are all superheroes with supernormal powers, which requires a good deal of exposition so we'll know what their powers are. But never mind that. Despite all the super talents, the weapon everybody seems to rely on is a good old-fashioned machine gun, probably because it makes a lot of noise and splashes pretty flowers of flame with every shot. Will Smith's Deadshot is more impressive with his shooting at targets than when the real action comes, and I think that's an accident because it doesn't have anything to do with either plot or characterization.

Not that anything has much to do with characterization. Margot Robbie, for example, is most mostly limited to looking scared when threatened with physical harm and cackling maniacally when she's not, and she's one of the more developed characters.

Editing of the fights is so sloppy that one shot shows a lot of cartridge cases falling while nobody is firing anything. But "Suicide Squad" opened with box office records. Well, if that's all you want...