OVP: Suicide Squad (2016)

Film: Suicide Squad (2016)
Stars: Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje, Cara Delevigne, Ben Affleck
Director: David Ayer
Oscar History: 1 nomination/1 win (Best Makeup & Hairstyling*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

The Oscar Viewing Project is a labor of love, but occasionally it's just a labor.  I frequently say that I never regret seeing any movie at least once, because I learn something new from every film, but man does Suicide Squad test that theory.  Reviled by critics two years ago when it came out, it still made an absolute mint at the box office, enough to well-earn its sequel even if in the process it nearly destroyed the DC franchise in conjunction with Batman vs. Superman (since then Wonder Woman and Aquaman have done damage control, though with both Ben Affleck & Henry Cavill supposedly leaving the series, I wonder what that means for the future of a Justice League).  Suicide Squad managed to become the first movie in the series to win an actual Oscar, meaning that DCEU hit that distinction two years before the MCU did.  With that Oscar nomination, I was forced to watch it, and since I don't want you to have to endure the same fate, here's my review of this travesty of a picture.

(Spoilers Ahead) It's hard to count the ways that Suicide Squad fails on nearly every level, but it starts with the plot.  Unlike The Avengers, which had largely introduced all of the characters before the film, or X-Men, where they have the good sense to pick characters like Wolverine, Magneto, and Professor X who are well-established in pop culture before expanding into Beast or Mystique, no one in this movie (save Harley Quinn & the Joker) is a protagonist well-known to the general public.  Thus the film takes a nearly ten minute detour where Amanda Waller (Davis, a smart casting decision that doesn't pan out due to the script, as Waller is one of the coolest villains in the DC universe) just describes the different bad guys that will eventually make up the Suicide Squad, with us seeing why they're "so incredible" but then watching them become two-dimensional characterizations in the ensuing 90 minutes of movie.  Essentially Waller wants to assemble these guys to be able to fight the likes of a future Superman who isn't so magnanimous, and essentially by blackmailing them into slavery (an aspect of the film that no one seems to have a problem with even though we're off a moral cliff with forming this organization), she hopes to fight a future alien invasion.

Plot is not really essential to the movie that ultimately came about here (though it would have perhaps helped with some of the structural issues of the picture), but essentially that alien is among the Suicide Squad, as the Enchantress (Delevigne) takes over the body of June Moone and tries to destroy the Suicide Squad and enslave the human race.  This gives us a baddie, but weirdly the movie totally ignores the iconic villain at its center, the Joker (Leto), surely saving him for a future film that never panned out properly as Leto is now being replaced by Joaquin Phoenix.

The plotting in the film might have been able to help the picture should it have been well-acted; after all, effects movies can get around bad plotting all the time if there's a charismatic enough lead.  This, however, is not the case.  Will Smith is dreadful as Deadshot, lifelessly going through a film where he has to share the "hero" label with a half dozen other less famous people, and has no chemistry with anyone, including Davis or Robbie, with whom he shares a lot of scenes.  Smith hasn't actually been good in a movie in nearly two decades, so it shouldn't be a shock to see him miss here, but it's still disheartening, because the Will Smith of the 1990's might have breathed some life into this film.  Combined with Davis getting nothing to do, Leto creating a scenery-chewing ham in the Joker, and all of the rest of the cast save one just being two-dimensional (what the hell-Akinnouye-Agbaje can act and lifts Croc-Killer in zero ways), we are given a superhero movie that's not just messy, it's also dull.

The saving grace in the film is Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn, the only thing to recommend here.  Robbie got some random Oscar buzz for the film, which was absurd as this is hardly great acting, but she creates an identity for Harley, lands most of the jokes, and seems to genuinely be having fun.  It's a grand theft movie, to the point where you almost want to fast forward when she's not onscreen, but hats off to her for remembering this is a motion picture rather than just a marketing campaign checklist.

As for the Makeup effects, I have to say they're pretty good.  The hair styles are occasionally too similar, but the makeup work is extensive and realistic, blending well with the special effects.  We'll get to the OVP for this right away in our 2016 rundown, so I'm not going to give away the farm, but this isn't a bad nomination.  It's just a bad movie.