The Suicide Squad

[Khyber53]

Won't give any spoilers, but what did you think?

Tons of laugh out loud moments, surprises throughout and good story. Bringing back one of the old time world-threatening supervillains was great.

 

[CanePantherHornet]

I liked it a lot. It really captures the feeling of the comics with lots of dark comedy, colorful characters, and ridiculous situations. It probably has the best action of any DCEU movie so far.

[Squirrel]

Yeah good movie. 

[SOJA]

Pretty good, pretty violent. Idk maybe I'm just getting softer as I get older. 

 

[Khyber53]

19 minutes ago, SOJA said:

Pretty good, pretty violent. Idk maybe I'm just getting softer as I get older. 

 

Can't argue about the violence. That first 15 minutes were brutal and totally unexpected!

[Captroop]

I loved it. Best DCEU movie. Best movie to come out streaming since the pandemic. I'm glad DC gave James Gunn the ability to kill off characters and make a movie with an R-Rating. Freaky. fuged up. Hilarious. It's James Gunn playing to his strong suit.

And he writes such a tight script. It's amazing how quickly he plows through Act One and the exposition and gets right into the action without feeling like it's being rushed, or skipping on character development. I don't know how he does it, but it's really impressive.

But what I think is the most impressive is his ability to get the most out of his actors. John Cena had me half convinced he could act. And Storm Reid, wow. Never gave her a thought after that totally forgettable Wrinkle in Time movie, but she totally blew me away in her first scene with Idris Elba. I had to look up the actress because she nails that scene.

And the first 10 minutes is about the funniest thing I've seen in a movie since the X-Force air drop scene in Deadpool 2.

[Zaximus]

I don't know how this movie works.... but it does and very well.  I guess Gunn so I shouldn't be surprised it was like a rated R more weird version of Guardians.  

[Khyber53]

16 hours ago, Captroop said:

 

And he writes such a tight script. It's amazing how quickly he plows through Act One and the exposition and gets right into the action without feeling like it's being rushed, or skipping on character development. I don't know how he does it, but it's really impressive.

 

16 hours ago, Captroop said:

And the first 10 minutes is about the funniest thing I've seen in a movie since the X-Force air drop scene in Deadpool 2.

A lot of movies can learn from that quick dash through exposition (do we really need to revisit the Batman origins for the umpteenth time, or Spider-man's?) 

And yeah, that first 10 minutes are just jaw-dropping. Literally turns you upside down in what you think the movie is about. Don't want to spoil it for anyone, but wow!

 

[Squirrel]

6 hours ago, Khyber53 said:

 

A lot of movies can learn from that quick dash through exposition (do we really need to revisit the Batman origins for the umpteenth time, or Spider-man's?) 

And yeah, that first 10 minutes are just jaw-dropping. Literally turns you upside down in what you think the movie is about. Don't want to spoil it for anyone, but wow!

 

Spiderman is all Sonys doing they don't want his character expanded beyond high school. 

[d-dave]

I finally sat down and watched it a week ago.  Man, what a fun fun movie!

I loved how Idris Elba was completely tired of everyone's crap.  Such a wonderful character!  Though I think King Shark stole the show for me.  And Polk-a-Dot man was wonderfully done with such a heartbreaking story.

It was really good James Gunn work.  The lesson that DC should learn is to trust it's directors, and not freakout about it's IP.  Well, they should also learn that having a strong visionary at the helm helps a lot instead of a bunch of pencil pushers.  That helps a lot too.  Oh an light.  Being able to see the actors is good!

[Captroop]

4 hours ago, d-dave said:

It was really good James Gunn work.  The lesson that DC should learn is to trust it's directors, and not freakout about it's IP.  Well, they should also learn that having a strong visionary at the helm helps a lot instead of a bunch of pencil pushers.  That helps a lot too.  Oh an light.  Being able to see the actors is good!

This is such a double edged sword. On the one hand, in principle, I totally agree. I'm kind of stoked about the big studios giving more creative control to these visionary directors. Because I'd love to see a return to 1970s auteurism, when you had maniacs like Martin Scorsese, William Friedkin, and Francis Ford Coppola just doing mountains of blow and having total creative control without studio interference.

BUT on the other hand, probably the biggest example of when studio micromanagement worked and auteurism utterly failed occurred at the exact same time, very recently. You had the Marvel cinematic universe, which was completely planned out and their IP clenched with an iron fist by Marvel Studios, and you had Star Wars, with complete creative control handed over to some very creative filmmakers, and that was probably one of the biggest flops in motion picture history. Sure they made money, but let's put if this way, do you think anyone would buy the Star Wars brand for the $4 Billion Disney bought it for back in 2012 right now? As a Star Wars fanboy, Abrams and company did what I never thought was possible; they made me lose interest in Star Wars.

I think the lesson to be learned from Suicide Squad and James Gunn is this; lower the stakes.

These studios have properties with back catalogs of characters thousands deep that no one gives a poo about. Instead of making ANOTHER Batman movie, dig up Polka Dot Man, dig up Shazam!, dig up Groot, hand the reigns over to a really innovative filmmaker, give them $140M to make a movie, and see if you knock one out of the park. Not everything has to be a Justice League, or an End Game, with all of your most famous characters, and the biggest name actors, and if it makes less than $1 Billion worldwide, you're losing money.

And you know what? If you hit, you've got a whole new cash cow you can milk instead of trying to wring every last cent out of Superman. Guess what, I've got a Groot planter sitting right next to me in my office. How much was the Groot IP worth in 2010?

[Khyber53]

True, it's worth a roll of the dice. Sometimes a guy like James Gunn comes around and just starts making hits. He did a great job with Guardians and The Suicide Squad, but he also went into battle with a bunch of nearly forgotten characters, which may have helped him immensely. He won the fanboys, he wasn't made to work with the big guns like Superman or Iron Man, the Hulk or Batman. 

He got to work his vision and create cinema versions of characters most people had never heard of. I'd been reading the Guardians of the Galaxy since back in the day when it was Vance Astro, Charlie-27, Yondu, Martinex and Nikki, but I loved that he ran with the second version of the team then tipped his hat to the originals with the Ravagers. Most folks just got to enjoy a rollicking good time in a sci-fi AND superhero blockbuster series. And it just worked.

And for The Suicide Squad he was somehow able to keep the studios from inserting Jared Leto's terrible version of the Joker into the story (that scenery chewing performance by Leto almost ruined Ayer's Suicide Squad movie for no real effect). Really, Harley Quinn was the only character most folks knew and that was in his favor. He did cast some relatively big names, though, and played them beautifully in the first invasion group for wonderful shock effect. 

Still, Gunn has the advantage of being a good filmmaker who just really needed a vehicle that fit his style. He got it from both franchises. Lest we think it's easy to do, remember that acclaimed directors Ang Lee and Edward Norton both managed to screw up The Hulk because, well, they just didn't fit the material.

[Zod]

I watched 3/4 of it and turned it off. Didn't care anything about any of the characters. 

[Khyber53]

2 hours ago, Zod said:

I watched 3/4 of it and turned it off. Didn't care anything about any of the characters. 

Dang. Well, at least you gave it a shot.