Well, well, well. What have we here?

No, not you, Sandy Claws. Me. Frog. I’m reviewing films now for my old partner in crime (not real crime, though – just the kind against theatre, and even then they were more misdemeanours)  Unshaved Mouse.

I’ll be posting probably about once a week with a new rant / rave (likely rant) about the most recent film what I saw. I’m new to the blogging world, so let’s all go on a journey through my damaged psyche, because the first film  I viewed for you lovely internet-people was… well…

Now I know what you’re thinking –  Who the hell are any of these people?

The answer is that I don’t know, even less so after viewing the film.

Suicide Squad represents some aggressively bad film-making, both in the technical sense and also in the sense that the people who made it are worryingly cynical, sexist, and aggressive.

9 C-list DC characters are introduced in this movie. Let’s try and remember them all, shall we?

 

 

Jesus….

I mean, there’s a lot of these guys already, I’m fading fast here. Do these people know each other, at least?

Nope. They all meet for the first time about 30 minutes into the film.

That first 30 minutes tho

Clearly remoulded frantically  after the catastrophic  Batman V Superman, the first twenty minutes of Suicide Squad represents 6  films  summarized in six 2-minute bursts of short-hand, outrageously written character “building”. Colours fly at the screen in pop-art screams, accompanied by squealing guitar licks and rad back-flips, probably, I don’t know I blacked out for a bit in the middle there.

It’s like the intro to Cartman’s “Dawg The Hall Monitor” Parody  had a baby with a packet of sour Skittles.

Bat-fleck pokes his head in briefly for some contractually-obligated electronically altered MEGAVOICE. He’s like the Jeb! of superheroes at this stage.

So does The Flash, which is just confusing as the most I’ve seen of him is in the trailer for a film coming out AFTER THIS FILM.

I most certainly will not.

Despite each segment arriving like it’s own hit of acid, the episodic introduction of Deadshot (Superpower – GUNPORN),  Harley Quinn (Superpower – High-Class Prostitute, former Psychiatrist), the incredibly named CAPTAIN BOOMERANG (Power : Is not Tom Hardy like I thought, has entirely useless Boomerang), Killer Croc (Power : Is a Monster),  Slipknot (Superpower : Instant, meaningless death 5 minutes after introduction), Katana (Power : I shit you not, it’s a magic sword that gets it’s own flashback well over halfway through the film) and El Diablo (Power : Mild Racism, Can shoot Fire but won’t YET because reasons) proves mind-numbing.

They are cobbled together by a legitimately tired looking Viola Davis.  She cannot believe she is in the film. Neither could I.

The team are cobbled together because one member of the team has ALREADY gone rogue.

She goes rogue before meeting her team-mates.

It’s astonishing.

Meet “The Echantress”, everybody.

Yes, that’s right – she’s  a spooooooky witch that comes straight from Brendan Fraser’s The Mummy series. Her alter-ego (played by non-actor model Cara Delavigne) is a trained archaeologist who immediately snaps the head off a cursed item the moment she’s introduced so as to serve as the BIG BAD of the film.

Think about this carefully, now, folks.

The Suicide Squad is formed ….. because the Suicide Squad is formed….. because the Suicide squad was formed…. in order to stop the sui…. The S-

It’s astonishingly circuitous writing that no-one sat still long enough to think through to its logical end. The Enchantress, as conceptualised and deployed in this film, is some of the worst writing I have ever witnessed in anything ever.

She’s also somebody’s love interest, because really now there’s too many people so let’s combine as many “motivations” as possible. That lover is Rick Flagg, who Tom Hardy was initially cast as. What I would have given to see him give this entire enterprise the crazy-eye.

 

Instead, Flagg is played by Joel Kinnaman whose hair keeps changing length because of how many months apart his scenes were re-shot after everyone realised they were terrible.

The craft of this film is nothing short of criminal. Characters walk to the left of each other and then are sitting behind them on their right as they turn in the opposite direction. People look in the wrong direction and talk as if they can still see each other. Close-up after close-up suggests none of the actors ever physically met. 15 – 20 mega popular songs (BCUZ DATS WOT I LIKE ‪#‎Rockstar‬ #Interminable #WhymeJesus? ) are laid over scenes where they don’t match the cuts, and dialogue is uttered over song lyrics. They literally said “Let’s do what Marvel did with Guardians” and then ACTUALLY STEAL SPIRIT OF THE SKY FROM THAT MOVIE WITHOUT REALISING.

Everything is tinted purple and green for the first 20 minutes before the re-shoots run out of money and we return to the permanently (even in daytime) dark first cut of the film, where everyone is angry and suspicious but nobody can articulate why.

Characters enter and leave the film randomly. Sword woman turns up to the greeting “You’re late” before having her introductory flashback. The Fire Dude is actually in the 2nd act of his 2nd solo film, where he’s given up his powers before being inspired to burn EVERYTHING in a 12 mile radius 3 times over.

But let’s talk about the elephant in the room.

No, not that one.

The treatment of Harley Quinn (and women in general) in this film represents something very dark in modern society. Rolled out in hotpants in the pissing rain to tweak the moustaches of all the men and spout wise-cracks as she buttons every scene by walking out of frame seductively, she is a dangerous character to write into a wide-release film in 2016.

The treatment of women in the film is just wrong. Outright wrong.

El Diablo has a flashback to his motivational dead wife in which he slaps her ass. In his HAPPY MEMORY.

He is tricked by the witch into having a dream of her alive and his two dead kids are alive again too but  the dream is ACTUALLY THAT SHE’S PUTTING THE KIDS TO BED SO THEY CAN BANG and it’s somehow both racist and sexist at the same time.

Will Smith (a real-life father to a pop-star daughter) encourages a character to slap the evil witch on the ass in order to stop her.

In his (disarmingly late) introduction into the film 3 seconds before his head explodes (literally), Slipknot punches a woman in face and when questioned offers “She has a mouth, don’t she?” as some kind of reason.

 

I’m sorry. That is not funny. That is not funny at all. No.

Man, what can I talk about that’s not depressing? Oh….

There was something else… in the film…. that was….

 

What… what was it…. the other Elephant in the room….

 

OH LORD JESUS

JARED LETO

JARED LETO

JARED MOTHERHUMPING LETO

JARED LETO is in this film for 12 minutes as … something.

Is he the Joker?

No.

Not really.

He is Jared Leto ACTING at the TOP OF HIS FUCKING LUNGS.

He confuses breathing heavily and twitching with having presence. He is a preening narcissist version of a character that represents selfless anarchy. He disappears and reappears at will, not caring if you, the audience, know or indeed care why, or even if you want to. He is embarrassingly self-aware and is trying so hard at acting you can see his Ren and Stimpy veins popping under his Damaged Forehead Tattoo. He wears pimp rings and a pimp coat and has a pimp cane. Every other actor onscreen with him looks like they don’t trust him (the actor, not the character) and it is so distracting as to be laughable.  He is astonishingly, award-worthily atrocious.

The entire film is insulting sexist shit made for stupid sexist people.

Do not take children to see this. It’s not alright.

Frog out.