Finally saw it and it's frustratingly close to being acceptable, but there are some small victories that make it worth a watch.
SPOOOOOOIIIIIILLLLLLLEEEEEEEERRRRRSSSSSSSSThe story had some strong character beats, but faltered in other places. Deadshot and Harley Quinn had multiple character introductions, and Amanda Waller assembling the Squad just for "safety" at the beginning, while introducing the premise pretty well, does have an effect of opening the story without any urgency, which I think is why I see people saying it starts out slow.
To elaborate on that, the threat of the Enchantress doesn't show up until the end of act 1, which means our plot doesn't start for a solid 30ish minutes (wild estimate). Those first 30 minutes are spent on repetitive character introductions that could have been much stronger if done economically in response to the threat.
I hate to make a Marvel comparison but this is very similar to THE AVENGERS, with a shady leader of an organization assembling a team of metahumans to combat a larger threat, so I feel it's apt. THE AVENGERS opens directly with what that threat will be, and the rest of the movie before the big battle in NYC is about seeing if this team can be assembled, which is where the drama comes from. In SUICIDE SQUAD... we see the characters gathered up for little more than "precaution," then something actually happens and we can have something to drive our plot.
Talk about a late start.
As far as the direction/editing goes (it's important to lump those two together with this movie, for reasons I'll link to later)... it's great sometimes and not so great at other times, which averages out to pretty okay. It mostly gets the job done, but not always in the most interesting or effective way. It's like the director thought of how he wanted to shoot the film, and went with the first shot list/storyboards he came up with with little thought put into what exactly he wanted to communicate with the images. There are some great sequences (Joker and Harley in the chemicals vat is deliciously sensual in the most twisted way), but most of it's the bare minimum. Even the action scenes are dull, mostly sticking with medium shots or close ups rather than going wide to let us see the action. It's pretty lame, if we're going to be honest.
Furthermore, many of the needle drops are clearly meant to have the movie stay in line with the trailers. Harley's whole "the voices" exchange is most indicative of this; the background song just keeps playing with no change in volume and the whole thing just plays out like a high schooler first discovering how to use iMovie. There's no inflection in the edit, nothing to make the moment standout other than the blandest mediocrity. I really think these moments were a later decision to have the movie stay in line with what the trailers presented, which would make sense because otherwise the director would shoot the scene in order to cut to the music, rather than just laying it on top.
Some research suggests I'm not too far off:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/suicide-squads-secret-drama-rushed-916693The villain, Enchantress, starts out being really cool and has some great creepy imagery (kudos to Ayer for that; he is a pretty talented director, and many of her moments show that), and I like how she sent the visions to the Squad of what they want (I even choked up a little), but she's bland otherwise, especially when she gets her heart. You could substitute her with other characters and get the same thing done.
As far as other antagonists go, Amanda Waller is great. Viola Davis is a phenomenal actress, bringing both strength and pathos to a despicable character, and she commands the screen whenever she arrives. This was brilliant casting, supported by a fantastic performance. (If you stay for the credits, you can even see her in a great scene with Ben Affleck; the two play really well off of each other).
As for the "heroes," the standouts are Deadshot and El Diablo. Will Smith is a true movie star, and his charisma is mostly what carries the movie. He's always funny and easily sells how much the character loves his daughter. While his character isn't as fleshed out as I want him to be (we're never given any context for his Biblical references), Smith makes up for it with pure acting ability.
Jay Hernandez makes a huge impression too. Everything about his performance makes you sympathize with Diablo; his line delivery, body language, and facial expressions are all top notch. It's a great performance, and I hope it brings him much more work in the future.
Margot Robbie is also worth mentioning, even if half of her lines fall flat (it doesn't help that the best ones were shown in the trailer; when people complain about trailers giving away the best parts of a movie this is exactly what they're talking about). However, she has one moment in the film where she shows us just how much talent she has, and that's after she believes the Joker is dead. She looks truly heartbroken, but then the Squad shows up and she quickly recomposes herself to not show weakness, even though you can still see the pain in her eyes. That's an Oscar-worthy moment right there.
Out of the rest of the actors, they're serviceable. The only one really worth mentioning is Jared Leto, but not because he's good. He's a terrible, terrible, TEEEERRRRIIIIBBBLLLEEE Joker. His performance is what a Freshman theatre major thinks of as high art. He's all surface and confection, never inhabiting the character in any way or giving him any substance. Furthermore, this surface is weak. He's never threatening; he's just a 13-year-old who just discovered THE KILLING JOKE for the first time and tries to imitate it as much as he can, but his idea of an intimidating looks stops short at the wide-eyed stare of a sloth on acid. He's easily the worst Joker we've ever had.
So, I've listed a lot of bad things about the movie, but I want to emphasize the good parts, which are Will Smith, Jay Hernandez, Viola Davis, and Margot Robbie. They carry the movie and it's because of them that, for the first time in any DCEU film, I liked some of the characters on screen. Between MOS and BVS the only characters that made an impression were Batman and Wonder Woman, but even then I had huge issues that kept me from fully loving them. However, I instantly fell in love with Deadshot, El Diablo, Harley Quinn, and Amanda Waller, despite a few issues with a couple of them, and desperately want to see more of them. Does that mean the movie's a triumph? No. It's a first-draft screenplay rushed into production then noticeably reworked in the edit by a studio that got cold feet, but it has some great characters that make the whole thing worth it. While it's not a good movie, it's not terrible either, and it's definitely a step in the right direction for the DCEU.
So, in short, I kind of liked it, but I don't have a desire to see it again. I'm feeling a bit more hopeful about the DCEU though, so that's a good thing.
Let's see if JUSTICE LEAGUE can keep it going.