Suicide Squad is DC Comics’ latest attempt to capture comic book magic on the silver screen.

This flick comes in just over two hours and is written and directed by David Ayer.

Full disclosure: I am a fan of the Suicide Squad comics and though I have not collected them in some time I am familiar with the group and their mythos.

The Suicide Squad film is a tough nut to crack; it has a lot that it wants to do and not a lot of time to get you on board with nine or more characters, their motivations and get into a story. You can tell the editors had a real hard time trying to decide what to cut and what to keep.

Overall, the movie looks good; for the first time in the DC film universe the cities and sets look like real places where people live, add to this a better integrated use of CGI and practical effects and you have a much better looking film than, say, Man of Steel. I saw the movie in 3D and was a little disappointed by their lack of use of it; this is another in a string of movies that claims 3D for no particular reason.

Okay, on to the meat of it: It is difficult to articulate the happenings of this movie as there are aspects of this film that are both lacking and amazing.

Margot Robbie steals the show as Harley Quinn, taking all the best quips and engaging you with an outstanding performance. Anytime she is on screen, no matter what she is doing or who’s talking, it’s her you are watching. I don’t know that I buy Will Smith as Deadshot, but I do know that he is a great and entertaining actor and watching Will Smith be Will Smith in the DCU is just as fun.

Unfortunately, after this the movie begins to get bogged down with more characters than it knows what to do with and often feels clunky or unwieldy. The film tries to meander towards an elusive plot, but often stumbles into awkward exposition scenes that tend to go nowhere.

Actors like Jai Courtney and Karen Fukuhara are wasted potential with little to do but stand around and hope that one of their four lines resonates with audience.

When the action is going, the film is hot with excellent stunts and great fights. This movie certainly would have benefited from a higher rating as the PG-13 felt limiting sometimes and hampered our team of bad-guys ability to truly be bad-guys.

For me the movie as a whole does not work, there are forgotten plot threads and changing character points that cause too much trouble for it to be a cohesive story. That being said, within the movie there are scenes that are an inspiration to DC Comics lovers – moments of brilliance that show that this franchise still has hope.

All in all I would recommend catching the movie, especially if you are a fan of Harley Quinn or Will Smith.

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