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There's always "Arrow" for more Katana, she's a major character in season 3.

Boomerang has a pretty bada** two part crossover in Arrow Season 4 and Flash Season 2.

Nothing wrong with liking characters with little screen time like... Bobba Fett.
Anyone playing the tabletop Batman game would still treat this as a "must see" I am sure.

Just got back.

Its.FETHING.Awesome!!!

Loved the Harley character...

Loved Jared Leto's version of the Joker...

Loved Will Smith ( who doesn't )

The storyline was "okay", but I thought it was well constructed and doesn't deserve the low critic ratings...

Saw it last night. Had a blast. Like BvS it's not without it's problems, but at least it was a fun ride. Loved the casting of every character. I usually hate Jai Courtenay, but he played a pretty hilarious bogan.

My fiancee loved Letos Joker, but complained it focused too much on Deadshot. But, when you've got that many characters, someone needs to be the focus.

Standard caveat: I am not a comics nerd. I know a little about the various differences between DC and Marvel, but for the most part, I'm the in-betweener - I have friends who ARE, and I end up knowing more than I care to because of them.

I saw it last night.
(Wife wanted to see it - our anniversary, so I let her choose the movie and there really wasn't much fare we both would bother watching).
I was just there to look at Margot Robbie almost wearing some spangly hotpants. I liked those shorts.

Wife seemed to enjoy herself. It passed the time, but I doubt we'll see it again before it goes to cable. I give it a 4 (out of 10)


But BvS got a 3.5 from me (and 3 of those points were for Wonder Woman's brief scenes). Civil war got a 4 also.

Suicide Squad is now at 26% on Rotten Tomatoes, thus making it officially rated worse than Batman vs Superman.

 Ouze wrote:
Suicide Squad is now at 26% on Rotten Tomatoes, thus making it officially rated worse than Batman vs Superman.

Which doesn't make any sense to me. Batman v Superman, the theatrical release, was a bad film. It was overly grim, and overly slow, and disjointed to the point of insanity. And it wasn't any fun. And Cave Troll Doomsday was stupid.

This movie is disjointed, clearly has more than Enchantress' heart cut out of it (most of Joker's scenes were cut, whole bits from the trailers just aren't there), has a bad villain, is terribly edited (not as bad as Batman v Establishing Shots)... but it's fun. The characters are great, their interacting is great, the jokes mostly land (Boomerang was fantastic), and the action scenes were good (even if they are fighting Power Ranger Putties for most of the film).

This film is miles better than BvS.

I've just finished watching it.

So to preface this, BVS is one of my favourite films. However that it's very much a case of a favourite despite its flaws, of which it has many.

Overall I would say that Suicide Squad has very few flaws as a film. That's not to say that it's the greatest film ever but it doesn't screw stuff up.

I can't say I noticed any editing issues. The plot is straightforward, nothing to get confused about. They go from A to B via X, Y and Z, simples.

Any 'plot holes' aren't really plot holes, they could be explained by either magic or ' it's irrelevant to the action' or 'it's mutha frakking character X'

Overall, iit's a Suicide Squad film. , Not a Deadpool film or a Guardians of the Galaxy film. A bunch of insane bad guys fight worse bad guys, fire a whole load of bullets and make big explosions.

That's what it is, basically take it or leave it.


To try for a checklist:

Doesn't dislike Will Smith
Likes bad guys
Likes gun fights
Likes explosions
Doesn't dislike classic magical stuff in modern films (EG Enchantress is a witch / sorceress in a very much DND style sense)

If you're ok with all of them, you'l be fine with the film.

 Ahtman wrote:
Seems to be one of the films where audiences love it but critics hate it.

That is to be expected right now, as the overwhelming majority of the audience is composed of presales who bought their tickets based on marketing alone, rather than critical review and/or word of mouth. This is the DC fanboy crowd, and they love the fact that DC characters are brought to life at all. The critics, OTOH, are bound to want things like coherent storytelling and sensible plotting. Something that DC apparently fails to do effectively, due to an excess of listening to their fans, and not investing in writing.

Tomorrow and next weekend is where we'll see whether the movie has legs and transcends the initial critica reviews, or whether it withers and dies like BvS.

Re bad reviews, my favorite quote is this one:

Suicide Squad is worse than Batman v Superman. No, we didn't think it was possible either.

Suicide Squad is a slog of a movie. It’s the same piano key being struck at exactly the same volume, and exactly the same rhythm, for two hours

http://www.vox.com/2016/8/4/12366370/suicide-squad-review-harley-quinn-will-smith-margot-robbie

It's too bad, as I had hoped this would combine the best of Batman, Guardians and Deadpool.

So, you agree with that review then?

Loved it! Loved the music. I was just fine with the pacing.

Joker spoiler


Really liked the writing for Harley and the actress. Daughter is a major Harley fan and loved the characterization. Other than Harley I knew none of these characters before the movie started but still liked them.


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 whembly wrote:
Just got back.

Its.FETHING.Awesome!!!

Loved the Harley character...

Loved Jared Leto's version of the Joker...

Loved Will Smith ( who doesn't )

The storyline was "okay", but I thought it was well constructed and doesn't deserve the low critic ratings...

Agreed on all points. I would have liked the bad guys doing more bad things...

Liked this better than most superhero movies I've seen over the last five years.

 Ouze wrote:
Suicide Squad is now at 26% on Rotten Tomatoes, thus making it officially rated worse than Batman vs Superman.

FWIW... that's the Critic's rating.

The Audience's rating is now 73%... so, make what you will of that.

 whembly wrote:
The Audience's rating is now 73%... so, make what you will of that.

Pretty sure it was that high before the movie even came out.

Watched it today with friends. Have to say I was disappointed and while I wouldn't be quite as harsh as the rotten tomatoes aggregate score, it still was barely a pass for me. Pacing IMO was off, having to sync in and out of backstories. The bar scene in particular seemed to be really out of place, I understand that as enslaved convicts there's not much motivation to keep going with the mission but at the same time it doesn't really give much reason IMO to propel them back into the action either. It opened up relatively strong and just kind of ran out of steam at the end. The enchantress angle, while unexpected, didn't draw me in much and I feel that if they had gone along a more "Assault on Arkham" route with a less supernatural villain that it'd feel like more of the squad would be useful, given that bullets did jack all. There was a lot of bloat as well in terms of some unnecessary characters like Katana, who I feel was kinda tacked on as a token character.

Will Smith was great as usual, and I kind of feel bad for the cast given that the script was kind of meh, specially for Margot Robbie who was given some cringy one-liners.

 Alpharius wrote:
So, you agree with that review then?

I think that the reviews are potentially more entertaining than the movie, and serve a useful service of lowering expectations. Prior to the reviews coming out, I was hoping that, this time, it'll be different because SS is a vastly lower stakes property than Batman or Superman, so maybe, just maybe, DC can be more "hands off" like Deadpool, and just let the director tell a great story. However, I've since learned that this is a mega-budget project with Will Smith and that DC needs it to perform really big, so the suits have gotten involved in a very big way. I've also learned that DC may have done a poor job matching the director to the project.

OTOH, as Sucktastic Four taught me, lowered expectations can only go so far, and sometimes, a movie is simply bad for a number of highly visible reasons. Jason Bourne was rather disappointing with Damon suddenly being a lot bulkier and ripped, the CIA being far less technically capable than before, the fighting itself being poorly choreographed, the shakey-camera being overdone, and the ultimate car chase being far stupider than anyone might have expected.

Anyhow, I'm hopeful to possibly catch SS in the theater, but definitely not at full ticket price.

Well it made $135m, smashing the August record.

I have yet to see this film, but I have good expectations.

When comparing the Marvel and DC movies I have noticed some things.

The Marvel universe tends to have a better story (unless you watched Thor: The Dark World). However, I think that a lot more thought went into the subliminal messages in the DC movies. There are A LOT of things in the background for the "thinking man" to digest. In BvsS for example, in the party scene where Bruce Wayne meets Clark Kent, look in the background. A rather obvious (and large) painting by an artist that specializes in the themes of this movie. Those themes include Power corrupting, today's heroes are tomorrow's villains, the powerless are often defenseless, and the obliviousness of those in positions of power.

 cuda1179 wrote:
I have yet to see this film, but I have good expectations.

When comparing the Marvel and DC movies I have noticed some things.

The Marvel universe tends to have a better story (unless you watched Thor: The Dark World). However, I think that a lot more thought went into the subliminal messages in the DC movies. There are A LOT of things in the background for the "thinking man" to digest. In BvsS for example, in the party scene where Bruce Wayne meets Clark Kent, look in the background. A rather obvious (and large) painting by an artist that specializes in the themes of this movie. Those themes include Power corrupting, today's heroes are tomorrow's villains, the powerless are often defenseless, and the obliviousness of those in positions of power.

Yeah, I do think BvS really is a masterpiece in shot composition and directing. There's so many little things in every scene that are so easy to miss, but once you get into the habit of spotting them, elevates the film to something a lot more complex. Every shot is in there for a reason, every line has a weight to it.

I think one of the best examples of that is in the ultimate edition, after the bombing at the hearing, there's a 30-second shot of Alfred, standing in silence watching that on the TV. He doesn't need to say a word, you just know from the way the scene's put together exactly what's going through his head, then you realise it's the same thing that's going through yours, in this instance wondering if Batman really is going too far, or if he's right and Supes is a danger to everyone around him just by existing. That is good directing.

I can't really think of any comparable shot in a Marvel film, but that's fine, they're not setting out to make that kind of movie, but it does illustrate the difference in approach and in end product.

In that the Marvel movies are broadly entertaining and the DC ones are a chore to watch but have easter eggs for people who care about art?

 Yodhrin wrote:
In that the Marvel movies are broadly entertaining and the DC ones are a chore to watch but have easter eggs for people who care about art?

No, in that Marvel films are fantastic, colourful fun but ultimately very one-dimensional, even the 'deeper' ones like Winter Soldier (which I do consider one of the best films ever made, it is pretty much perfect) have everything at surface level and there's not a lot to read into. DC, on the other hand, place much more of a focus on layering different levels, incorporating imagery and metaphor and such into their films to provide something much more complex and that you can get a lot more from if you watch closely.

Yes, you can watch BvS as a superhero action movie like you would Avengers Assemble, but then you might as well skip the first two hours and just watch the third act. What people seem to dismiss as an opening two thirds in which nothing happens, I consider to be an expertly done buildup of tension, of providing a context and a narrative beyond 'here's two guys, now they're punching, now they're friends'. It sets up everything for the third act explosion while also being well put together, complex and multi-layered narrative exploration of these characters. I appreciate I'm in the minority, but I reckon BvS is more than worthy of being called a masterpiece.

 Yodhrin wrote:
In that the Marvel movies are broadly entertaining and the DC ones are a chore to watch but have easter eggs for people who care about art?

I wouldn't call the recent (post-Nolan) DC films artful, in fact I would say most Marvel movies are better at it while not coming across as pretentious either.

 Yodhrin wrote:
In that the Marvel movies are broadly entertaining and the DC ones are a chore to watch but have easter eggs for people who care about art?

I wouldn't call them that entertaining actually. Avengers was meh, Thor sucked balls (both movies), IM3 with extremely meh, and the second Avengers I saw on cable and it was work to watch the whole thing.

I liked X Men: Magneto (the first movie because...Fassbender) and we loved Deadpool, but we've skipped a bunch or have been less than impressed.

 Paradigm wrote:
Yes, you can watch BvS as a superhero action movie like you would Avengers Assemble, but then you might as well skip the first two hours and just watch the third act. What people seem to dismiss as an opening two thirds in which nothing happens, I consider to be an expertly done buildup of tension, of providing a context and a narrative beyond 'here's two guys, now they're punching, now they're friends'. It sets up everything for the third act explosion while also being well put together, complex and multi-layered narrative exploration of these characters. I appreciate I'm in the minority, but I reckon BvS is more than worthy of being called a masterpiece.

I agree that the DC movies are like this gradual build-up gaining momentum until it hits that "juggernaut of destruction" stage.
It can happen twice like when say the hero suffers a smack-down, survives, plans a better way and we have our second big showdown.
The beginning of these movies is like a slide show or mini stories: look at his cool stuff, look at the things this guy does, here is the state of the city...

I would say if you have followed the characters BvsS would still be an amazing movie, for the casual person it would be strange leading to an "ok" to confusing outcome.

Marvel movies can be a tiny bit frustrating to those into the characters: they are always willing to engage in a bit of back history for the uninitiated while the rest of us are "Get moving to the good stuff!". They do seem more willing to flesh-out the behavior of the character without getting too deep as mentioned.

Could we say that the Marvel characters are more approachable than DC?
You could almost offer a beer to Tony Stark and be ok with it vs say Bruce Wayne.

Well in their defense, Bruce Wayne is a mentally F'd up vigilante just this side of a Brazilian death squad. He also tends to deal with people who are mixtures of cartels and Charles Manson.

Deadpool was a success because it never tried to be anything it wasn't. It was simply a good-time, shoot'em up, raunchy, R-rated action-comedy. People think the marvel films are better because there are so many marvel movies and they remember a number of good ones. Unfortunately, they tend to forget that there were a TON of stinkers too. There just aren't as many DC movies out there, so you are more likely to remember the bad ones.

Just off the top of my head from the last 10 years or so:

Fantastic 4 (original) a okay movie at best
Fantastic 4, Silver Surfer, complete trash
Fantastic 4 (new) complete trash
Punisher, Pretty good and Tom Jane is underrated
Punisher Warzone, garbage
Hulk, ridiculous trash
Incredible Hulk, much better than previous hulk movie. I prefer Edward Norton over Mark Ruffalo
X-men, Pretty good actually
X-men 2, okay-ish if you saw the first one.
x-men 3 the Last stand. A couple great scenes, which made up for a bulk of the movie being bad.
X-men first class, actually pretty good
X-men Days of Futures Past, pretty good and kept the franchise going
Wolverine, a disappointing origin story
The Wolverine, Even more disappointing epilog movie
Ghost Rider, sub-par at best
Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengence, Possibly the worst movie in the list. It can't even keep it's own backstory strait.
Spider Man, Actually pretty good, despite major over acting from William Defoe
Spider Man 2, Decent but nothing to write home about
Spiderman 3, killed the franchise. Enough said
Amazing Spiderman, Decent enough reboot
Amazing Spiderman 2, Not good
Iron Man, Great movie and my favorite on the list.
Iron Man 2, stretched the plot too much, kind of uninteresting
Iron Man 3, crap
Thor, okay, but not great
Thor the Dark World, bad, but not total crap
Captain America, pretty good
Captain America Winter soldier, still pretty good and probably the best sequel
Captain America Civil War, Great fight scenes, decent plot, but had too much going on.
Avengers, Good movie, but not great
Avengers Age of Ultron, not as good as it could have been
Daredevil, not great but had its moments
Electra, total pile of poo


On the DC side we have:

Batman Begins, Truly great reboot and imagery
Dark Knight, near perfection
Dark Knight Rises, they dropped the ball here. Not bad, but not good either.
Green Lantern, What the heck was that pile of poo?
Green Hornet, okay, a Seth Rogen movie. Not great but it did have its moments.
Superman Returns, a little contrived, not good, but watchable on TV
Man of Steel, better than previous superman movie. massive improvements in background placement and deep meanings.
Batman vs Superman, too much going on and trying to set up Justice League. It still had emotion and great filming and directing.

 Frazzled wrote:
Well in their defense, Bruce Wayne is a mentally F'd up vigilante just this side of a Brazilian death squad. He also tends to deal with people who are mixtures of cartels and Charles Manson.

I forgot also that Tony Stark was an alcoholic at a few points in the comic books so "offering a beer" is an unfair method of social interaction comparison.
So I guess with that cheery group, Batman punching them in the face rather than hear them talk makes sense?

When people refer to "Marvel movies" they generally refer to the ones actually made by Marvel Studios, not all the ones made from Marvel comic IP. Most of the poor ones were not made by Marvel Studios and don't form part of the MCU.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:


Re bad reviews, my favorite quote is this one:

Suicide Squad is worse than Batman v Superman. No, we didn't think it was possible either.

Suicide Squad is a slog of a movie. It’s the same piano key being struck at exactly the same volume, and exactly the same rhythm, for two hours

http://www.vox.com/2016/8/4/12366370/suicide-squad-review-harley-quinn-will-smith-margot-robbie

That's a funny quote, but not in the way the reviewer meant it. Because he/she could simply said that it was a *one-note* film. Instead he/she wrote that little "zinger" obviously thinking it was an original concept. And there's nothing like writing an excruciatingly long description of a simple expression in a review of a movie he/she thought was excruciating.

Mommies don't let your babies grown up to be hipster doofii movie bloggers. There *are* writing jobs out there for people with talent that don't involve crapping all over other people's genuinely creative work in order to make a name for yourself.

 Talizvar wrote:
[quote=Paradigm 698322 8824173

Could we say that the Marvel characters are more approachable than DC?
You could almost offer a beer to Tony Stark and be ok with it vs say Bruce Wayne.

Actually I prefer Bruce Wayne. Sure, he's harder to approach, but once you're there you're there for life. With Tony Stark every day is a crapshoot. He's great to party with, but you never know when he's going to crap on you. Not to mention that Batman had his tragedy forced on him. Ironman was at least half responsible for his own life shortcomings.


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 Baragash wrote:
When people refer to "Marvel movies" they generally refer to the ones actually made by Marvel Studios, not all the ones made from Marvel comic IP. Most of the poor ones were not made by Marvel Studios and don't form part of the MCU.

If we are only counting the MCU, then the same must be done for DC. Only Man of Steel, BvS, and Suicide Squad are counted.

I thought all the Superman and Batman movies were DC.

We should remember, the Tim Burton batman really restarted the superhero movie which was pretty dead in the water after the Supreman movies flamed out, and of course IIRC but Superman was the first real superhero movie that was successful.

And of course the 1966 Batman was truly the greatest superhero movie of all time. Pow! BANG! THWAPP! HOLY BAD ACTING BATMAN!