Suicide Squad Review!

Directed by David Ayer, Suicide Squad, follows Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) in a post Superman world as a agent so deep within the U.S. government that she has the ability to pull together a team of DC villains (Deadshot, Harley Quinn, El Diablo, Killer Croc, & Captain Boomerang, just to name a few) by planting a exploding device in their heads and force them to be the black ops answer to all the potential meta-human threats now that the Man of Steel is currently taking a dirt nap.  Waller is forced to activate the Suicide Squad to evacuate an important figurehead from a nearby city that is being overrun by a new magical force intent on destroying the world.

For the most part Suicide Squad looks to deliver on what DC promised in it’s rather brilliant marketing plan until you the film starts to unfold.  Will Smith, who plays the can’t miss assassin Deadshot, is a return to his prior form of movie star, as he really takes a hold of this character and runs with it.  While some people were complaining about the race of the character (Deadshot is actually white) I was more worried if Smith could actually pull off playing a man who murders people for money but he did more then pull his weight and I would be up to a Deadshot movie now.

Everything you thought about Margot Robbie is true, there are times she stumbles with the character, her accent goes in and out, but for the most part Robbie really owns the role of Harley Quinn and it will be interesting to watch her grow with the character in future movies as she was the real heart behind the film.  As for the rest of the cast everyone showed up to work.  Jay Hernandez is unrecognizable as El Diablo and is one of the cooler characters, Karen Fukuhara as Katana is a real bad ass, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agba makes Killer Croc into a really menacing creature, I believed that Joel Kinnman could really control and lead the worst of the worst as Rick Flag, even Jai Courtney was entertaining.

Cara Delevingne was pretty amazing as Dr. Moon/The Enchantress until they did something with her character and she started to remind me the fairy godmother from Cinderella and gave her best bippity boppity boo impression.  The biggest disappointment comes in Jared Leto as The Joker.  When the stills and screen shots were released I was confident that Leto would be able to supersede Heath Ledger but as of right now it’s safe to say Ledger is still the reigning champ.

I’m willing to cut some slack since he’s hardly in the movie, now that we know most of his scenes were cut out, but there were some glaring problems in this incarnation which I noticed by the way Leto would growl in every scene and it was clear he was having a hard time talking through the grill he had in his mouth the entire film.  I would like to see just how crazy he can get in future installments, mainly in the Ben Affleck directed Batman flick which is coming down the pipeline especially since Batman is one of the best thing about this film and he has less screen time then Leto.  The entire film reeks of too many hands trying to make the family dinner and it’s at this point WB/DC really needs to wake up.

It’s at this point you start to zero on the real problem of this film.  What started out as a fun ride with some of DC’s classic villains takes a complete and very quick nose dive as it enters it’s final act because it has too much going on and feels very bloated in scope and I found myself wondering whey didn’t they scale it down and have this non-super powered villains go against a terrorist group.  Batman is supposed to be out searching for the meta-humans so why not have them have to stop someone like Black Mask from trying to take over a section of Gotham, or maybe stop him from trying to take over Arkham Asylum which would have been a good place to have Leto’s Joker and create the right conflict for Harley.

After watching Man of Steel, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, and now Suicide Squad I’ve come to the conclusion, in order to salvage something from these films, is to look at them as a means to study and show exactly what not to do when making a comic book movie. Man of Steel is a lesson on not hiring a director that doesn’t get/like the character you’re making a movie about.  BvS would be a perfect example in demonstrating the failures of not keeping your script simple and do not mash too much into your movie to the point that you end up cutting out important scenes that completely alter characters behavior and motivations, only to add them back in to have your film make sense.  Finally, we have Suicide Squad, which is a perfect example of how editing can make or break your film.

If you’re dead set on watching this film no matter what like I was, then nothing is going to stop you, go to the theater, see it for yourself, but if you’re on the fence I would recommend to just wait and rent it.  It’s not a complete waste of time but this is not film WB/DC needed right now.

 

Suicide Squad Comic-Con Trailer!

A secret government agency recruits imprisoned super-villains to execute dangerous black ops missions in exchange for clemency.

Man, I wasn’t too sure on this but this looks pretty amazing and Jared Leto is terrifying as The Joker.  Suicide Squad hits theaters next summer!

Batman Going After Joker & More In Suicide Squad Movie Set Pics!

This cracks me up because there is no security on this set but the pics have been pretty amazing showing Joker and Harley Quinn but there has always been a rumor that Batman was going to show up and now we have proof and shows that DC is serious about staring up it’s shared universe.  That isn’t Ben Affleck filling out the newest Batsuit, which means Batman will probably stay in the shadows unless Ben sneaks in and films a few scenes.  Director, David Ayer, talked about filming the scenes below.

“I believe in old school filmmaking,” he tweeted “Real stunts. Real people. Real places. It makes all the difference on the screen. Thank you #Toronto.”

I love it when a film takes more practical approach, CGI should only be used to enhance a scene only and it looks like David Ayer’s head is in the right place.

 

Suicide Squad also stars Will Smith, 46, as Floyd Lawton, aka Deadshot, supermodel Cara Delevingne as Enchantress, Scott Eastwood, 29, as Steve Trevor, How to Get Away With Murder’s Viola Davis, 49, as Amanda Waller, Joel Kinnaman, 35, as Rick Glagg and Australian Insurgent and Terminator: Genisys actor Jai Courtney, 29, as Captain Boomerang.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is set for release on March 25, 2016 and Suicide Squad hits theaters on Aug. 5 of that year.

Suicide Squad Set Pics Raises Many Questions!

I’m still having a hard time believing that Suicide Squad is being made.  When people are starting to wonder if comic book movies are going to become stale WB/DC doesn’t something completely strange and out of the ordinary and decides to make a movie based off their villains in a spy/action setting and staring two of Batman’s most iconic villains The Joker (played by Jared Leto) and Harley Quinn, making her big screen debut by Margot Robbie (The Wolf of Wall Street).

A pic from the set was sent out of Harley pointing a gun at Mr. J’s head but she’s in plain clothes, so is this a flashback?  Is this the ending and she puts him back in jail?  Does she go get him to join the squad?  Perhaps she’s tired of his crap and wants to kill him?

 

Here we have Leto and Robbie going through a scene with Leto sporting the neon green hair and the much debated tattoos!

We also have a look at The Joker’s pretty sweet looking ride but my question is.  What and how is he able to drive around, anywhere, in a car as nice of this and not have Batman swoop down and beat his senseless?  It’s not like he got out on good behavior.

This is a pretty huge game changer when it comes to comic book movies, this team up, of sorts, can really pave the way for comic book movies to evolve so they don’t become stale.  I’m really interested in how this will turn out and the impact it can have on future comic book movies.  Look for Suicide Squad to hit theaters August 5th, 2016!

Focus Review!

After the tremendous success, and I use that term loosely as the movie stunk, “After Earth” you would be forgiven if you thought that Will Smith would be quick to comeback? I mean he did manage to rebound from “Wild Wild West” with “Ali.” And he did give us a string of action/sci-fi adventure films that have helped produce a string of sequels. Well sadly it can get worse for the guy, and the proof is this caper/con-artist/romance/thriller, whatever you want to call it trap, I mean film, that is “Focus.”

A film that test both the audience’s patience as well as its tolerance to see just how far it’s going to aggravate us. Basically Will Smith is a con/identity thief/thief/hacker whatever it is he does but let’s just say criminal who just steals and steals and bores and bores and manages to get a sexy blonde to help bore us some more. Because what’s a caper without a sexy blonde right? SIGH

The fact that we, the audience is supposed to find some kind sympathy or even like this guy who, preys on average people, is almost as insulting as thinking this was a good idea. It’s one thing to try and find a film with style, especially a caper film but where Guy Richie and Steven Soderberg succeeded with “Ocean’s Eleven” and “Snatch” here directors, and yes I used plural because one person isn’t enough, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa just figure make every cut flash, every shot a weird angle, and every bit of lighting blue and purple well that’s just gonna be so cool that we’ll all love it right? Oh stop insulting our intelligence.

Now I guess a possible bright spot, if any, is there is Australian beauty Margot Robbie, who manages to bring all the sultry sex appeal she presented in her breakout role in “Wolf of Wall Street” along here as well. But where as “Wolf” there was something for her to do here I guess the direction is “Stand still, look hot, look pretty.” It gets old fast.

And the ending, which I won’t spoil, but I’m tempted to do in order to keep people from wasting their time here too, but it’s a yawner. A contrived, clichéd, just get over with it as you could expect from this horrid film.

But, let’s not cry a river for Mr. Smith why he’s supposed to have “Bad Boys 3” and “Men in Black 4” coming in the next two years. And if he keeps making crap like this that might be all he makes, too bad.

1 out of 4 stars

Written by: Jason Greathouse

Joel Kinnaman cast as Rick Flagg in Suicide Squad!

Joel Kinnaman to play the part, as he is finished with the final season of the series, The Killing. Joel Kinnaman played Alex Murphy a.k.a. Robocop in the reboot movie in 2014, which received mixed reviews from critics and viewers alike.  Myself, I’m not completely sold on Kinnaman, he was pretty forgettable as Alex Murphy and he’s about an awful an actor as Jai Courtney.  Otherwise, the cast is still pretty strong and I’m still excited to see this.

A secret government agency recruits imprisoned super-villains to execute dangerous black ops missions in exchange for clemency and stars.

Will Smith as Deadshot, Jared Leto as Joker, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Jai Courtney as Boomerang, Cara Delevingne as Enchantress.

Will Smith Discusses His Most Painful Failure!

I’m an advocate of not fulling judging a movie until you see it but there are times you can look at a trailer and just know it will be crap.  It’s happened a few times, The Last Airbender being the definitive one I can think of, but also After Earth which you could just tell was a failure from conception.  It’s sad that Will Smith didn’t notice it, it’s rather amazing that it was as much a surprise as it turned out to be.

“That was the most painful failure in my career. Wild Wild West was less painful than After Earthbecause my son was involved in After Earth and I led him into it. That was excruciating,” Smith admitted. “What I learned from that failure is how you win. I got reinvigorated after the failure of After Earth. I stopped working for a year and a half. I had to dive into why it was so important for me to have number-one movies. And I never would have looked at myself in that way.”

But upon hearing the news that the father-son project he’d worked so hard for had unexpectedly tanked, Smith only had about half an hour to sulk before he received some pretty devastating news.

“I get the box-office numbers on Monday and I was devastated for about twenty-four minutes, and then my phone rang and I found out my father had cancer. That put it in perspective —viciously,” he recalled.

The idea of Will Smith working with M. Night Shyamalan, who who single handily turned his name and image into box office poison.  As a young teen, it was a failed relationship that sparked the actor’s desire to be the best, which later translated to box-office domination. “I was a guy who, when I was fifteen my girlfriend cheated on me, and I decided that if I was number one, no woman would ever cheat on me,” he said. “All I have to do is make sure that no one’s ever better than me and I’ll have the love that my heart yearns for.”  This is baffling considering how Will Smith is, and continues to be, a dominate actor and that ole sting from his youth prompted him into one of the worst movies of his career, but it appears the failure didn’t fall on deaf ears.

“That Monday [following the opening weekend of After Earth] started the new phase of my life, a new concept: Only love is going to fill that hole. You can’t win enough, you can’t have enough money, you can’t succeed enough. There is not enough. The only thing that will ever satiate that existential thirst is love. And I just remember that day I made the shift from wanting to be a winner to wanting to have the most powerful, deep, and beautiful relationships I could possibly have.”

I really like Will Smith, and the fact that his has been cast as Deadshot in the Suicide Squad movie along with Margot Robbie, Jared Leto and directed by David Ayer just builds to the excitement because it isn’t just him carrying the entire movie, he’s actually in an ensemble and I’m curious to see just how everyone will pull together.  I’m also glad Smith took some time, regrouped, and realized why he does what he does, why it’s fun, sometimes we all need that.

Tom Hardy Drops Out Of Suicide Squad!

This breaks my heart, I love watching Tom Hardy period, really love him in action movies but sadly, he was forced to exit the project because Alejandro Gonzalez “Never On Time” Inarritu’s new film The Revenant is going over schedule into mid-March, after which Hardy will be needed to promote WB’s Mad Max: Fury Road, which comes out on May 15. Suicide Squad is expected to start production in April, and that time crunch is why Hardy had to drop out of the film.

Rumors are spreading that writer/director David Ayer is eyeing Jake Gyllenhaal who starred in Ayer’s pretty underrated, End of Watch.  Before any of you even begin to start your fanboy whining just look at Gyllenhaal in his this picture.

“Suicide Squad” is set to star Will Smith as villain Deadshot, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang, Cara Delevigne as Enchantress and Jared Leto as The Joker, and Viola Davis is in negotiations to play Amanda Waller and Jesse Eisenberg is in talks to reprise his upcoming role as Lex Luthor.