This film could've been great all the way through. The cast was great, I liked all the characters, and the Suicide Squad seemed to have its team dynamic down pretty well. But there are way too many forced moments for me to put this up there with Under the Red Hood and Tim Burton's masterpiece as one of the truly great Batman films.
The story is... Decent. The Riddler's going to blow the whistle on the government using supervillains to get their dirty work done. So the government, played by Amanda Waller, assembles a team of supervillains to retrieve the data before it goes live. And here we run into our first problem. How is the Riddler going to transmit anything from a FLASH DRIVE HIDDEN IN HIS CANE if his cane is locked up in Arkham far away from any USB ports? Does that not bug ANYONE in this movie? The rest of the story was pretty solid sans the climax, so why did the writers have to make the entire cast kind of brainless?
Well, plot holes can be forgiven if the characters are good enough. And they are. Deadshot plays the anti-hero leader of the Squad with Harley Quinn as his potential love-interest. Yeah, they went there. They put Harley Quinn with someone other than the Joker. Some guy I've never heard of called Shark is the living tank with Killer Frost as his crush (or at least that's the vibe I got from them). We have Male-African-American-Totally-Not-Black-Widow Black Spider on hand to be expendable, because Heaven forbid they kill off someone popular, and Captain Boomerang to be the jerk who always butts heads with the leader.
Unfortunately, this film is plagued by too many forced moments to completely forgive. This badass Russian guy called KGBeast is introduced to us only to be immediately axed off in order to prove that, "Anyone can die! Nobody's safe from our blood-hungry writing!" Shark dies just so anyone who happened to ship him and Killer Frost could feel gipped, as if DC hasn't had weirder pairings, like pairing a Red/Blue Lantern with a computer.
Then after it all goes to Hell the team turn on each other out of nowhere instead of working together to all make it out. You may think, "Oh, they're just in it for themselves and just want to make it out," but then Captain Boomerang and Deadshot BOTH make it to a helicopter and take off, to which Captain Boomerang says, "Only one of us is making it out of here!" and ends up not escaping at all. Uh, dude? There's enough room in the chopper for both of you. Hell, there was enough room for them AND Killer Frost, who dies when Bane, recently broken-out, picks up the police cruiser she's in, AFTER she disposed of the driver, and randomly throws it against a wall.
I am firmly against killing off characters. It angers people who liked them, it stops further stories from unfolding, and it prevents any further entertainment to be had from their interactions off one another. But no, apparently gunfights, attempted mass murder, implied sex and exploding heads didn't make Assault on Arkham "adult" enough. Screw that, I just want a good story, and this movie came SO CLOSE to being perfect. But, alas, DC adaptations aren't allowed to be fun anymore.
The story is... Decent. The Riddler's going to blow the whistle on the government using supervillains to get their dirty work done. So the government, played by Amanda Waller, assembles a team of supervillains to retrieve the data before it goes live. And here we run into our first problem. How is the Riddler going to transmit anything from a FLASH DRIVE HIDDEN IN HIS CANE if his cane is locked up in Arkham far away from any USB ports? Does that not bug ANYONE in this movie? The rest of the story was pretty solid sans the climax, so why did the writers have to make the entire cast kind of brainless?
Well, plot holes can be forgiven if the characters are good enough. And they are. Deadshot plays the anti-hero leader of the Squad with Harley Quinn as his potential love-interest. Yeah, they went there. They put Harley Quinn with someone other than the Joker. Some guy I've never heard of called Shark is the living tank with Killer Frost as his crush (or at least that's the vibe I got from them). We have Male-African-American-Totally-Not-Black-Widow Black Spider on hand to be expendable, because Heaven forbid they kill off someone popular, and Captain Boomerang to be the jerk who always butts heads with the leader.
Unfortunately, this film is plagued by too many forced moments to completely forgive. This badass Russian guy called KGBeast is introduced to us only to be immediately axed off in order to prove that, "Anyone can die! Nobody's safe from our blood-hungry writing!" Shark dies just so anyone who happened to ship him and Killer Frost could feel gipped, as if DC hasn't had weirder pairings, like pairing a Red/Blue Lantern with a computer.
Then after it all goes to Hell the team turn on each other out of nowhere instead of working together to all make it out. You may think, "Oh, they're just in it for themselves and just want to make it out," but then Captain Boomerang and Deadshot BOTH make it to a helicopter and take off, to which Captain Boomerang says, "Only one of us is making it out of here!" and ends up not escaping at all. Uh, dude? There's enough room in the chopper for both of you. Hell, there was enough room for them AND Killer Frost, who dies when Bane, recently broken-out, picks up the police cruiser she's in, AFTER she disposed of the driver, and randomly throws it against a wall.
I am firmly against killing off characters. It angers people who liked them, it stops further stories from unfolding, and it prevents any further entertainment to be had from their interactions off one another. But no, apparently gunfights, attempted mass murder, implied sex and exploding heads didn't make Assault on Arkham "adult" enough. Screw that, I just want a good story, and this movie came SO CLOSE to being perfect. But, alas, DC adaptations aren't allowed to be fun anymore.