Day 22 - What is the most underrated film?
Answer: Suicide Squad (2016)
Yeah. I'm going to go with one of the more recent films that seem to have people divided. Although, it seems that more people hate on this movie than like it. I can certainly understand why. Suicide Squad is not a perfect movie by any stretch of the imagination. It's an inconsistent mess. The tone is all over the place. It was plagued by re-shoots and getting butchered in the editing room. Warner Bros. made it abundantly clear that this was supposed to be the DCEU's answer to Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. That is one of the many things that ultimately lead to the problems of Suicide Squad. I still found some enjoyment in the film. I personally love the concept behind Suicide Squad and I was looking forward to seeing a movie that followed some of DC's villains as the main characters. I know the movie has it's issues, but sometimes I think people have been a little too harsh on the film. There's a lot of focus on what is wrong with the film, but not much focus on what good it brings.
One of the biggest issues people seemed to have with the film is Jared Leto's portrayal of The Joker. I can see why people would be upset. He is an eyesore. His characterization is vastly different from anything we've seen before. Giving The Joker a more modernized gangsta type of personality is a bit jarring considering what we've come to get used to. However, I don't think we really got to see enough of the character to make a fair judgement on it. I didn't mind Leto's version of the the character. I was more irritated by his appearance than his acting. After Suicide Squad was over, I was actually kind of excited to see more of Leto's version of The Joker. There was a lot of potential here when you look at what was set up in this film and Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice. We got a grizzled veteran Batman who has been through the ringer. We see that he's already lost a Robin. It's revealed in Suicide Squad that Harley Quinn had something to do with that. You can put two and two together and make the assumption that obviously The Joker had something to do with it too. I would have loved to see something along the lines of "A Death in the Family" storyline with it's own twist adding Harley to the mix. Plus, the talks of an extended look into the Bat-family being in the rumor mill with Batgirl and Nightwing supposedly having their own films in development. Suicide Squad set up some potentially interesting stuff here.
For me, my biggest problem with the film just sort of stems from the overall plot of the movie. Amanda Waller comes up with the idea to put forth her idea to create Task Force X in case the next super-powered meta human doesn't end up being a good guy. The idea of putting together a group of villains they can throw under the bus in case their missions go south. The cast of characters assembled wouldn't be much of a challenge for Superman. That was Waller's measuring stick. Superman. That's not really the point of what Task Force X is supposed to be. They're meant for black ops type missions the government would want to keep hush hush. That's their roles in the comic books. The other issue is that her motivation for putting together Task Force X becomes immediately put into action when Enchantress decides to go rogue at the first chance she can. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. I kind of would have saved a rogue villain angle for a sequel. Let us see how dangerous and how much control Waller has over Enchantress before just going straight to making her the problem Task Force X has to deal with. This film should've been far more grounded and more small scale. Not some kind end-of-the-world mission. I don't think making Enchantress the mission was a bad idea, but it should've been saved for a later entry in the cinematic universe. Too late for that now, I guess. I mean, the DCEU is already a huge mess still and we might be losing Ben Affleck as Batman if the rumor mill is true. Oh well. I still think Suicide Squad was a fun movie despite all of it's problems.
