Just watched SS for the first time (the theatrical cut). These are just some initial thoughts
I really wanted it to be good, went into it with an open mind, that first trailer looked great, and I'm a huge fan of BvS and the DCEU, I thought the casting was really good. I just feel like it had so much more potential, and they should have taken their time with it. They need to realize how important it is
It just feels so hastily written, directed, edited. And the jokes and the classic rock and rap songs they throw over every scene just feels kinda desperate. Like "Okay, we need some really quickly thrown together exposition intro scenes, we need people to think it's cool so put songs over every scene like House Of The Rising Sun and Sympathy For The Devil, and it's gotta be really lighthearted and funny, so have Will Smith say stuff like 'Her boyfriend Darnell ain't allowed to come' and 'I need y'all to white people that thing. You know how y'all do." Like the studio told Ayer "We need you to Tyler Perry that thing."
And the Joker was a huge letdown. They just make him all random, like he's supposed to be all depressed with a smile drawn on his face in black marker, then he lays down and starts laughing with a big circle of knives and guns around him. And he did act a little too much like Jim Carrey for my tastes ("This... HUNKA HUNKA!"). I don't know if I blame Leto's performance or just the writing, I just feel like he didn't have anything good to work with and was given some pretty lame lines (unless he improvised a lot of it, in which case that's a bummer). For example, "The fruit of my loins! The... ITCH! In my CROTCH!... Mrs. HARLEYYY QUINNNN!" Like he was doing some kind of Wrestlemania introduction, even though he's just talking to one guy who already knows who Harley Quinn is. It was just trying way too hard. Most of his delivery comes off like that, like he was trying too hard to let the audience know he's CUHHHRAAAZAYYY (wide eyed expression) and (closes eyes, tilts head back and whispers) un....predictable! Ah-HA-HA!
To me it's one of those "easy movies", like they read Screenwriting For Dummies, every scene you can tell what the writers were thinking, they weren't focused on story, they were focused on what they want the audience to think, Insert funny Will Smith line, just have Joker do random weird things to make people think he's crazy, have Deadshot do some ricochet shot or hit a target in the exact same spot a bunch of times to show how cool and dangerous he is, make Enchantress just like those little black hair girls in every single crappy haunted house movie from the past twenty years.
I hoped I would at least get something enjoyable out of the Batman scenes. I remember reading somewhere that it was gonna be really cool, they were gonna show Batman from the POV of criminals and how scary he is to them, but it was just the little five second scenes that it seemed like Affleck stopped by really quick and was just sleepwalking through. He just glides in, "It's over Deadshot. I don't wanna do this in front of your daughter." Quick struggle, then he just stands there.
It feels like they told Ayer he has to have a script in the next six weeks, but then, he just partied and binge watched Netflix, and wrote the script the night before it was due. Like, Oh crap, what do I do? Okay, think David, ummm... Enchantress: show the woman fall into a hole, break a statue, bad CGI of her getting possessed, Amanda Waller says "we've got her heart or some s**t, so we control her", but then she immediately breaks away, releases her demon brother real fast in a bathroom, and causes havoc with energy beams shooting up in the sky, and now we've got our villain, and that's the first mission for the Squad. Seriously?
"What's that? I should kill everybody and escape? Sorry, the voices in my head..." (HAHA) generic cliche rock song that's been used in dozens of movies before, bring in the other characters with quick exposition by Flagg, have them punch a few guards (BADASS!) then calm down, switch it to an Eminem song (COOL!)...
Captain Boomerang: Fetishes - Pink Unicorns (HAHA!)
"You're late." "I was busy" (show her killing a bunch of Yakuza with a ninja sword in the rain) "This is Katana. She's got my back. I would advise not getting killed by her. Her sword steals the souls of its victims..."
Slipknot shows up for five seconds, does absolutely nothing, shoots off with his grappling gun, Flagg presses a button on his iPad app, Slipknot just dies and hangs there, Harley: "Now, that's a killer app!" (Cringe)
And why would somebody putting together a Squad like that feel like they needed Harley Quinn? Yeah, she's acrobatic and uses a baseball bat, but she has no training or special abilities. Because she's "Crazier and more fearless" than The Joker?
Idk, the whole movie just felt desperate to me, too simple, trying to be funny, trying to be cool ("What's a popular song that's in a lot of movies that we can play over this scene, so when people hear it, they associate it with that movie scene and know what they're seeing is cool?"), trying to be Joker, trying to give the characters some emotional arc or character development (like with Deadshot's daughter or El Diablo being like "I don't fight no more, Homes, but now I do, Essay!") but it just all fell flat and felt empty. The villains and their minions were terribly generic with no motivation or build up (with a box with her heart in it that Amanda Waller would just start stabbing if she went against them, and lines like "With my heart returned, I can finish my weapon. Now tell me how to destroy your armies!") Joker was haphazardly thrown in to drum up ticket sales (texting Harley "I'm coming for you!", showing up shooting at them in a helicopter, "This bird is cooked!" just cringeworthy) many of the characters didn't really bring much to the story.
Anyways, sorry for my rant and being so negative about it. Those were just my initial impressions. And it wasn't all bad, just fell short of my expectations and the potential. I thought it got a little better towards the end, around the barroom scene. I just think Ayer wasn't the right one for the job, but I think I read he had been lobbying to do a SS movie for a while, so you'd think he'd have had it planned out a little better.
