Batman: Assault on Arkham>Suicide Squad
Batman Assault on Arkham is 100x better film in the first half hr than the entirety of Suicide Squad.
- It shows bad guys…bad guys. Not some half assed line in the trailer
For future writers or directors, if you have to state stuff you are lacking in impact. We as an audience already know they are bad. We had a full backstory on nearly every character. There was another character that I think was there to just get killed. It was…*looks at smudged writing on hand*…Slapshot.
The audience wants to see and believe they are bad. We want to root for them. We want to see their selfish desires weigh in over the mission. In all honesty, the bad guys weren’t that bad. The Justice League could have handled this.
I could bring up two episodes of the Justice League where the Suicide Squad was used and that felt more real.
2. We see the rough dynamic of the team
— Deadshot/Captain Boomerang: They didn’t like each other. They get into a fight during the mission while guards are bearing down on them. CB seemed liked he was trying to say he could be better and overcompensating for something. A fact that our crazed psychiatrist brought up.
Even with bombs in the bad of their heads, these two took the seriousness of the mission at different levels.
— King Shark/Killer Frost. That is a ship I rooted for from their first interaction..where he tried to eat her. That didn’t go over so well for him.
By themselves they are awesome. They have no qualms of killing anyone even if the mission didn’t need it. Together you fell for the characters personalities and how they worked together to get out of tricky situations.
Apparently Killer Shark is afraid of heights. Who knew? But the beauty of it is that it didn’t feel forced like the kiss of Steve Rogers and Agent 13 in Civil War but thats another story and a whole nother universe (smirk). It didn’t take away from the plot. You want to see that develop and where it could lead. The writers didn’t just add them along for the sake of a punchline. Those two didn’t fall into being the “token black guy”.
Katana and Killer Croc…they were there. Had a few lines. I fangirl hard for Katana because she looked so amazing and the actress that plays her has such a great energy during interviews. Want to see more of the characters backstory with the soul sealing sword as a badass samurai. She was interviewed by Playboy magazine saying:
As a first-generation Japanese American, I’ve always wanted to play a samurai warrior like my Suicide Squad character, Katana…Samurai are almost always male, so growing up in America I had a hard time figuring out role models.”
That’s such an amazing few lines from her because it speaks on breaking stereotype, representation for first generation Americans as well as speaking on finding role models that look like them. It speaks on the bland representation of people who are minorities and see the same kind of person every time in the media of movies/books. I want to see her more.
I can’t really say anything about Killer Croc. They didn’t give me enough. He did not do anything that made me hate him more or love him less. He’s beautiful.
— Deadshot/Harley Quinn. I really don’t want to talk about them more than I have to. You can watch the movie (Suicide Squad) and see its primarily focused on them. That’s not hard to see. Why do I need to beat a dead horse? Both films had a bit of romance for them.
In AoA they have a more twisted relationship. We see the craziness of them together and Deadshot giving into it one crazy night before the mission starts.
Granted both Harleys have different timing of loving/hating the Joker. So the previous point is a bit biased. We see a recovering Harley (AoA) not being so crazed about the Joker.
— June Moon/Rick Flag romance. That was so awkward. They didn’t need to do all that.
— The Joker. We got hyped for nothing. Jared Leto wasn’t bad but seeing how they only had about 10 minutes of him in the movie, that poor man did some pretty messed up things to his co-actors. His acting was cringe worthy.
3. Amanda FREAKING Waller aka The Wall. They captured her character perfectly. She was not to be trifled with. She was more badass in Suicide Squad. Deadshot commented on her being gangsta. That scene I felt was the only time the audience reacted uncomfortably and she wasn’t even a part of the squad. How you having your boss show you up? Its like when people realize the government covered up some shady shit when they are suppose to be the good for everyone. That’s what Amanda was. She does the unpleasant things for the greater good. She had a secret mission for Killer Frost to kill another character because of the knowledge he was privy to.
Chaotic Good.
As well as her body size which was closer to canon with the comics. Amanda Waller is suppose to be a big heavy set woman with natural curly hair we see in African Americans. Something that is called “nappy” by other people. In Arrow, she is a very thin woman with slicked back hair. Representation matters and they failed in the tv show.
Granted there is time in the comics where she is thin. But given how tv shows and movies like to water down actors that aren’t seen as the “norm” due to race, size, gender, sexuality, age etc, I have to call them out on it.
4. The script was lacking in Suicide Squad. There was no suspense. It was just random location, dialog and fighting. They got shot down out of the sky to show they were in a bad part of town. But after that there was no real hard stakes for the team to get thru. The main villain was not that serious. I think she wanted to blow up the world or something. Or she was from the baby boomer generation and hated millennials using technology. Deadshot should have killed the main villain rather than the roundabout way they were going about it. He has a girl back home he wants to see and clearly cares about her more than the mission. I heard the director did a bunch of re-shoots because of how well Captain America: Civil War turned out. So we got something…a bit better? That’s the scary part. I want to see what they changed. I probably would be singing the movie’s praises for that. We got the lesser of two evils.
In AoA there was an actual clear threat that if tracked back to the government, there would be hell to pay. Mutual interest to get the team to work together. A badass Black woman director with a finger on the trigger to blow up her teams head. Actual chaos when everything goes sideways. This film could have saved so much time and hours spent on what makes a great suicide squad.
Shrug. I don’t know. Maybe something will happen if there is a sequel.
