The Suicide Squad Film Follies

All A+ contributions, good work team, you truly are super villians

very the crow ost is the worst record i have ever heard

I was thinking Spawn.

^^What Harley does to achieve orgasm.

38% on RT...

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/suicide_squad_2016/

Welp. Nice knowin' ya, DC cinematic universe.

i'm shocked

SHOCKED

saw some quote from the director in the NYT about how the end was "morally questionable" or something like that - put my fears to rest

oof

From the first scene to the last, it’s an absolute mess, one whose harried pacing, jumbled narrative, and blaring soundtrack of radio hits suggests a desperate post-production attempt to reconfigure what Ayer got on set into something palatable and poppy.

viola davis as amanda waller seems like the only good decision anyone involved in this movie made, huh

Not convinced that this is the end of the DCCU, this is more like 'what if Deadpool tanked'

I imagine that negative reviews will only bolster the fervent defense of the movie by the people to whom it is targeted (Ed Hardy wearin' gritty muderverse stans).

xpost Except that they're planning to build a 10+ film franchise off of a scant handful of underwhelming and underperforming flicks. If this one doesn't turn things around...

you just described zack snyder iirc xp

Wonder Woman is seriously the first entry of this nonsense that looked like something I might pay money to see. The recent bombshell that Snyder was more hands-on than at first indicated, though, gives me second thoughts.

i can't wait for the schadenfreude lols that future behind-the-scenes production stories will bring - seems like it was a bit of a shitshow from start to finish

It sounded very much like they reshot and re-edited much of the movie at the eleventh hour as a reaction to the success of Deadpool. Which seems like a pretty great recipe for cinematic magic (I call it 'cinemagic').

In polite old New England vernacular, calling a misbehaved child "fresh" is tantamount to calling him a vile little shit. It's reserved for ill-tempered, snarky kids who cuss a lot. My mom calls Hot Topic "Fresh Topic," and referred in the '80s to Bart Simpson as "that fresh yellow boy." In every possible way, this movie looks like it's trying to be fresh.

One time in high school when I was with my extended family around the holidays, my weird and similarly-aged cousin kept coming up to me and my brothers and saying random curse words under his breath and giggling like it was super transgressive but it was actually just sad and more than a little uncomfortable. I guess WB decided that audiences nationwide should have that same experience.

https://twitter.com/pattymo/status/760511837083435008

Can't trust the SUICIDE SQUAD reviews because there's a very real chance the critics were all driven insane by how twisted it is

i am liking these pull quotes.

"Who stole the soul of Suicide Squad? I'd say it's Ayer's willingness to go all limp-dick and compromise his hardcore action bona fides for a PG-13 crowdpleaser that would rather ingratiate than cut deep, or even cut at all."
-Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

"A puzzlingly confused undertaking that never becomes as cool as it thinks it is, Suicide Squad assembles an all-star team of supervillains and then doesn't know what to do with them."
- Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter

"So much happens in David Ayer's DC Comics adaptation Suicide Squad that by the end, it's as if you've seen nothing."
- Stephanie Zacharek, Time

"What a waste of a perfectly twisted Suicide Squad."
- Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun Times

I should catch up on classic Suicide Squad comics, but the way this movie was pitched was as a murderous group of loners who would accept being allied for pragmatic reasons and it's being pitched as a funny team of oddball reluctant friends

Sorry, _was_ pitched versus re-pitched

There were never any plans to build a Franchise off this though, the through path is Man of Steel -> Batman vs Superman from Man of Steel -> Wonder Woman from Batman vs Superman -> (Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman and Aquaman and Flash) from Batman vs Superman in the JLA -> Flash from JLA -> Aquaman from JLA -> JLA II. This is like Deadpool in that it's a scrappy little film (though much more expensive) without anyone that we'd expect to see again.

It sounded very much like they reshot and re-edited much of the movie at the eleventh hour as a reaction to the success of Deadpool.

As far as I know yes except instead of "success of Deadpool" read "critical kicking of Batman vs Superman"

That Travers quote is O_O. Dude is generally such an undiscriminating cinematic milquetoast. 'Limp dick'! It must really be bad.

Ayer's previous movies have, for the most part, been based around a group of cops or soldiers that have a very tense relationship with their peers, with an air of distrust compounded by in-group hazing or outright abuse.

You could look at The Fast and the Furious or S.W.A.T, both of which he wrote but didn't direct and tease out a PG13-ready concept but the former has too much heart and the latter ended up feeling very rote and fell into the generic "film version of a tv show" trap that a bunch of films around that time did. Nothing controversial enough to bruise what the studios felt was a useful property, nothing interesting enough to make it worth watching.

Bringing him on due to his stronger work, restricting it to PG13, and then recutting it via intense focus group studies.. probably doesn't have much of a chance

This is like Deadpool in that it's a scrappy little film (though much more expensive) without anyone that we'd expect to see again.

They had Affleck Batman in it from the beginning and the pitch in the commercials is "we need a team in case the Superman thing happens again"! Even if we never see any of these characters again, they're tying it directly into the backstory of their movie universe.

it's a scrappy little film (though much more expensive) without anyone that we'd expect to see again

except they shoehorned the Joker/Batman in there purely for franchise reasons

im glad all the actors in this got shitty poorly spelled tattoos so they can remember this great experience for the rest of their lives

Oh I didn't know about Affleck - nemmind then. Jesus, what an odd fucking film to tie into the two-film-old attempt to hamfistedly copy Marvel ... oh yeah.

http://i.imgur.com/PCSqVzW.gif

My mom calls Hot Topic "Fresh Topic," and referred in the '80s to Bart Simpson as "that fresh yellow boy."

― remy bean, Tuesday, 2 August 2016 20:13 Bookmark

dying

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/suicide-squads-secret-drama-rushed-916693

A key concern for Warners executives was that Suicide Squad didn't deliver on the fun, edgy tone promised in the strong teaser trailer for the film. So while Ayer pursued his original vision, Warners set about working on a different cut, with an assist from Trailer Park, the company that had made the teaser.

In May, Ayer's more somber version and a lighter, studio-favored version were tested with audiences in Northern California. "If there are multiple opinions that aren't in sync, you go down multiple tracks — two tracks at least," says an insider. "That was the case here for a period of time, always trying to get to a place where you have consensus." Those associated with the film insist Ayer agreed to and participated in the process. Once feedback on the two versions was analyzed, it became clear it was possible to get to "a very common-ground place." (The studio-favored version with more characters introduced early in the film and jazzed-up graphics won.) Getting to that place of consensus, however, required millions of dollars worth of additional photography.

coup de grace:

Though reviews suggest the competing visions for the movie may have taken a toll (THR's critic calls the film "puzzlingly confused"), BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield says, "I've learned long ago there is not always a connections between reviews and box office and financial success."

What a break for a trailer company.

short version: Ayer made a dark film about villains, Warners panicked because their gritty movie about heroes was panned, they test screened it and then shot a bunch of comedic bits to add to the film, then had the final thing edited by new editors, including the people who worked on the trailers

imo they ignored the substance of the criticism and decided to go the comedy route for some reason, probably some sort of chart involving box office payout and Deadpool or something

xp no kidding! some trailers are better than the films they're promoting. apparently someone decided to cut out the middlemen.

It sounds like Ayer was put through the ringer, firing his agent and switching agencies only to switch back the next day. This is the kind of shit that drives directors away and leaves them whispering the words "I get final cut" to themselves as they rock back and forth on their barstool

ayer is i think a pretty strong director and writer, his police flicks are very well-made, and he's made at least one film in that genre that is genuinely great ('end of watch'.) i think he was mostly left to his own devices on his previous films, i mean whatever their worth they've got a particular "voice".

otm, they're not the greatest films but his main strengths are his tonal consistency and emphasizing moral complexity over plot complexity. cutting in additional material seems the easiest way to override those strengths

this reminds me of when my old roomate was working on GI Joe 2 - the original was panned so their original idea was to immediately kill off channing tatum's character. then 21 jump street came out and the studio decided the world demanded more channing tatum, and they ended up reshooting like half the movie.

they're flogging the hell out of this thing on the late night talk shows and the clips are always as absurd as i imagine the whole film is.

I hope to god the initial test screenings didn't lead them to adding more Leto

Walter Chaw:

Suicide Squad fails at every single thing it attempts. It's porn for children. It'll make a ton of money, cause a lot of head-scratching and impotent conversations and mild outrage, and then Trump will be President and we'll deserve it.

AO Scott late to the party but came out swingin' with André Bazin references:

A series of tactical skirmishes with faceless minions — semi-zombies that can be slaughtered en masse, without a second thought — leads to a big final showdown. Spoiler alert: It’s essentially the final showdown from “Ghostbusters” and at least a half-dozen other recent blockbusters, with a few differences of what I guess we should call nuance. You can safely duck out of the theater and spend a good 20 minutes on the claw machine or Instagram, slipping back in to catch the final song and the sequel-teasing extra scene during the end credits.

i can't think of a more boring movie reviewer than a.o. scott. so tedious to read. aren't there any fiery young critics out there the NYT could hire? get rid of the old lumps. this is the everything he says in that review about what the movie looks like: "The colors are lurid and smeary."

Bazin indeed!

I tend to trust Dargis' taste

i just never read any good writing from those guys. very review/synopsis-oriented and kind of a snooze. it's definitely not good criticism.

A fairly overlapping set of circles in the Venn diagram of this, die-hard Trump supporters, men's rights advocates, and white men without a college degree.

A.O. Scott is the weirdest champion of, like, the well-done medium budget traditional Hollywood movie. Every review he writes, lately, is like reading a review of an adequate hamburger.

Pete Wells could probably write better movie reviews.

Heh, I was just reading on that Ask Greil Marcus page about how GM thinks AOS is such a great great critic - never read Scott's stuff, so was kinda intrigued (tho elsewhere on that site, GM produces a p tired old list - Thomson, Kael, Farber etc - when asked to name his fave film crits so...i dunno)

Out of interest, how does Scott bring Bazin in to a review of the Suicide Squad movie?

Again, don't really know Dargis crit - was put off her when Morbs quoted her saying that Spielberg belonged in the very top of the pantheon, which unreasonably enraged me. Whenever I look at that page of star ratings in Film Comment (I'm looking at em now), I don't agree w/ a lot of her rankings - 2 stars for Cemetery of Splendor, Embrace of the Serpent, The Lobster, 3 stars for Miles Ahead, no way

I don't agree with her on Cemetery or Embrace, that's for sure.

here's Scott's opening:

Scholars of classical Hollywood sometimes speak of “the genius of the system,” a phrase coined by the French critic André Bazin to refer to the ability of the old studio machinery to turn out works of inventive and beautiful popular art. But times change. “Suicide Squad,” the latest product of the DC-Warner Bros. partnership, is a good example of the idiocy of the system. This is not to say that it’s a completely terrible movie — it is certainly not worse than “X-Men: Apocalypse,” “Captain America: Civil War” or, heaven knows, “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” — but rather that its virtues and shortcomings are more systemic than specific. Written and directed by David Ayer (“Fury,” “End of Watch”), “Suicide Squad” is a so-so, off-peak superhero movie. It chases after the nihilistic swagger of “Deadpool” and the anarchic whimsy of “Guardians of the Galaxy” but trips over its own feet. The colors are lurid and smeary (when it’s not too dark to see what’s going on). The language pushes the far boundary of its PG-13 rating. The death toll is high, and the weapons are nasty. In spite of all the mayhem and attitude, the overall mood is cautious. For a film about a gang of outlaw brawlers, “Suicide Squad” is awfully careful to stay inside the lines.