Suicide Squad is the latest film in the DC cinematic universe. It has main roles played by Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Karen Fukuhara, and Adewale Akkinuoye Agbaje. I could have said starred but I wouldn’t say some of these people “starred” in the movie, mainly because some of the big names I saw on the poster for this movie, were not in it as much as other characters or they didn’t have as much of an effect on the story.

The plot of the movie is essentially several baddies are trapped in prison, and all of a sudden Viola Davis gets an idea of turning said baddies into superheroes. As I watched the movie, I realized this came about based on what happened at the end of Batman v. Superman, which I won’t spoil for those who haven’t seen it. When I saw that, it made me think a couple of things: I’d recommend watching Batman v. Superman before seeing this movie if the chance comes around, and that despite how I knew this was technically a part of the DC cinematic universe, I had no idea how much Batman v. Superman would play into this movie. Overall, pretty cool concept.

Let’s talk about these “bad guys.” I’m not gonna get to all of them but I’ll provide some detail about some. Starting off with the movie’s main character, Deadshot, played by Will Smith. I thought this guy had some pretty cool lines in the movie, and the relationship between him and his daughter was interesting to see throughout the film and it felt real. We’ll get back to that at the end.

Margot Robbie plays Harley Quinn in this movie, and she was by far my favorite character in the entire film. I loved how throughout the flick, it really displayed her insanity and her personality was dazzling. She had some of the best lines in the movie, and it almost seemed like I was watching a “lovable idiot” type of character. Also, do you remember Joel Schumacher’s “Batman & Robin?” If you haven’t seen it, don’t. Although if you have, you may remember Poison Ivy, and she basically looked, acted, and sounded like a seductive porn star. Granted she tried to use dust to get people to fall in love with her as a power, but even if she wasn’t using it, my opinion wouldn’t change on that scenario. That was very out of place for a movie such as that and felt kind of awkward at times. In this movie, you kind of get the same vibe from Harley Quinn, mainly because of her backstory, but it works here because it’s a darker story and it seems to be more serious than Batman & Robin. I also heard some people say Harley Quinn is basically a sexual object in this movie. I can see where people are coming from, but as of right now, here’s how I stand on that. If the sexuality aspect adds something to one’s character, or if there’s a valid reason that I for one can stand by for it to exist in the movie, I can approve of people putting it in the movie. That applies to Harley Quinn. Before I move on, I find Margot Robbie playing a character that is sexualized in this movie rather interesting, because I once read her quotes on IMDb and from those quotes, it made this girl playing Harley Quinn become surprising. I say that because when I heard about the sexual objectification thing, it didn’t match with the real Margot Robbie’s personality. There was no full frontal nudity or anything in the movie, just some scenes where she wore sexy clothes and there was a pan up her body as she was in her underwear putting some clothes on. Also as I first saw her character, it’s basically like looking at a sex slave. Then again I’m talking about the girl who had sex with Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street so whaddya know?

Now that the rant’s over, I’ll move onto Killer Croc, I liked him in this movie. After doing some research, Killer Croc in this movie looked a lot like the interpretation in the comic books, so I give props to everyone behind this movie for that, and think fans of the source material will be pleased.

Let’s move onto The Joker. First of all, this personally wasn’t a huge letdown to me, but I imagine it would be to some, he’s barely in the movie. Although for the scenes that he’s in, Jared Leto had a good interpretation of The Joker and it looked like he had lots of fun in his role, and that’s something I can appreciate from him as an actor. Then again, who DOESN’T want to play The Joker? I would kill for that!

Something I loved about this movie was the soundtrack. It had songs that basically encompassed of a mix of pop, rock, and metal. They all made me feel like I was watching the right movie for it. However one thing I wonder about it is if “Guardians of the Galaxy” wasn’t released before this movie came out, this movie wouldn’t have gone down this route. This is because both movies have similar concepts. One thing Suicide Squad’s soundtrack reminds me of is when I heard “Hooked on a Feeling” play during Guardians of the Galaxy. This especially came into play during this movie when I heard songs like “Spirit in the Sky,” “Paranoid,” and “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

One thing that stood out to me in the movie are the cameos. This isn’t exactly a spoiler because it was revealed before the movie came out, but if you get mad, I’m sorry. Batman was in the movie, and seeing him was a blast. There was one scene at the beginning of the movie where Batman was on the top of the Jokermobile, the Joker was inside with Harley Quinn and she says that Batman was “ruining date night.” It’s a funny line along with a cool 30 second chase. The Flash also had a cameo in the movie, and that was basically a flashback, and that reminds me of one thing. This movie has tons of flashbacks.

I heard some people complain about the flashbacks, but to me, I thought they were fine and had some good visual storytelling. They moved the story along quite well and they made some of the characters more interesting. If this movie had an alternate title, it could be called Flashbacks: The Movie.

Suicide Squad is redeeming quality in a summer of disappointing blockbusters. Is it the best DC movie ever? No. That personally belongs to “The Dark Knight.” Is it an entertaining film? Of course. Would I see it again? I’d say so. I’m going to give Suicide Squad a 7/10. Also I would like to remind everyone reading this that there is one thing I haven’t talked about that I’m going to talk about below, that’s because it is kind of a spoiler for the movie.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

I mentioned before that Deadshot has a relationship with his daughter in the movie that played into quite a bit of the story. That’s fine and all, and I actually thought it made Deadshot a likable character. However I noticed a story problem. At one point it is revealed that his daughter sent him some letters when he was in prison. It turns out that these letters were in the hands of El Diablo, another character in the movie. Seeing all of these letters, Deadshot gets emotional and it is a motivator to get him to join the others in the climax of the movie, but there is no evidence on how exactly these messages got in El Diablo’s hands. I mentioned in the last paragraph I gave the movie a 7/10, and in all honesty, I still would have given the movie the same score even if the hole was nonexistent because while it did kind of irk me, it was forgivable because segments that came later in the movie made up for it in my opinion. I’m not sure what my next review will be, my weekend is mostly busy, but if I can go at some point, I’m going to see Equity. Also just a random update I actually never touched upon, I mentioned posts back that I’m planning to review the Star Wars saga before Rogue One comes out in December. I’m probably not actually going to do that, but I might do something else Star Wars related before the movie comes out. Stay tuned for more reviews. Scene Before is your click to the flicks!