Since such a thread was asked about in the other SS thread, I thought I’d start one. Also, since some people liked the movie, they may either want to openly talk about it or answer questions. Although I thought the movie barely qualified as mediocre, I cast no disparagement on those who liked it. Even a 25% positive rating means one-in-four liked it so hardly a unicorn sighting.
Questions:
Is Deadshot canonically non-meta? His screen dossier suggests he never misses a shot with anything from muskets to machine guns which would certainly imply some preternatural ability. I could see someone “never missing” with a select weapon and given time to aim shots but Deadshot can maintain a 100% hit rate while using any gun (any projectile?) on the fly, hitting moving targets, etc.
More to the point, the government was supposed to be assembling a team of metahumans to use as a weapon against other metahumans. Without Deadshot, they have a 33% success rate of putting metahumans into the team.
What the hell was up with El Diablo in the end? Can anyone familiar with the comics explain? Was it just by coincidence that Diablo’s “final form” was of an Aztec deity to fight the Central/South American(?) quasi-deity? It looked as though that was supposed to be meaningful in some way but then a number of things looked as though they were supposed to be meaningful but then went nowhere.
At one point Enchantress asked Diablo, “how did you learn to…” or “how long have you been able to…” something like that. Can’t remember the line. But, it does seem his power is connected to whatever dimension Enchantress is from. That’s believable, but I would like to know more. If Enchantress can put herself in a human body, no reason another from her dimension couldn’t have done the same with Diablo. He seemed aware his powers didn’t come from God.
I saw it last night, wow, was it bad. Jared Leto can act, but the script gave him nothing to work with so instead of psychopath we have crazy-in-love which is not the same thing remotely.
The mission was dumb as hell, ‘rescue’ Amanda Waller and help her walk up three flights of stairs to a chopper that will come whenever she wants. Oh, Joker hijacked it, which he’d have no business doing if his girl wasn’t there, but it’s no problem one phone call and it’s shot down and the next one shows up with no trouble.
At what point will it dawn on Boomerang Dundee to hit Waller’s hand with his tool, or Deadshot to shoot her the next time she holds up her Galaxy Note with the neck bomb app? El Diablo could set her on fire, hard to press buttons when you’re on fire. They’re trying to be good guys now, I get it, but Waller is the bad guy in this scenario.
The Lovecraftian-Borg take a while for the Enchantress to make and can be killed with firepower, so…where is the military? Why is the Suicide Squad necessary? She can teleport at will, why pull off this evil plan in downtown Gotham?
Awkward editing of every trailer scene Harley Quinn delivered.
The whole movie was just pointless, at every turn the characters wanted to get out, I have no doubt they were harnessing method acting, cause I’d sure as hell would want off that set.
I thought it was a fine action spectacle popcorn movie. Not going to win any Oscars. I went in knowing nothing about the comics and having seen no trailers.
I liked how she broke the phone as if that was it and now no one could blow their heads off. Umm, apps don’t work like that.
Of course, the “explosive power of a grenade” was essentially a puff of smoke from Slipknot’s neck.
While I didn’t care for Leto’s performance, out of his hands was the script which seemed hellbent in shoehorning Joker into a story that didn’t really need much Joker just so we’d be used to seeing Leto as the Joker. They were already flailing about as an ensemble cast without spending a bunch of time on someone who was on the periphery of the plot.
Sorceress and her brother (Sorcerer?). Amanda Davis had been holding her hostage (via ownership of her heart – literally) and wisely treating her like owning a lion and rapping it on the nose with a wooden spoon just because. Sorceress frees Mr. Sorceress and the two of them set upon destroying the world because that’s what bad guys do.
She kept referencing having a “machine” that never really materialized as such. I mean, it might have been a machine or maybe a dimensional rift or magic artifact or something that made giant swirly winds and streams of power. But the notion of a 4,000 year old magical metahuman knocking together a technological machine in her basement seems a bit out of place.
I never read any comics involving the character, as I was more a Marvel guy, but reading around the various comic wikis, it seems multiple people have been El Diablo. Normally, someone ends up playing host to a demon spirit of vengeance. One of the incarnations is a guy named Rafael Sandoval, said to host an Aztec god-emperor. Chato Santana is the latest tattooed gang-banger incarnation and it would appear, hosts the Aztec god-emperor.
I have only seen the movie and am not too familiar with the DC universe beyond watching the Justice League cartoons as a kid.
But I didn’t really get a sense of most of the teams “powers”.
Deadshot - has good aim, got that, but does that make him meta? And if he never misses a shot, why does he need machine guns? Just get a higher caliber weapon.
Captain Boomerang - throws boomerangs? didn’t get a sense of any other powers
Harley Quinn - she is crazy, anything else?
Killer Croc - has croc skin and is strong? Didn’t really show him as super strong though.
Diablo - Obviously a meta.
Warrior guy - I think they said he was an assassin, but he died too quickly to see him do anything.
Katana - her sword is magic, is she?
So beyond Diablo and Enchantress, not much meta on the team to fight other metas. Or did the movie just not do a good job showing their skills?
That was Slipknot, whose skill was “able to climb any surface”. You might think that, in a team of (supposed) metahumans, he’d be scampering along the walls Spider-Man style but apparently he just had a grappling hook. Don’t ask me how “owns a grappling hook” qualifies as a power but his real function was just to show that the neck-bombs were real.
Also, they made a point of asking, “what if the next Superman is a terrorist?” Well, with the possible exception of El Diablo, there is absolutely nothing this team could do to stop a superman. These are all Batman-level bad guys.
Well the thing to think about is that most ‘metas’ aren’t Superman class metas, but people who despite their abilities are flesh and blood like everyone else. So getting shot, will kill them just like everyone else.
As noted in the other Suicide Squad thread, Captain Boomerang and Katana are very dangerous when written correctly. Remember Boomerang is a Flash villain, so in theory he must be able to deal with your ‘average’ meta without difficulty.
Here’s some panels for background on how they deal with metas.
I suppose that, as a layperson, I equate “meta” with “mutant” in that someone whose sole ability is making their earlobes grow or shrink by an inch is technically “metahuman” but someone who is the “peak human ability” type (say Batman) but with standard issue DNA is not metahuman. Despite the fact that peak condition guy could beat the crap out of earlobe guy in every fight.
My initial impressions of the movie was that it was a fun, popcorn flick that wasn’t nearly as bad as the 26% its getting on Rotten Tomatoes, I liked this movie better than BvS though that’s not saying much. However, it really really doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Like, don’t even think about the plot or why some of it was the way it was, just go with it.
However, there was one thing I felt was waaaay too overt. In the beginning, when all of the different characters were being introduced, the movie loudly introduces each one with their own theme music. Like, it couldn’t have been more obvious that they are trying to shout “Hey! HEY! Look! New character! Look at how cool this music matches with them! Pay attention!!” This is the kind of thing Marvel does in its sleep and it kills me that they couldn’t do this with a movie that was perfect for having a bunch of branching storylines come together.
On a similar note, Marvel is great about having at least one scene for a character to shine, to show their uniqueness and prove why they deserve to be there. Civil War was fantastic in that regard, everybody got to do their thing and show why each was necessary to the story. Was Croc really necessary? And boomerang guy, what was his point, to film that 5 second scene at the end with his toy? Even Harley, as cute and funny as she was, is just a normal human who’s crazy. Is she really a better choice to be there than someone who can actually fight? And why even bring fire guy if he wasn’t willing to use his power? Who brings a liability to a firefight in the hopes they get over their block on using his power? Few of them had a chance to shine, Will Smith did, Harley sort of did, and everybody else was just sorta there
As I mentioned in the other thread, it baffles me that Croc had the whole “This is my home, you’re just tourists” line to the divers and then… does shit after that. I mean, have the other divers get killed by charcoal monsters under water and it’s Croc who has to retrieve and place the charge or something. He didn’t even get THAT much. It was like “Yeah, you can swim thanks. Didn’t really need you here, though.”
Same thing with Boomerang who, as far as I could tell, had the sole unique contribution of owning a boomerang with a webcam on it which he used once for thirty seconds. Where, really, someone could have just peeked around the corner.
I agree Joker really didn’t need any more screen time than the Flash. It was a bit awkward having him just chasing after Harley but otherwise unconcerned and uninvolved with what Harley and her new team were doing. They could have spent that screen time fleshing out the other characters.
Well Superman is vulnerable to magic, so in theory the Enchantress and this version of El Diablo should be able to do damage to him. Whether or not such damage would be enough to weaken him for a kill shot, is another matter…but it might be enough to place him in some sort of containment.