I liked that Harley Quinn did not dominate this movie, which is something a studio would ask a director to do. I did NOT like the extended scene of her with that guy when she was held captive. It went on way too long and was dull.
Her escape after killing him and their unneeded attempt at rescuing here were great, though. After that, she was just part of the team, which I liked.
Via that old comic book standby - she got injected with a serum 
. In this case by her bff/sometimes girlfriend Poison Ivy. She is supposedly a peak Captain America-level human and immune to toxins. She was also a jock in college - got in on a gymnastics scholarship. Note that continuities differ because, of course, comic books. Gun-kata looks cool, so she has it because I guess…hmmm…God loves her? God in this case being the script writers.
I liked the movie. It wasn’t fantastic, but it was light-years better than the original. I also prefer Idris Elba to Will Smith any day. And while I agree we’re quickly reaching peak Harley saturation, when you’re the drearily grim DC verse you need all the light-hearted charismatic psychosis you can get. Margot Robbie is always at the head of the class in terms of charisma.
Heck I’ll even give a shout-out to Kaley Cuoco’s recent animated version. I don’t blame DC for leaning in on what works.
Saw it last night. Wow, ‘Deadpool’ really raised the bar for ultraviolence in superhero movies, eh? It was ok. I’m not a big fan of superhero movies so I watched it as a parody of superhero movies, which I guess it really kind of was. The giant starfish stomping around at the end was fairly ridiculous- reminded me of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man in Ghostbusters.
I liked it and as someone who liked the first one I was glad they did it in a way that you can think both movies happened . A fun breezy attitude throughout with just enough cynicism (I am tired of cynicism in superhero movies) given the source material. I really liked the fakeout in the beginning.
I forgot to add that I think it’s great that comic book kookiness like Starro the Conqueror can make it in a big budget tent poll movie and become a household name.
Waller killed that other team in a war zone, giving her deniability, and they weren’t cleared for the knowledge, so it gave her a reason.
This movie, everyone was cleared for everything, and she frankly was making the wrong call (Starro was only going to get stronger, you need to deal with it now if at all possible). They copped out with the “but kids” reason - while not as cold-blooded as Waller (who is), no one on that team likely gave much of a crap about general civilian casualties.
This leads to my general observation about superhero movies, which is that there’s too much of this shit. Specifically
I was just watching “Loki” and there are a lot of scenes where Loki or other characters engage in kicking and punching. In one scene, Loki and Sylvie are trying to escape a deadly situation when they are attacked by guards and a lot of kicking and punching happens despite the fact that there is no logical reason for them to be attacked and no narrative purpose to having that happen. I’m four episodes in, and so far Loki has done more kicking and punching than he has done trickery - and Loki’s entire thing is trickery.
So in The Suicide Squad, we have Harley Quinn mostly kicking and punching and not using her unique abilities, and most of the other characters also mostly kick and punch, though many also shoot guns. The best action scenes are never the kicking and punching and shooting; they’re scenes where characters use DISTINCT abilities. For whatever reason though, these movies always end up resorting to highly generic kicking and punching scenes.
Boo-Hoo, my 10 hour 4-day work weeks with a three day weekend have come to an end. The good news is that I can once again make a 4 PM matinee movie followed by dinner, and I plan on taking advantage of that tomorrow by going to see, “The Suicide Squad”. I’ve lost Will Smith, but I have gained Idris Elba and Sylvester Stallone, so I have no complaints. I’ve heard that if you are enamored with the D.C universe and love a good action movie. you’re really going to like this.
I’m just going to spoiler box my Loki response since this thread is for Suicide Squad. Nothing is really spoilers here other than “basic premise of the show Loki”, but just to be safe:
Hmmmm…I think while he is in the TVA, his powers don’t work, right? I know he might not always be there, but I believe that was the case. Then again, I thought he was a Frost Giant or something like that and shouldn’t even look like Hiddleston if his illusion powers are not working, so I have no idea.
Good luck spotting Stallone - I had to wait for the credits to figure out who he was.
Well, he’s looking pretty haggard these days, so I guess they figured it was best to cover him up. LOL
Watched it last night and found it fun though not “great”. Way better than the first SS movie but that’s a very low bar. If I had paid $30 to see it in theater, I’d probably be a little less charitable but it was a fun way to spend a couple hours on the couch on a Sunday evening.
Was it just me or did parts of the film seem… low budget? Sometimes it looked like a made-for-TV production rather than a Hollywood film. And I know about motion smoothing on the TV and all that but this was more than that… at least I don’t get the same feeling watching other action movies on the TV. Starro looked like a foam doll but that might be the best you can do when CG animating a walking purple space starfish.
I didn’t read the thread but I popped in here to ask if I can enjoy the new movie without having seen the first one. Can I?
Yes. I didn’t see the first one and I enjoyed this one. All you need to know is that the government is putting together teams of supervillains/criminals for very risky missions (in exchange for reducing their prison sentences), and controlling them by implanting bombs in their heads that can be remotely triggered.
Yes. This is more of a reboot of the first movie than a sequel. The first isn’t directly mentioned at all and only obliquely hinted at – Harley knowing a guy from the previous film and they don’t spend much time explaining the “Suicide Squad” concept, instead making it sound like now they’re doing this on the semi-regular.
I agree with @Jophiel; this is more of a “soft reboot” than a sequel, and I think it almost helps not to have seen the first one. This one takes a very different tone, and a couple of the characters are a bit different from their previous portrayal.
I’d add one bit that I don’t think is at all clear if you haven’t seen the first one:
This guy:
is Rick Flag, a U.S. military special operations officer, who’s the one non-criminal on the team and is supposed to be riding herd on the rest of them and keeping them in line in the field.
Thanks, all! I read the first couple paragraphs of the OP and it made me want to watch it so I’ll be back once I’ve seen it 
What about Peacemaker? I’m unclear on what his status was at the beginning of the movie.
He’s clearly a prisoner - Waller and Bloodsport pick him up from his cell as they’re walking through the prison.
It’s not quite laid out explicitly, but the idea seems to be Peacemaker is a psychopath who murders anyone he views as a “threat to peace”, and apparently meaning specifically a threat to the peaceful existence of average Americans. Bloodsport calls this out in dialogue, and accuses Peacemaker of just using “peace” and patriotism as excuses for killing because he enjoys killing.
I was bingeing through “For all Mankind”, took a break to see Suicide Squad and… there he was, poor Ed Baldwin really cannot get a break can he?.