Short version: it was a perfectly enjoyable supervillain flick. I’m not sure why the critics were so upset: it was a good deal less brooding than most of the rest of what DC has been trying to throw at us lately. And, yes, they’re all bad guys and that’s kind of the point, right? As long as you don’t expect it to be as good as a Marvel movie – and this one has come closer than usual – you should be OK.
Minor Spoiler warning: Harley Quinn’s character is very, very interesting. As is the Joker’s: they toned down remarkably the mutually self-destructive horror that is those two’s usual relationship. I could even maybe half-believe that the Joker actually has something resembling a legitimate emotional connection to Harley… except that that’s crazy-talk, of course.
Also: if you ever want to know what a comic book villain looks like after he’s read The King in Yellow, Jared Leto has you covered.
I am confused though. What do Harley & The Joker have to do with Suicide Squid? Squiddie doesn’t seem the type to hang with them.
When are we going to get a Suicide Squid movie?
Dammit, you two, I went through that article twice looking for the typo. 🙂
Evidently, a whole bunch of militant feminists are stridently upset that Harley Quinn is not a good rolemodel for young girls.
.
No, I’m not kidding.
There’s not a single good goram role model in that movie at ALL. And I actually liked most of the Squad. Except for Captain Boomerang. I was fuzzy on why a jewel thief was serving three life sentences for that, or why he needed to be in an ultra-security lockdown for it.
He did kill his accomplice in his intro scene. Presumably he’s done that more than once.
This comment twigged something in me. Moe, have you ever read Star Risk, Ltd., by Chris Bunch? One of the main characters in it is a cybernetically-enhanced commando who decided that his capabilities and talents would be better put to use as a jewel thief. When we first meet him, he’s trying to steal some jewels on some backwater planet, gets caught, and sentenced to death.
Nope, never heard of it.
Two words Explosive Boomerangs. And he was never worried about collateral damage.
He also has Razor boomerangs and he specializes in decapitations with those.
No, I get why they’d want the actual villain on ice. This guy, not so much.
He also has top tier B&E skills or in this case B&leave skills combined with an absolutely ruthless sociopathic personality. He routinely breaks out of prison anything less than ultra-security wouldn’t hold him for very long. In the comics, he was a Flash villain, he’s often depicted as crazy but he’s not and that’s the problem. He’s also good with improvised weapons and throwing knives, he just likes what he can do with boomerangs. He also has a history of working with other DC villains to try and assassinate various DC heroes.
I saw it with my teen daughter yesterday and we both felt letdown after it was over. I was entirely confused as to who the antagonists were for the first 60 minutes. The “bad guys” were hardly even bad at all. There was never much sense of barely restrained mayhem. After such a long buildup of expectations, man was it a bummer. So much material there to work with and they still come up with a dud. It’s like you get set loose in a Lego store and all you can make is a cube or rectangle from all those lovely blocks.
If I remember correctly, it’s been 40+ years, Boomerang got his start as a mercenary. So the Captain is his earned mercenary rank, Captain Boomerang was his nickname, because he started building his specialty boomerangs then. He’s also implicated in a number of third world assassinations, decapitated no weapon found. If I remember right he’s on the team because of his ability to take and follow orders when things go to hell. Actually I’m a little surprised he only has three life sentences considering his penchant for throwing BOOM-erangs, DC used to love puns, at crowds when cornered. Aggravated attempted murder in the commission of a crime multiple counts. He may also hold a record in the DC universe for the most escapes from prison, I don’t believe anywhere has held him for a full year. But then, it is the DC universe. It’s always bad when you have to put him on a team because he’s a stabilizing factor.