MICHAEL LOMAX: ‘Suicide Squad’ is Dead on Arrival

Chalk up “Suicide Squad” as another link in a chain of critical flops for DC Comics’ Extended Universe. Following the catastrophe that was “Batman v Superman” and the lukewarm reaction to “Man of Steel” before that, “Suicide Squad” was supposed to be “the” movie. Boasting an all-star cast and a collection of incredible comic book characters, “Squad” had all the makings of a franchise-reviving hit. Instead it’s just more of the same.

In the aftermath of Superman’s “death” at the end of “BvS,” intelligence officer Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) decides to recruit several high-profile supervillains to form a covert black ops team in return for commuted jail time. What actually follows, of course, is chaos.

Very much like “BvS,” “Suicide Squad” fails to live up to the ludicrous levels of hype that have surrounded its release for years. While some of the performances really are wonderful (specifically actress Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn), they just aren’t enough to make up for what is otherwise a poorly executed plot that leans on its greatest-hits soundtrack a couple times too many.

But that’s not the biggest thing to take away here. You can go on and on about how “Suicide Squad” didn’t do this or did that instead, and odds are whatever you say will be right. “Squad” is just one of those movies that has so many small things going wrong that it’s hard to point to any one as the main cause. What you should really focus on instead is DC Comics.

If “BvS” was confusion, “Suicide Squad” was disappointment. Specifically, it is more of the same from a studio group that cannot get its act together. And maybe they’re just misguided.

I can understand wanting to make the DC films as distinct as possible from their Marvel counterparts, and I still really appreciate the darker tone they are trying to evoke. But if you don’t do dark movies right, they end up being incomprehensible, if not comically boring. So with all their money at hand, why can’t DC get it right?

Who the heck knows? Maybe it’s because there is just too much money on the table, or too many people who know nothing about film trying to “save” the franchise. (Like a “too many cooks in the kitchen” kind of thing.) Or maybe the wrong person is in charge, whether because of family connections, net worth, or something else equally superficial.

Whatever the reason, despite some great moments, “Suicide Squad” is another knife in the heart of DC’s Extended Universe. But as long as they keep raking in at the box office, don’t expect anything to change.

Michael Lomax is a writer-filmmaker currently at work on a film script to be set and shot in Albany.