Four Crossed Logs: ‘Suicide Squad’: Summary and analysis WITH SPOILERS

If you want to avoid spoilers, read the previous version of my review.

Now that you have been thoroughly warned that this section will spoil the movie for you, we can begin to get into the juicy stuff.

This film follows the events of “Batman v Superman,” in which Superman is seen as a deadly alien that could have destroyed the planet. Amanda Waller, head of a secret government defense agency plans to use detained super villains to prevent a meta-human attack. Along with a team of super villains and the powerful, 6,000-year-old Enchantress, Waller is granted her request in creating Task Force X, aka the Suicide Squad, under the supervision of Col. Rick Flag.

The Enchantress later escapes to release her trapped bother, Incubus. She vows to create a machine with her supernatural powers that will wipe out the human population so she and Incubus can rule the planet once more.

In response to the destruction by Incubus and the power surging from Enchantress’ spell, the U.S. calls upon Task Force X, which is controlled using bombs implanted in their necks. After losing Slipknot to a failed escape attempt, the group fights an army of creatures created by the Enchantress. Finally arriving to their destination, the group discovers their mission was to save Waller.

The group goes to the rooftop for rescue, finding The Joker in the hijacked helicopter. A tech specialist on Joker’s crew disables Harley’s bomb, giving her a chance to escape. Just as Harley and Joker are reunited, a missile hits the helicopter and Harley falls out and lands on a nearby rooftop. The helicopter crashes and explodes.

Waller leaves in another helicopter, which is quickly brought down by Incubus. The lone survivor of the crash, Waller is taken by Enchantress’ creatures and her mind is used to show the secret to defeating mankind.

Meanwhile at Waller’s fallen helicopter, Deadshot realizes their true mission after reading a binder containing top secret information. After learning the truth and accepting defeat, the Suicide Squad retreats to the bar across the street.

The super villains start to share sob stories about their lives and understand that there isn’t a place for them in this world. Deadshot and Harley explain that they all might be bad guys who are ugly on the inside, but aren’t ugly on the outside. So they start to own their mistakes, and make them apart of who they are. After their heated discussion, Flag walks in, desperate for help, tells them that if he doesn’t do something to stop The Enchantress that the woman he loves, Dr. June Moon, who is trapped inside of her, will die. He gives them permission to leave, relinquishing them of their duties and walks out to save Dr. Moon. Swallowing some pride, the Squad decides to come along.

The group decides to plant an explosive underneath the footing of Incubus. Killer Croc, having the ability to swim in the sewer takes the lead and clears a path for the soldiers carrying the explosive. The rest of the Squad and Flag heads inside the subway station to divert Enchantress. Knowing their presence, The Enchantress puts visions of their greatest desires in each person’s mind. El Diablo is the only one isn’t fooled by the false vision and snaps himself out of her trance. After awaking everyone else, Diablo fights Incubus and becomes a sort of fire demi-god as he becomes enraged. He fights Incubus and holds him down until the explosion kills them both.

Enchantress cries out for her brother, but it is too late. She and the rest of the Squad members fight until she allows them a chance to join her army. Harley walks forward to ask Enchantress for one thing. She wishes for Joker to be brought back to life and Enchantress says she will give her anything she wants as long as she worships her. Harley kneels down before her, reaches for Katana’s blade and slashes Enchantress’ heart out. Her powers start to fade once again and the Squad moves in quickly. In a series of slow-motion action, Killer Croc throws a pile of C-4 at the still thriving magical vortex of Enchantresses spell. After fighting The Enchantress’ apparition of his daughter, Deadshot fires at the C-4, which explodes inside the magical vortex, shutting it down completely.

Defeated and in a much weakened state, Enchantress pleads with the Squad to kill her so she can be with her brother. After pleading with her to bring back June, Flag squeezes the Enchantress’ heart until it crumbles into pieces. Enchantress falls dead. When it seems all hope is lost, June’s face appears through all the muck and mud left from Enchantress’ body. The two lovers hold each other and start to kiss.

While the rest of Squad members talk about what they plan to do next, Waller reappears, still holding their explosives. Because they saved the world, Waller agrees to fulfill a request for each of them in addition to 10 years off their prison sentences. They all ask for something, except for Captain Boomerang, who claims that 10 years off his triple life sentence isn’t worth it. He threatens to leave and is quickly stopped by Waller who still threatens to blow off his head again.

Each member is given what they asked for; Deadshot is seen with his daughter, Killer Croc gets a TV put in his cell, and Harley gets her espresso machine, while Boomerang is thrown into a tiny cell with nothing.

As the movie slowly winds to end, masked prison guards bust through the walls of Belle Reve prison to Harley’s cell. Several dozen break through and open Harley’s cell. One masked guard walks in and takes off his mask. The Joker is revealed and he tells Harley that they’re leaving. Ecstatic to see her lover still alive, Harley springs toward him and they escape together. End of movie.

Disappointments

The most disappointing aspect of the movie was that The Joker was not in it enough. I already knew this going in to the movie from hearing a lot of the reviews, but I still imaged him being in it a lot more, just going by the trailers. A lot of his scenes that had me really excited about the movie that were from the trailers were either cut short or just completely cut out entirely. If I had one bad review it would be that. The actor portraying The Joker, Jared Leto, said after seeing the premiere that a lot of his scenes were cut out. So I hear this and I’m like, why have him in the movie then? He’s obviously not the main villain of the movie so that clearly points to Enchantress as the villain, and I was right. Jared Leto said that this was probably the hardest character he ever had to portray, so that just confuses the heck out of me. He puts all this time and effort in playing this iconic character and he’s hardly in the movie. Quite honestly, he really has no affiliation with the plot of the movie. He’s used a backstory for Harley Quinn and he shows up occasionally to retrieve her, but the movie really made no effort in making him a bigger deal than he really was. He’s really only a third party in the movie, with his own agenda. I enjoyed every second of screen time he had and just wanted to see more of him is all. All that being said, I get the idea of limiting this new Joker in the movie that doesn’t revolve around him just to get him out there and prepare us for him in later movies, and whenever a new director uses him, he/she can fix or change the things that people didn’t like about him. The movie isn’t about him, he has to be there to tell the Harley Quinn story I get that; we were lucky enough to get him in the movie more than we did, but still I am still disappointed in his lack of screen time. My hats off to you Mr. Leto, you did a great job, hope to see you as The Joker again!
There were several other scenes that were shown in the trailers and TV spots that were cut from the movie completely, other than The Joker ones. Reasons I’ve heard for that is that these scenes presented an entirely different movie than what was released for theatres. I get that all movies go through these same kinds of cuts, but in researching on what scenes were cut, it is very disappointing to not get to see these on film. Some of them sound really amazing, and it’s just a shame that I didn’t get to see them on the big screen. I am hopeful that when the film finally gets released for Blu-Ray and DVD we get a Director’s Cut, including all of these scenes, just as Batman v Superman did. In my opinion the Director’s Cut was far better than the theatrical version. I still love the film for what it was, but I can’t help but think of what it could have been.

Other things I’d like to mention

Batman

If you went ahead a read The Plot in further detail piece, then you are well aware that Batman is in this film. His scenes were very short, as expected, but they proved to be pretty vital to the story. Batman did apprehend both Deadshot and Harley Quinn, as well as appearing in a dream sequence by Deadshot where he kills Batman. Other than those few scenes Batman wasn’t involved in the rest of the film, which is fine, until the mid-credits scene. Bruce Wayne is sitting with Amanda Waller after everything that has transpired with the Suicide Squad and they’re discussing doing business. She claims that if anyone finds out the truth about what happened in Midway City and with her Task Force X that she’ll be ruined; Bruce offers her protection, if she gives him what he wants. She does. And what he gets are files on the meta-humans. Bruce then gets up to walk out the door and turns back to Waller when she tells him to stop working nights, that he looks tired, basically telling him she knows he’s Batman, he tells her he’d more worried about shutting down her Task Force X, before he and his new friends do. End of movie for real this time.

Ike Barinholtz’s character

After much deliberation and discussion on who Barinholtz’s character could be, he is no more than Griggs, the Belle Reve prison guard captain or as his uniforms say: Alpha 1. Known for his comedic skills, Barinholtz was thought to be brought in for more than just the silly guy, and he was, as he is very much disliked by the inmates of Belle Reve of whom he torments. And though he played a jerk and a bad guy the inmates wanted to kill, he was still pretty funny. We do see him later on in the movie with The Joker at some casino or night club where he is given something (later proven to be a cellphone) to give to Harley from The Joker. After delivering it, Harley laughs and tells him he’s screwed. I don’t recall seeing him again after that.

Scott Eastwood’s character

Being such a young actor, many had hoped that Scott would be playing Nightwing, Batman’s first Robin sidekick. It was never revealed in the movie that he was any more than Lieutenant GQ, a leader in Rick Flag’s military force. With very little screen time, there was nothing that special to the character other than him following orders or asking questions about the mission. I don’t even think he survived to be quite honest. I could be wrong, though.

Slipknot (Adam Beach)

As most of us could have guessed from seeing the trailers and other footage, we accurately guessed Slipknot would be the first member to die. In order to prove the Nano-bombs implanted into their necks would actually go off if they escaped, there needed to be at least one member’s head blown off. Poor Slipknot never had a chance. He was tricked into escaping by Captain Boomerang, who I think used him as a scapegoat to see if the bombs were legit. He told him that nothing would happen, that the “bombs” were a trick to imprison them in their own minds. Boomerang went one way and was caught by Katana, and Slipknot tried to escape using his grapple gun to jump a building. That was all she wrote, as Flag detonated the bomb in Slipknot’s neck and blew his head off. Sorry Adam Beach, your screen time has now ended at five minutes.

Common’s character

Many were hoping, including myself, that Common’s character was going to be the main villain, but were denied. Instead of being The Tattooed Man, who can project images off his body, he was just simply Monster T, an unknown character in the DC Universe. He was shown in one of the flashbacks to Harley Quinn’s creation story as it showed him in Joker’s night club looking to talk business. He welcomes Joker back into the business after he had been incarcerated and told him he would be profitable help for his business. Joker, not really paying him much attention, held his gaze on his lovely girlfriend, Harley Quinn, as she was dancing on main stage in the club. Monster T turned his head and made an insulting comment about Harley and that caused Joker to get up and call Harley over. He told Monster T that Harley belonged to him now and she climbed up onto his lap, enticing him. Wanting no trouble, Monster T started to back off, claiming Harley was Joker’s girl. Without any notice Joker pulls a pistol out and shoots him dead.

Overall opinion

This was a really exciting film that I think all movie and comic book lovers would really enjoy. The acting was above average. Though the plot was a bit wonky in some areas, it still worked and made for a very interesting story. This was a fun film. I laughed more than I thought I would. I nerded out (shut up, it’s a word) more than I thought I would. And I liked characters I didn’t expect to like.

Forget what the critics have said and enjoy the movie for what it is. Is it perfect? No. It’s not the worst comic book film; it’s actually far from it. And it’s not the best, nor does it try to be. Director David Ayer created his own adaptation of a comic book movie, and it worked.

I highly recommend seeing this movie, even if you’re one of those lame Marvel fan boys who have nothing good to say about anything DC. I guarantee you’ll enjoy yourself. I plan on seeing it again at least a couple more times while it’s still in theaters. You just have to see a movie like this again and catch some new things you may have missed the first time.

I give this movie 4 ½ menacing laughs out of 5