Movies Reviews

Star-studded cast can’t save ‘Suicide Squad’

LORTON, Virginia, U.S.A. – What do you get when you take the world’s most dangerous gang of misfits, arm them with military-grade weapons, and send them off to a mission so hopeless that no one else is ready to take it on?
That’s the question on everyone’s mind when special intelligence officer Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), proposes the idea of the “Suicide Squad” to the government.
It doesn’t take long for them to make up their mind when archaeologist Dr. June Moone (Cara Delevingne) stumbles upon an ancient artifact that held the goddess Enchantress, allowing her to possess Moon’s body and attack Midway City.
With few options and even less time, the government reluctantly approves the top secret mission in this year’s super villain film Suicide
Squad.
Led by Agent Waller and Dr. Moon’s boyfriend, Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), six notoriously elite criminals are selected from the maximum-security Belle Reve Penitentiary, promised sentence reductions and other perks in exchange for cooperation, and fitted with nanobombs in the back of their necks to ensure complete obedience.
The roster includes Deadshot (Will Smith), a deadly accurate marksman; Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), a psychotic woman and the love interest of The Joker (Jared Leto); Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), a skilled thief; El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), a former gang member who can conjure flames from his body; Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), a cannibalistic reptilian mutant; and Slipknot (Adam Beach), a specialized wall-scaler.
As Marvel fan, I can tell this movie is DC Comics’ answer to the new and wildly successful Marvel Universe series. A star-studded cast and high-octane plot usually makes an overall good movie, and while this movie had just as much potential and publicity as a Marvel film, it didn’t deliver.
Although it was a commercial hit, the characters were undercooked and the plot whizzed by too fast without giving them a chance to develop. Each one had an interesting back story, but simply lacked enough relevance to tie back to the main plot – a recipe for disappointment.
All we can do now is wait and hope for a more satisfying and redeeming sequel. 
Yash Patel is a Junior Reporter for Youth Journalism International.
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