Critics deem ‘Suicide Squad’ a ‘disappointing disaster’

Reviews for “Suicide Squad,” the latest Warner Bros. superhero offering, and would-be savior of the the summer, have started pouring in, and they are decidedly lackluster.

The tepid reaction likely comes as a disappointment to DC fans hoping for redemption after “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” proved that two superheroes were not better than one. At this juncture, “Suicide Squad” is scoring a 47, based on the reviews of 26 critics on review aggregation site Metacritic, compared to the 44 logged by “Batman v Superman”.

Here’s what some critics are saying about “Suicide Squad.”

Comparisons to 2015’s lackluster “Fantastic Four” reboot were prevalent in many of the early reviews for “Suicide Squad,” with some, like Travers, going so far as to deem the latter a more significant misfire, damning criticism considering the former’s abhorrent critical reception.

“My heart sank during the film's big battle between the Squad and zombie soldiers. You heard me: zombies! The walking dead aren't the only clichés that eat away at the potential in this material. Superfreaks become supersweeties and ‘Suicide Squad: Dawn of Dullness’ (my subtitle) does the impossible. Forget Batman v Superman — at least it tried. This botch job makes ‘Fantastic Four’ look good.”

-- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Another recurring criticism of the film centered on the fact that it is so chaotic that its incoherence actually becomes boring.

“This opening sequence has all the excitement of a mildly contentious HR meeting, and the movie gets no better from there. Bland, boring, and sometimes borderline incoherent, ‘Suicide Squad’ is a disappointing disaster.”

-- Matt Singer, ScreenCrush

The critical tidbits that may prove most devastating to fans eagerly awaiting the film are how it utilizes hallowed characters Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and the Joker (Jared Leto). 

While Robbie appears to be betrayed by the material she’s given, Leto, after all the fervor over his antics during filming, is said to have so little to do in the movie that  his performance is more cameo than anything. 

“Harley Quinn’s entrance is the best moment in Suicide Squad. After that, you can leave. Robbie is a criminally appealing actress, likable in just about every way, but that intro aside, ‘Suicide Squad’ doesn’t serve her well. It serves no one well, least of all its audience.”

-- Stephanie Zacharek, Time

“Like Tony Montana if Jim Carrey had starred in ‘Scarface,’ Leto is part gangster and part clown, but he’s not really part of this movie. Ayer never finds anything for the character to do, and so Leto’s role is reduced to a glorified cameo, a prelude to a more significant performance in a future installment.”

-- David Ehrlich, IndieWire

Much of the blame for the film’s failings seems to fall square on the shoulders of director David Ayer, as critics sometimes found his overly stylized choices to detract from the movie’s narrative. 

“Needless to say stylistic flourishes, like unstable villains, are bountiful in ‘Suicide Squad’. The fun is in letting yourself go along with every silly bit. Do you like montages and flashbacks? [David] Ayer loves them. He cannot get enough of them. He leans on both far too heavily for far too long in a movie so stuffed to the rafters with colorful characters, there’s barely any room for a serviceable plot.”

-- Jen Yamato, The Daily Beast

Of course, some critics were just anxious to get to the part where they could make puns about the film being bad and how it should maybe kill itself. 

“The action of the film’s middle and latter stages is largely set in a gloomy murk that recalls far too many previous dour sci-fi/fantasy films, and by that point, vestiges of the opening stretch’s humor and snap long have fallen by the wayside. ‘Suicide Squad’ may not quite commit harakiri, but it certainly feels like it’s taken far too many sleeping pills.”

-- Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter

But no critic’s pan of “Suicide Squad” was as lyrically exquisite as Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson, who savaged the film for not even managing to be interestingly terrible and committing the cardinal superhero sin of being dull.

“ ‘Suicide Squad’ is bad. Not fun bad. Not redeemable bad. Not the kind of bad that is the unfortunate result of artists honorably striving for something ambitious and falling short. ‘Suicide Squad’ is just bad. It’s ugly and boring, a toxic combination that means the film’s highly fetishized violence doesn’t even have the exciting tingle of the wicked or the taboo. (Oh, how the movie wants to be both of those things.) It’s simply a dull chore steeped in flaccid machismo, a shapeless, poorly edited trudge that adds some mildly appalling sexism and even a soupçon of racism to its abundant, hideously timed gun worship.”

-- Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair

Not all reviews were as damning, Brian Truitt found the fun hidden among the neon green marketing. 

“Like ‘The Dirty Dozen’ for the Hot Topic generation, the team gets in-your-face introductions and things just grow more mental from there. But compared to its ilk, ‘Suicide Squad’ is an excellently quirky, proudly raised middle finger to the staid superhero-movie establishment.”

-- Brian Truitt, USA Today

And now the critics have spoken. It’s up to fans to decide whether this squad is up to the task or, if like the promotional material read, these are the “Worst. Heroes. Ever.”

libby.hill@latimes.com

Twitter: @midwestspitfire

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