It’s ironic that there is nary a superhero to be seen in DC Comics and Warner Bros’ newest superhero movie. No, this time it is up to the villains to save the world. Meet the Suicide Squad, a team of convicted violent inmates selected for their expertise, talent for violence and… replaceability! This review contains some spoilers.

Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) is a government agent specialized in “convincing” people to do things which are detrimental to their well-being, and she is not amused. The events of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice have changed the rules for good. Apart from the usual threats to America’s safety, people now have to take demigods like Superman and other metahumans into account. What if the next Superman isn’t such a kind soul?

If the next world war is to be fought with the help of these metahumans, then Waller doesn’t want to bring a spoon to a knife fight. She starts Task Force X, a team consisting of the biggest and most dangerous criminal scum, who do jobs for the government in exchange for reduction of sentence. That these jobs aren’t a walk in the park is obvious. Waller chooses Floyd “Deadshot” Lawton (Will Smith), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), George “Captain Boomerang” Harkness (Jai Courtney), Waylon “Killer Croc” Jones (Adewale Akkinuoye-Agbaje), Chato “El Diablo” Santana (Jay Hernandez), Slipknot (Adam Beach) and the archeologist June Moon, posessed by the ancient witch Enchantress (Cara Delevigne). Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) and his bodyguard Katana (Karen Fukuhara) are to keep this bunch of misfits in line.

“Is that really a good idea”, I can hear you think. No, of course it is not. Waller has only just explained her plan before Enchantress decides that she doesn’t want to do someone else’s dirty work. The first mission of this glorified bunch of cannon fodder is pretty ironic: preventing one of their own recruits to destroy the world.

After the lukewarm to negative reactions to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the first big part of the DC Cinematic Universe (No, Man of Steel isn’t the first big part, just a glorified prologue), it soon became clear that the chances of success of the comic book giant would depend on the success of this movie. Reshoots were made and a rumour went around that the movie would be made funnier, following the success of the Marvel movies and as a response to the commentary that DC mainly produces dreary, sombre movies. Seriously: compare the first look trailer and the final trailer: it’s a world of difference. The film debut of Harley Quinn and her puddin’ The Joker (Jared Leto) promised to be a wacky action flick which would be up to the task of competing with Marvel and which would show that, yes, the guys at DC can make you laugh as well.

Which, eh, quite disappoints. Yes, there is more humour in Suicide Squad than in a regular DC movie, but sometimes it feels really forced. To just pick one example, Captain Boomerang’s pink unicorn fetish. Furthermore, the story is extremely shaky: it starts out slow, and we still don’t know what exactly the mission is for which Task Force X was assembled. We can see the situation snowball, but the original purpose of the team? The writers may know, but we don’t. An unfortunate consequence of the reshoots? Moreover, Suicide Squad never surprises. The title gives away the fact that not everyone makes it to the end of the movie and if you are able to predict in advance who will never make it to a future DC movie, it’s a bit of a pity. Don’t expect a fantastic plot, but rather an action flick which depends on its characters.

About those characters: it’s a bit sad and it says a lot that the most interesting character is part of a subplot they could have omitted from this movie: The Joker. In a way, this movie sometimes feels like the setup for the solo Batman movie with Ben Affleck, who of course shows up in this one. And to give credit where it is due: Jared Leto makes for an excellent Joker. Getting the role after the terrific performance of the late Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, meant having to fill big (clown) shoes, but Leto manages it brilliantly. The tattooed look is still a bit strange, but we can see the ruthless Clown Prince of Crime whom we all love, although in this incarnation he rather resembles the gangster boss of the graphic novel Joker by Azzarello and Bermejo than the rabid dog as played by Ledger. Where Joker goes, chaos follows, and this movie is no different.

Apart from that strong performance, it is a bit of a shame that the supporting part got more attention than most of the main cast. The movie heavily leans on fan favourite Harley Quinn and the assassin Deadshot, at the cost of the other characters. It would, for example, surprise us if Killer Croc was allowed to say more than ten sentences during the movie, and Captain Boomerang, who in other incarnations produces some necessary comic relief as butt monkey of the team, could have done with a bit more screen time. Fortunately, El Diablo gets more character development than these two, but it is a shame that this seems very rushed and unbelievable. Luckily for us, there is still Will Smith, who exceeds our expectations as Deadshot and carries the movie for a large part. He performs some very emotional scenes with his movie daughter Zoe (Shailyn Pierre-Dixon) and honestly shows us that there is something as honour amongst thieves.

Finally, a review of Suicide Squad cannot be complete without talking about the soundtrack. Like Guardians of the Galaxy, the movie “recycles” a lot of popular music of way back when, letting us hear “Without me” by Eminem, “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen and “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals. It is admittedly something copied from Marvel, but that doesn’t take away the fact that you regularly feel like humming along during the movie. On the other hand, it’s a shame that pretty much all the catchy music from the trailers made it into the movie, enhancing the feeling that the trailers contained too many of the movie’s good moments, making the movie unable to surprise us.

In the end, Suicide Squad can be called a missed opportunity and this latest movie by David Ayer cannot convince us. It is a chaotic mess of admittedly interesting characters, but containing not a lot of story. After Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, plot holes appear in this movie as well (Seriously, the earth is threatened, where are all those super heroes? Where are Batman and The Flash?), it becomes painfully obvious that DC, although it sometimes produces masterworks in its comics and graphic novels, urgently needs to work on its storytelling if it wants to kick of a cinematic universe that can withstand the comparison with its large competitor, Marvel.

Suicide Squad appears in theatres on August the 3rd.

For our Dutch-speaking fans: we also wrote a Dutch Suicide Squad review!