Suicide Squad (2016)

“Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you people?”

“We're bad guys, it's what we do.”

            I am currently interning at a museum that has a security guard on duty. The guy is awesome. He comes into work every day with his lunch box which happens to have all the Marvel superheroes on it. I started talking to him immediately when I first started over his lunch box. I quickly learned the guy is just totally obsessed with comic book superheroes. He has Batman and Ironman and all kinds of superheroes tattooed all over him. It is cool to have a conversation with this guy because he knows the comic books inside and out. He knows the characters are supposed to be dark and twisted not all light and fluffy like Disney has made The Avengers. We had a good discussion about Daredevil and Jessica Jones and Deadpool being dark and awesome like the comic books.

            I like the fact that Daredevil, Deadpool, Jessica Jones, and even Batman vs. Superman was dark because to me it seems more like real life. These superheroes are really just antiheroes. They are human beings with shitty dark lives and secrets. DC, to me, as far as movies, has always been a bit darker with their movies even down to their cartoons (I used to watch the cartoon Batman with my brother when we were little because the stories were so good. Have you ever seen Batman: Mask of the Phantasm? That movie is incredible). Ever since I saw the trailer for DC’s Suicide Squad where the bad guys were the main focus I was beyond excited to see it especially after seeing Jared Leto looking freaky as fuck as the Joker and Margot Robbie batshit crazy as Harley Quinn. This finally looked like the dark and twisted comic book movie and DC movie I have been waiting forever to see. Good thing I kept my expectations for this low.

            The main premise of this story is this top secret government group run by Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) wants to use bad guys they have put in a prison out in the swamps of Louisiana to defend a city against this entity called the Enchantress. Waller puts this soldier Rick Flag in charge of this bad guy group to not only keep them in line but also because Enchantress is his girlfriend. Well, not necessarily Enchantress herself but the woman June Moone (Cara Delevingne) whom she possesses. The group of criminals consists of Deadshot (Will Smith) who is a gun expert and crazy talented assassin, Killer Croc who is a hybrid of a croc and a human, Boomerang an Australian bank robber, Diablo who can manipulate and control fire from his body, and last but certainly not least the notorious Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) aka girlfriend of The Joker (Jared Leto).  

            There is a lot that goes on in this movie. There are so many side stories with the characters that is just more than I care to write out here and honestly a lot of the side stories are not that interesting. Also I do not want to spoil too much for you guys.

            I do, however, have to spoil a little bit and tell you guys that The Joker and Harley Quinn were barely together in this. I think everyone thought the pair would have a bigger role and more of a story in this than they did. I was disappointed with how little screen time they had together considering Jared Leto is the best Joker I have seen in a Batman/DC movie. He was fucking amazing. Margot Robbie was the perfect Harley Quinn. Leto and Robbie’s Joker and Harley were very close to the cartoon/comic versions that everyone who has grown up watching or reading Batman knows them. Robbie had all the crazy mannerisms and way of speaking like Harley from the cartoon she was so spot on. Robbie and Leto were the best parts of this movie hands down. I think Leto and Robbie are so fearless with their acting. Leto definitely is fearless when it comes to his acting because he just delves right into his roles. You never feel like you are watching Leto as an actor play his roles you are truly watching his characters. The same can be said for Robbie from what I have seen her in. I am praying to the movie gods so hard that one day Jared Leto as The Joker and Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn get their own movie. I would be there at the first showing on midnight if there ever was one. And one other kind of small tiny spoiler, they had the best ending and it left off as if they could get their own movie eventually.

            The rest of the cast and their characters were alright. Rick Flag played Joel Kinnaman was annoying as fuck. I was so hoping one of the bad guys he was surrounded by would just shoot his ass. His whole storyline with Enchantress/June Moone was crap. Deadshot I felt could have been a really awesome character and he was just made to look like he was a criminal with a conscience which essentially he was. As for the other characters I am not really going to go into them too much because they really did not have too much else going for them. Diablo has a story but to me it was boring.

            One thing the movie had going for it besides Harley Quinn and The Joker was the soundtrack. From the first song to the last it was perfect. When Harley Quinn is introduced in her cage they played “You Don’t Own Me” and dear god was that complete perfection. It was a mix of Margot Robbie’s insane acting talent and the way the scene was filmed along with the song that just made the song and scene so fucking brilliant. Another scene that had a good song was one of the many fight scenes that had Eminem’s “Without Me” playing. The song is so old now but it was like crazy good in that scene.

            Suicide Squad was alright. My biggest pet peeve with the story is that everything felt so rushed because there was too much going on. There was the story with Flag and Enchantress, there was the story with Deadshot and his daughter, there was the story with The Joker and Harley Quinn, there was the story of Diablo and his family. It was all just too much, to me there was barely any focus. The only reasons I would say to go see Suicide Squad in theaters is because it is a dark comic book movie, Jared Leto is fucking awesome, Margot Robbie is fucking brilliant, and the soundtrack and cinematography are great. 

Gone Girl (2014)

“You two are the most fucked up people I've ever met and I deal with fucked up people for a living.”

            Gone Girl is totally fucked up!

            And that is my review of the movie…..

            Ok, no, that is not my entire review but let me tell me you if I were to leave it at just that sentence alone it would suffice. Seriously, Gone Girl is totally fucked up and insane. It is insane but totally genius. The female character is a sociopath and terrifying yet completely genius. Gillian Flynn, the author of the book and writer of the movie is terrifying as well because this is a damn dark story I would not want to know who and what was on her mind as she was writing the book.

            I will be keeping my write up of the plot short because everything would give the story away and there would be no point to watch and you much watch it.

            Nick Dunn (Ben Affleck) comes home one afternoon and finds his front door open and his glass coffee table shattered. Nothing else in the house has been disturbed. His wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) is nowhere to be found. Scared and confused Nick calls the police. Detective Boney and Officer Gilpin (Patrick Fugit) respond to the call. Detective Boney takes a look around the downstairs. She finds a small blood stain above the stove.

            Soon the police and the media are swarming around Nick’s house. Detective Boney and Officer Gilpin throw all their suspicion of murder onto Nick especially after they find an envelope in Nick and Amy’s room with “Clue One” written on it. Nick explains that Amy would make envelopes like that for their anniversary every year it was a treasure hunt. Turns out Amy did make the clues actual clues and she is using them to make her husband look suspicious. The whole town comes to hate Nick through the media and all their false reports. Also making things worse for him is the fact that Amy’s parents wrote children’s books based off of her called The Amazing Amy.

            Nick’s life spirals out of control. We learn that all the reason why Nick is in his situation is partly his own fault. Everyone who comes into the story in this movie is not who they seem to be and try to be someone they want to be but are not.

Rosamund Pike was beyond brilliant, so brilliant in fact that I did not see her as an actress I truly saw her as this mentally insane fucked up manipulative woman. This woman deserves to be nominated for an Academy Award. Her performance is literally one of the best from an actress I have seen in a movie in a while. I think the rest of the characters kind of suffered because they were well known actors. Ben Affleck was good. I am not a big fan of his but I will say that this is definitely one of his better performances I have seen. He did not get on my nerves like he usually does.

 

            What I liked about Gone Girl a lot is that not one of the characters was likable. All the characters were terrible people. I hated them all and that was fantastic. It was so frustrating watching these people be assholes to each other. When characters and a story can frustrate me it is awesome. But as awesome as the unlikable-ness of the characters were and the frustrating story, there was something about the movie that I could not totally get into. Is that weird? Yeah, that is weird. It is a bit hard to explain. Maybe this will help: my brothers and my mom each saw the movie twice, they loved it. My one brother bought the movie on Blu Ray the day it was released. I did not think Gone Girl was great enough to see again and buy it on Blu Ray. I think Gone Girl is worth watching at least once especially for the characters and how horrible they all are.