Movie Review: Suicide Squad, Extended Cut

Around the time it came out, I did a review of Suicide Squad, the third installment in the DC Expanded Universe movie series, a rather unexpected movie after the relatively 'main characters' movies that came before it, Man of Steel and Batman v Superman. My general feeling about the movie was that it was a decent effort with a great cast, but executed relatively poorly with some problems in regards to pacing and finding the right tone.

Quickly reiterating the movie's pros and cons in broad strokes? It's a great cast, with excellent casting for Deadshot, Harley Quinn, el Diablo, Amanda Waller and the Joker in particular. The movie was also pretty unabashedly happy with homaging specific moments in the comics, as well as staying relatively true to the essence of these characters, telling their backstories well. It's also pretty decently ties in to the previously established canon by referencing the events of BvS. But at the same time, it's problematic because it's burdened with a very, very weak villain in Enchantress and Incubus, and not actually making use of the Suicide Squad's whole deal as 'we are a disposable black ops team'. The movie doesn't do enough to justify why the government needed the Suicide Squad to deal with what's basically just your average doomsday machine supervillain (there a lot of stuff from the comics' counterpart of the Suicide Squad that would've made great material for a Suicide Squad plotline). Neither does it do Argus any favours by showing the absolute shit way that they controlled Enchantress (really, Waller? You just put the Incubus genie bottle on a shelf?). Enchantress's speech at the end also felt absolutely silly considering she's never even met any of the characters there before, so trying to offer them the chance to rule the world is strange and the fact that no one, not even Boomerang, takes up her offer, is weird. Also, so many characters are underused -- Katana and Boomerang, in particular, I'm not sure what their purpose in the movie is beyond giving us some extra movies.

Still, it's a DC movie and so I bought the extended cut for the movie, curious to see if it fixed at least some of the movie's problems, like it did for Batman v Superman. I'll to that thing later, but I think I'll talk about Suicide Squad first. There was a lot of talk that Suicide Squad went through too many reshootings because of all the backlash towards Batman v Superman's tone, and honestly, if you want to make a movie that's light-hearted and happy, the whole premise of trying to turn Suicide Squad into Guardians of the Galaxy, basically, just doesn't cut it. Also there were huge talks about entire Joker scenes that got removed which pissed of the actor a lot (though IMO either use the Joker as the central driving force of the plot or just relegate him to flashbacks, this 'major character but not really' deal he got going on is honestly part of why the movie's hurt). And if nothing else, anyone who's paid attention to the trailers will see a fair amount of cut scenes.

So, how does Suicide Squad: the Extended Cut fare?

Well, let's talk briefly about the changes. Here is a more exhaustive list of changes made to the cut, which is nice because I didn't have the theatrical version to compare notes with. Basically, I'll just go through the major changes. First and foremost is the change to Harley Quinn's origin story, expanding slightly on just why Joker electrocuted Harley in the head. There was additional dialogue that hinted that Harley dredged up Joker's faded memories, which is a nice little tidbit, for sure.

A more major flashback that was cut, which happened slightly later in the movie, is another Joker flashback, with Harley Quinn riding a motorcycle and blocking Joker's fancy purple lamborghini which has Harley, still in dr. Quinzel mode, doing some motorcycle riding tricks to stop Joker in his tracks, showing just how much this version of Harley really wants to pursue the Joker and be his lover, and not just a puppet strung by an abusive maniac. It helps to transform the initially-abusive relationship that the two had into something more genuine, if still twisted, which I thought was actually a nice bit. It also puts the next flashback, the iconic chemical plant one, in proper context. Joker wants to prove that Harley's talk of being in love and devoted to him isn't just bullshit, and once Harley does, he embraces it wholeheartedly.

Another change that I caught was a longer 'spread the word!' bit as Harley and Deadshot plan an escape plan, which I thought is pretty important because it addresses a problem the movie has -- the villains aren't exactly villains, they're just dickbags. It's a fair amount of screentime, with Harley and Boomerang being relatively more active in spreading the word. It adds an extra scene with the reluctant bad-guy Diablo who voices how he wants no part in this, and has Killer Croc shove Boomerang onto a garbage pile. Granted Deadshot does his one-man-army thing against the eyeball monsters anyway and the villains bar Harley don't actually decide to break out, but eh.

Also a relatively important bit is a deal that Flag makes with Deadshot, around the scenes when they were walking through the deserted city, with Flag telling Deadshot that whatever happens, he'll make sure that he'll get a reward -- a meeting with his daughter. It explains a scene that happens later in the movie, which is Deadshot telling Flag that their deal is done later when Waller's been rescued and is airborne. It definitely explains Deadshot mellowing out to Flag as the movie goes by be slightly more explained.

What else is important? There's some additional Killer Croc scenes. He gets airsick and vomits on the plane. He has some additional dialogue with Harley about his cannibalism (he thinks it gives him power, apparently?) with Harley trying to play crazy psychotherapist. The cast is easily the strongest part of the movie, one would argue the only good part, so seeing more of them interact is definitely welcome. Then Deadshot tries to stop Harley from egging the other members of the group, at which point Harley talks to Deadshot about how everyone's out for themselves and stuff, hinting again at the Deadshot/Flag deal that was cut out of the theatrical release.

Oh, and that Squad at the bar scene teased so much in teasers and trailers are restored. Not much to say about that. Harley and Boomerang get some fun zingers around, but the main addition is Deadshot telling them about the deal he struck with Flag, and Diablo mocking Deadshot about the fact that the whole thing is a sham and a lie, which segues in more neatly into his backstory.

There were some additional 'flavour' scenes, like a slightly longer version of Killer Croc's introduction scene with the guards making references to his cannibalism, additional shots of Deadshot in the cell, additional soldier-talk dialogue, additional panning shots of security forces and stuff like that... But it's ultimately just fun, harmless fluff that didn't really add much to the story nor did it fix any of the problems it already has. There's the shot of Katana taking off her mask, but that's honestly not adding much and doesn't explain why she feels more kinship with Team Deadshot more than Rick Flag.

So, yeah. The review? Well, the movie still holds up more or less similarly to how the original was. The main problems that the movie has -- Joker's big-but-not-really role? Enchantress as a rather crap villain? Boomerang, Katana and Croc having glorified ascended extra roles? The rather tedious finale? The poor pacing of the movie? The fact that it's not actually a great setting to introduce the whole concept of the Suicide Squad into the public (Justice League Unlimited's Task Force X and the Batman: Assault on Arkham movie are both far, far better at justifying the need of a squad of villains)? Yeah, none of them are fixed by the extended cut.

Compared to Batman v Superman's extended cut (which restored nearly 30 minutes of footage), Suicide Squad gets a paltry 11 minutes. And while the extended cut for Batman v Superman led to a far, far more cohesive movie, explaining Luthor and Bruce's motives well and highly improves the sloggish first and second acts (even if Martha is still a laughable climax)... Suicide Squad's extended cut does no such thing. Yeah, we get a couple of extra scenes for the Joker, we get some extra laughs, but it doesn't fix any of the big problems in the movie. It does help explain Deadshot's motivations better as we learn about the deal between him and Rick Flag, and some scenes are fleshed out slightly. So Deadshot's transformation from mercenary to Rick Flag's antihero buddy kind of worked smoothly. The flashback scenes are also improved with the rather crucial Harley-Joker bike confrontation, which helps to bridge Harley's transformation from a psychiatrist that was hurt really really bad into, well, willing to jump into a vat of chemicals for her puddin'.

So, yeah. Honestly, the movie is still messy. I'm still entertained by the cast and the little Easter Eggs, but the Extended Cut certainly doesn't salvage much. Maybe if we had the original version of the script that was filmed before massive reshoots happened (which I thought would probably be more familiar to Assault on Arkham, essentially a similar movie to this one with the Enchantress replaced with Arkham villains) things may have gone differently and the movie would be more solid? As it is, Suicide Squad is a bit of a missed beat that ends up falling short from being an actually solid movie. I enjoyed it for what it is, a messy attempt at making a fun movie about a bunch of B-listers, but it's another misstep in the DC movies lineup, and, if I had to pick a better movie between Suicide Squad and BvS, looking at their Extended Cuts I'd sat BvS wins hands-down.