Okay, I did it. I wasn't going to, but I did. I took my daughter to see a movie about a comic book I had never heard of until the powers that be said "Hey, we're making a movie about 'Suicide Squad.'" I scratched my head and said "Harley Quin was in a comic book other than 'Batman' and her own? Okay, I'm game."
When I saw the first trailer, I was concerned. Very, very concerned. Why? I watch comic book superhero movies all the time. Well, my daughter happens to like Harley Quinn. My beautiful, well-developed, cosplaying fifteen year old. Why should this concern me? Margot Robbie, the fab actress that plays Harley, well, her ass cheeks were hanging out half of the movie. The only time they weren't? When she was in prison. Yeah... we can tell this was geared towards guys. Can we get Will Smith's ass out on the screen? No. But let's have the chick in four inch stilettos with sparkly hot pants and tight white t-shirt... I'm sure my friends that aren't parents won't understand. My friends that are parents to boys ... kind of get it. Just remember, when you sexualize a character for the sake of a movie, young girls see it. They think 'Oh. So, I have to look like that and act like that for guys to pay attention to me.' Wrong answer. Even if it's "just a character" remember, that's someone's daughter, someone's sister, portraying that character on screen. Guys, how would you feel if that was your daughter or your sister dressed like that? I'm trying to teach my daughter that modesty counts and how you dress and act is how people judge you (and yes folks, it is exactly that way in life; if you've never experienced it, congrats), but first impressions do matter. If you walk through life like Harley Quinn looks in that movie ... Yikes! So, my daughter liked the movie. The movie was okay. Mind you, never having read the comic I can't have the same beef that fans have. It was better than I expected (Rotten Tomatoes did give it a 27%) but not as good as it could have been. (Thank you Marvel for raising my expectations of comic book movies. You do know how to get it done.) I didn't like Jared Leto's Joker. I did like seeing Batman. Superman's death was addressed, briefly, so DC hit some of the story lines they have going right now. Kudos there. They even introduced Ezra Miller as The Flash and a Bonus scene during the end credits (Marvel-style) introduces Justice League with Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne and Viola Davis as Amanda Waller (how she survives this leads me to believe she is meta human herself, not just a bad ass bitch). But the bonus scene is not handled nearly as well as it could have been. As a writer and a fledgling screenwriter, who is a comic book geek herself, I would have written a few spots a bit differently in the film. If I had been Warner Brothers I would have found a different director or I would have given the "Suicide Squad" library to David Ayer and said, "Research." The movie opened 5 August and has just covered budget according to the numbers offered up on IMDBpro. It should have busted the budget opening weekend. This could be a sign for WB. Change something or your stuff is going to keep tanking. (Apparently, I'm not the only one that thinks so. Read this open letter to WB CEO Kevin Tsujihara.) I hold out my hope that they have not completely jacked up Wonder Woman. The story line with Rick Flag and June Moone/The Enchantress was okay. It could have been stronger. The movie could have run longer to work that out. They concentrated on the introduction of the characters in the "Squad", which was fine but went on way too long. I probably would have handled it differently. Joker wasn't as big a part of the movie as the previews suggested and maybe under this title is the only place he was this in love with Harley but I don't remember Joker being that broken up over much of anything. We could have kept Joker to a minimum. Some of his scenes weren't essential to the story. Then, we were intro'd to two characters. One we had kind of been intro'd to already but I was wondering why he was there at all. He wasn't as big of a player in the story and his lines and part could have been absorbed by someone else. The other character you knew was going to get killed. Why? There was no big intro, no backstory. He was clumsily thrown in, like he was an afterthought. Red flag. If I were you, I'd skip the cost of the ticket and the concessions and wait for it to hit RedBox.
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AuthorCollege graduate, Army vet, single mom, Husky mom, Movie lover, writer Archives
August 2022
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