Much like Green Lantern and Catwoman, Suicide Squad was not quite as bad as everyone wants it to be. Yeah, yeah, you can't take my word for it; I like a lot of bad movies. But for me, Suicide Squad was bad in all the right ways. Yes, the story doesn't make any sense. Yes, it was re-edited at the last minute, leaving it a bit incoherent. Yes, there are plot holes galore.
But all that works for it. The movie is intentionally chaotic, and the schizophrenic editing fits perfectly with the tone of the film. Why would anyone want this movie to make sense? I don't want to see a serious movie about a bunch of crazy comic book villains forced to save the world. Batman v Superman was coherent and serious, and it sucked. Suicide Squad is the exact opposite of BvS. It's a series of barely-connected flashes of violence and comedy, and while it's not for everyone, I thought it was quite fun.
Bottom line: It's not good, and it's not for everyone, but it's crazy fun if you're in that kind of mood.
I also had the the chance to see the animated "The Killing Joke" on the big screen. I first read the comic back in the 80s, and I've always had mixed feelings about it. Depending on how you look at it, it's either the best Joker story ever told, or the worst Batgirl story ever told. Since I'm more of a Batgirl fan than a Joker fan, you can guess which way I lean.
For those not in the know (spoilers ahead), The Killing Joke tells the Joker's origin story. There have been several versions of his origin, but this one has always been my favorite. It tells how a struggling comedian has one very bad day, causing him to lose his mind. It flashes back and forth from the Joker's memory to present day, where the Joker is trying to give Commissioner Gordon a similar bad day.
And part of that bad day includes crippling Gordon's daughter, who happens to be Batgirl. Fans will argue all day long whether this was a good or bad for the character. After all, it did lead to her becoming Oracle, one of the greatest characters in DC history. But it also uses Batgirl - one of my favorite heroes of all time - as an object. Barbara is not a character in the comic so much as a plot device, who is crippled just to move the story forward.
The animated version attempts to rectify this by adding a Batgirl story to the beginning (and a small scene at the end that wraps things up). Unfortunately, the Batgirl story isn't very good. Worse yet, it's too obvious where the new story ends and comic adaptation begins. The writing is so different once it turns into The Killing Joke. They barely wrote any script at all, and mostly just read straight from the comic. Which brings us to the next problem - some lines that read well in print sound silly when said out loud.
They also made one tiny addition that really bugged me. Fans have debated for years whether the Joker raped Barbara. Personally, I never felt he did. Perfectly Blunt Disclaimer: I'm not trying to argue whether or not stripping her and taking photos constitutes rape. He definitely did do that, and if that fits your definition of rape, I won't disagree. But for the purposes of this blog, I'm defining rape as actual sexual penetration.
The Joker is single-minded, and he took the photos hoping to drive Jim Gordon mad. Now, I could possibly see Joker raping her if he intended to include that in the photos, but when we see the photos, the Joker isn't in any of them. Granted, the reader isn't shown all the photos. But I think the artist would have shown at least part of the Joker in at least one of the shown photos, if he was trying to imply physical assault.
Plus, there's the scene where Batman visits Barbara in the hospital. I strongly feel that if she had been raped, it would have been mentioned there. Harvey Bullock tells Batman that they found her in a state of undress, and Batman replies, "Undress?" Bullock answers by telling him they found a lens cap nearby, and he thinks the Joker may have taken some pictures. If she'd been raped, Bullock would have mentioned it here.
But that's the comic. In the animated version, they added one short scene where Batman questions some prostitutes about the Joker's whereabouts. Their answers seem to indicate that Barbara really was raped, at least in this version. I don't like that at all. I know it's a weird double standard. I can accept the Joker as a psycho clown who murders on a whim, but making him a rapist just makes it too real.
I'd generally prefer if they'd keep rape out of comics entirely, but I'm also against censorship so it's kind of a catch-22. But then, I'm not really asking them to censor stories. It's more accurate to say I'm want them to write stories that I find entertaining, and rape is too volatile a subject to use lightly. I read comics because they make me smile, and I stop smiling when a character is raped.
The internet is full of people who believe Babs was raped. It just goes to show that people interpret ambiguous scenes differently, and that's fine. If a feminist tells me BG was raped, and why it's a sign that women are treated terribly in comics, I listen. But what bugs me is all the dudebros who seem to want her to have been raped. The guys who argue passionately that it happened, because they just don't like the Joker character as much if he's not a rapist. Those guys scare me, and it sickens me that comics are written to please them.
Anyway, Mark Hamill did an excellent job as usual, and most of the rest of the voice cast was great. However, I was not fond of Commissioner Gordon (Ray Wise). His lines were very flat, like he wasn't getting into it at all. The animation was done well, and they did a great job making it look like the comic.
Bottom line: It was nice to see one of my favorite old comics brought to life, but I can't say I really enjoyed it. I probably won't watch it again.
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