10 F*ck Ups That Made Suicide Squad A Disaster
The big mis-steps that led to Rotten results.
Let me pre-empt you there, angry commenter: "a disaster, you say? Poppycock I say. It's made a scandalous amount of money in its first weekend. Warner Bros are delighted. The fans love it." Okay, there Mr Over-Insistent, let's all just have a breather and take stock.
Suicide Squad is not a good film. It's not an abomination by any means, but, stunningly, it's also not that far off it. It is imbalanced, desperate and broken-headed: it misses perfect opportunities, sidelines entire characters and has a wandering tone that is almost as annoying as its poor script. And worst of all, it is a capital crime against its own cast of interesting characters.
Inevitably in the critical fall-out (I'm a fan by the way, call me a blinkered critic all you want but it's half the story), the tale of its production has been pushed forwards. And in there are some major missteps that you can begin to decode as the reasons Suicide Squad turned out the way it did.
Even better for fanboys seeking an answer to the disparity with what they enjoyed and what the critics didn't, it also begins to offer a picture of why the critics might have hated it too.
10. Not Having A Firm Direction Immediately
If there's one message that comes out of all of the plans that almost changed Suicide Squad, it's that David Ayer started without a very clear plan for where he was going. He initially planned more Enchantress at the start, more Joker at the end, more backstory for Killer Croc... And all were dropped or re-envisaged on the fly.
Not sticking with one idea and one approach - including the weird sway in tone - was catastrophic.
What Should Have Happened
Don't just hire a director because; hire a director who pitches with an idea of how to make your film. For all the criticisms of Marvel employing directors who will adhere to their over-arching model for the MCU, there is value to their rigid structure.
Having a firm idea of where the film was going would have made it feel less disjointed, would have negated the need to cut so much and would have actually allowed the film to feel like it belonged to Ayer.