Squad Finds Suicide Dory

I can’t remember when last I did two movies at the cinema in one weekend, and the contrast between the two could not have been greater. One was full of sociopathic criminals and the other was full of friendly characters helping a fish find her parents.

Let’s do the easy one first.

Finding Dory

Let’s face it, it was always going to be hard to live up to the original Finding Nemo. It introduced us to lovable characters, had loads of heart and gave us lots of laughs, many of them due to Dory being Dory. Dory was ever the optimist, steadfastly determined and had a never say die attitude that I envy, despite her inability to remember anything (is this early onset dementia??). And she was damn funny. All this endeared her to me as I’m sure it did to many Nemo fans out there, so when Finding Dory came out I was very keen to see it.

Unfortunately, I think Finding Nemo outdoes this film on all fronts. It’s cute, but not as cute. It’s an adventure, but not as wild. And Dory is… not as Dory. She still suffers her disability, but now that she remembers she had a family that she wants to find she is not as effervescent, her kookiness doesn’t surface as much and she has some real self doubt. Now obviously she can’t be the happy, optimistic fishy she was when she is desperately trying to find her parents, but I missed the old Dory. To me, she lost a bit of her Dory-ness, which was a touch disappointing.

On the plus side, there are some great new characters – Hank the septopus, Becky the (slightly disturbing) dishevelled looking bird, and the limey sea lions were my favourite. There were the scenes that make you go “awwwwww” (especially the one near the end with the shell – just so touching!) plus little Dory is really cute. Cuter than little Nemo.

A cutesy 7/10 for Finding Dory.

Suicide Squad

Another movie I was really looking forward to. Because Jared Leto.  

I’ve heard critics have slated this movie, though some have had praise for the acting of Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn), Will Smith (Deadshot) and Jared Leto (the Joker). I have my own thoughts on this.

The movie itself was enjoyable, harmless fun. Standard popcorn fare for which you didn’t really need to do too much thinking (actually best not to do any analysing at all), and to a large degree quite formulaic. But let’s break it down.

Margot Robbie is the best thing about this movie - when she is Harley. In the flashbacks as Dr Quinzel she is inexplicably (and annoyingly) entranced by the Joker, despite being a professional criminal psychologist working in an asylum. I also found the dialogue between these two especially cringey, with her Freudian slips eye rollingly so in one of the earlier scenes. She doesn’t seem to do much in these scenes either, except stare starry-eyed and open-mouthed at Jared Leto’s Joker - something that Kristen Stewart could have done, as she proved throughout the entire Twilight saga. As Harley, however, Robbie totally owns the part, showcasing Harley’s deranged girliness, giggling at inappropriate times, gleefully smashing people (or ex-people) to death with her strangely durable baseball bat and being a total ditz at times. It’s almost as if she was born to be Harley.

Will Smith is another solid performer. He combines doting father with hardened criminal with as much ease as he is able to throw in the occasional comic one liner in this film. His character is one of the more well rounded in this movie, which does help.

I’m not sure I saw enough of the Joker to give a truly informed view, but I will say that I prefer Heath Ledger’s version. This new Joker is a bit too slick and polished, a bit too pimp, a bit too bling. I much preferred the grittier, messier Heath Ledger Joker. I’m not sure I like his slow “heh-heh-heh” laugh either. I’m actually not even sure what the point was of having the Joker in the movie at all. He disappears for large parts of the movie and most of the scenes he does appear in are in flashback sequences. He really did not make any impact at all on the storyline. I get that this is an introduction to the Joker for subsequent movies, but I’m not sure it started out that way. One of the trailers was just full of Joker scenes and I’ve heard that a lot of Jared Leto’s scenes were cut from the final version. The fact that they had to do reshoots also fuels the theory that the story was taken in a different direction than originally intended. This may also account for the weird flow (or not flow) of the movie too. It just felt a bit messy.

The problem was that it was trying to do too much at once. A lot of characters were introduced in this movie in advance of others to come. Enough of a back story for each of them was required to explain their motivations in this movie. The movie itself had to have its own plot, and links were established to other characters within the DC universe that already had their own movies. That is a lot to achieve with the number of people in this squad and the result wasn’t great. It just didn’t have the flow it should’ve had.

The film also seems to borrow somewhat from others – Boomerang’s fetish for pink unicorns? Deadpool anyone?? I was also expecting Zuul to appear from underneath the swirling pile of rubbish, or for the Ghostbusters to show up and suck Cara Delevingne into the ghost traps. Not to mention Harley Quinn being stuck in a Sia music video during her incarceration.

One more gripe about June Moone and Rick Flagg. Why was she even with this guy?! He made her turn into the enchantress when clearly it distressed her, turning her into a simpering, mewling wreck, and yet she didn’t leave him?! (Ok maybe she couldn’t because of Boss Amanda, but really. The Enchantress was clearly incredibly powerful and would have dealt fine with whatever came for her “host”. Girl needs to grow a pair and is obviously far better off as Enchantress.) Aside from the fact that he was basically forcing his (and the government’s) will on poor June, Rick Flagg was the most boring character in the whole movie. A one dimensional character with no personality.

And another thing. If you were going to put together an elite squad to take down the world’s biggest threats you’d totally include a bank robber without any super powers, right? Right? An unhinged girl, also with no super powers, armed with a baseball bat is arguably not much better though….

I was going to give this a 7/10, but the more I think about it, the further the scoring slides. 6.5 at best.