This Bunch of Degenerates and Nutjobs is Too Uneven: Our Review of "Suicide Squad" (2016)

Directed by: David Ayer (End of Watch, Fury) 

Starring: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Viola Davis, Joel Kinnaman, Cara Delevigne, Jay Hernandez, Jai Courtney

Rating: PG-13 for sequences of violence and action throughout, disturbing behavior, suggestive content and language

Run Time: 2 hours, 3 minutes

Synopsis: Following the events of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, the U.S. government builds a task force of incarcerated "metahumans" as a backup plan should Earth need protection from evil forces. When one of their members turns into an evil force, the rest of the squad is sent into action.

REVIEW

Sarah: Hello dear readers! It's true, we are back with a brand new movie review for you! It's been almost on year to the day since our last review and we wish we could say that something exciting had happened to cause the hiatus, but really life just got in the way. We can't promise that there's going to be a ton of new content or that we will begin posting regularly again, but for now we wanted to do a quick little review on a movie that we had been looking forward to for a long time: Suicide Squad, the newest entry in the DC Extended Universe.

Suicide Squad was a comic book film that we had been anticipating for while now. There's a new Joker (Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie, The Wolf of Wall Street) making her feature film debut, and a whole host of new characters (at least to me). We were totally in. Now that we've seen it, and you've seen it twice now Andrew, what are your initial thoughts?

Andrew: This is a bit of a tough one for a couple reasons. First and foremost, we were REALLY looking forward to this movie. The trailers did such a phenomenal job of getting us pumped for it. Secondly, this is not a good movie. It just isn't. There are good things in it, but as a fully formed movie it isn't good. And I'd say you can argue whether or not it's even a "fully formed" movie.

What are your initial thoughts?

S: I will agree with you that this was not a fully formed film. With the abundance of "Huh?" and "That's not how that works" moments it was easy to walk away with a sour taste in my mouth. 

But there were things about this movie that I really enjoyed! The music, for starters, was reminiscent of Guardians of the Galaxy with fun (and sometimes funky) beats to go with different scenes. It got the audience pumped, albeit for a short amount of time, to see what was going to happen next. 

And the characters that writer/director David Ayer did flesh out were done so with an obvious love for those characters. Harley Quinn and Deadshot (Will Smith, Men in Black) were given lots of care and attention, making them endearing to an audience in the hope of masking the fact that other characters were given the shaft. Even the Joker (who was highly publicized in the making of this movie) was only given a handful of scenes to really show off the fact that, no, this is not the same Joker you remember.

Back in Black Again...Again?: Our Review of "Men in Black III" (2012)

Directed By: Barry Sonnenfeld (The Addams Family)

Starring: Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Jemaine Clement, Emma Thompson

Rating: PG-13 for sci-fi action violence, and brief suggestive content

Synopsis: After an intergalactic serial killer named Boris the Animal (Clement) escapes and goes back in time to 1969 to kill Agent K (Jones), Agent J (Smith) must also travel back in time to save K, and in turn, save the world from a catastrophic alien invasion.

REVIEW

Andrew: Hello readers! This afternoon Sarah and I hit the theatre to catch this year’s big Memorial Day weekend film Men in Black III, starring Will Smith (Hancock), Tommy Lee Jones (The Fugitive) and Josh Brolin (No Country For Old Men).

Sarah, we talked about our expectations for the film in our weekly preview yesterday and you said you were hoping it would be better than Men in Black II was. Was it?

Sarah: It WAS better than Men in Black II, but that’s not necessarily high praise coming from me. Even the storyline, while cheesy at the beginning, was better than the second one. I think it may even rival the original film! We saw our two favorite Men in Black trying to save the world again from very disturbing bad guys and they didn’t fail to deliver for Earth.

A: I’m a little half and half on this one. There are certain aspects about MIB3 that are absolutely better than MIB2, and some parts of MIB2 I felt were better than the new one, but I completely disagree with you that the third chapter is anywhere close to the original.

S: I think that both share the element of humor and I actually think the bad guy in MIB3, Boris the Animal (Clement), rivals the Bug in the first one. Granted they seem to have a lot in common and have bug like features, but I would say it’s hard to tell which villain is more evil. And I’m not going to lie, I enjoyed the time travel aspect. I didn’t think I would but I did in the end.

Agent K (Jones, left) and Agent J (Smith) return for a third go-round in Men in Black III

A: Ok, let me put it this way. I think almost everything about the first MIB film is great. The action, the humor, the performances were fresh, and I like the storyline about the galaxy on Orion’s belt and how it played out.

In contrast, I feel that MIB3 did a fairly solid job executing the time travel plotline (which could have been terribly botched), but essentially any part of MIB3 before Brolin enters the picture is subpar.

Honestly, there are a few points I’d like to make. May I?

S: Go for it.

A: Here we go:

- Tommy Lee Jones is in the film for a hot second, and when he IS on the screen in the first act, the writing makes it seem like K and J have been partners for weeks, not 14 years.

- There’s a funeral scene for Agent Zed - he’s replaced by Emma Thompson (Love, Actually) as Agent O - that was wholly unnecessary, or at least completely unfunny.

- The opening scene where Boris the Animal escapes is too easily done (why would they EVER allow him a visitor of ANY sort?) and I just find that villain too silly at points. (QUICK MINOR SPOILER ALERT: Plus Agent J is able to distract him way too easily in the climax.)

All those things just weren’t as good as the original to me. THAT SAID, as soon as Brolin enters the picture the movie brightens up by a lot and is actually quite excellent from there on.

Boris the Animal (Clement) escapes from prison a little too easily for Andrew's taste

S: I’ll give you some of those points. While Boris was definitely way too easily thrown off by people calling him “Boris the Animal”, I think they did a good job building up his reasoning for acting the way he does. And I think the funeral was a nice way to kind of get rid of Zed’s character, to kill him off, and it certainly wasn’t funny but it was a nice way to transition to Agent O.

I think it’s safe to say that Brolin’s performance as a young Agent K is SPOT ON. And is the bright spot of the film. There are times where I knew it was Brolin but he sounded and acted SO MUCH like Tommy Lee Jones that it blew my mind. And for that alone I give the film a lot more credit.

Here’s a question for you: What did you think about how they answered the time travel conundrums that a lot of movies and TV shows sort of fall victim to?

A: Without giving away any spoilers, I thought they did a pretty good job assuaging my fears about the time travel. As I said in the preview yesterday, I wondered why Agent J seemed to be the only person who remembered Agent K after Boris goes back in time to kill him. (That’s the basic premise of the movie, readers, if you didn’t know that and get angry with me, it really isn’t ruining anything for you.)

Well, a tech nerd who gives Agent J the time travel device answered my question with a simple remark and his words ended up coming back around in the climax. It actually makes a little bit of sense if you don’t think about it too much. So kudos to the writers there.

I was also a fan of a Michael Stuhlbarg’s (Boardwalk Empire) character, Griffin, who is an alien that can see and experience every single possible future scenario all at once. I think they used his character in a pretty smart way that enhanced the time travel plot and added a bit of emotional heft to the climax.

S: Totally agree. I think the way they handled it and solved the problem without dwelling on it too much. It was what it was and they weren’t apologetic.

My favorite part of the film was Brolin as Agent K, and like I said in the preview I said I thought he would steal the show and he did. I also liked some of the smaller performances by Bill Hader (Saturday Night Live) as Andy Warhol/Agent W and Alice Eve (She’s Out of My League) as a young version of Agent O.

But may I go on a small tangent real quick about why I’m not going to give this film a high grade?

Josh Brolin's performance as a young Agent K is the highlight of the film

 A: I’d like to hear this.

S: I don’t understand the allure of Will Smith. I don’t find him that great an actor. He commands the star power and salaries equal to Tom Cruise or Tom Hanks and people love him, but all they’re getting is The Fresh Prince. The TV show was great, but he really hasn’t changed his persona to much anything of what he’s done. And that’s a shame to me.

He hasn’t done anything in four years and maybe there’s a reason for that. He can say all he wants that it is because he’s focused on his kids’ careers, but can we look back at what he’s coming back to the industry with? Sequels to his older movies and a movie with M. Night Shymalan that includes JADEN SMITH! Ugh!

I will give him credit for one movie that I was actually moved by, and that was The Pursuit of Happyness. Yes he received an Oscar nomination for it and it made about $300 million, but other than that I’m not impressed with his filmography.

A: Wow! Tell me how you really feel!

S: I think the bottom line is that these movies are meant to be purely entertaining. This was clearly not the strongest of the trilogy, and while I don’t find the whole series to be great movies in general, it’s a fun family-friendly way to kick off the summer season.

A: Ok, fair assessment. If anything, the second half of the film redeems the first half, particularly the surprisingly emotional and sweet ending. So what’s our final grade for Men in Black III?

S: It’s not a must-see in theatres, but it’s a good way to kill some time this Memorial Day weekend or as a matinee any other time.

(Out of Five Clapboards) 

Photo Courtesies: TheYBF, MTV, Screen Rant

Our Preview for This Week's New Releases (for Friday, May 18th)

Andrew: Hello readers! It's a double-whammy kind of day here at Two Tickets For... Because of an internet outage last night we weren't able to post our review of Sacha Baron Cohen's new comedy The Dictator until this morning (click on the link to read our review), and now it's time for our Weekly Preview!

Technically The Dictator should have been a part of this preview, but because it came out on a Wednesday it was a day early. Therefore we're going to preview the other two big releases coming out this week starting with Hasbro and Universal's new team-up, Battleship.

Based on the classic Hasbro board game of the same name, Battleship is directed by Peter Berg, who made his name with the film adaptation of Buzz Bissinger's non-fiction book "Friday Night Lights", the television adaptation of the same book, and more recently directed the disappointing Will Smith vehicle Hancock. But the most noticeable thing here is that Berg's movie version of this board game clearly involves more than just naval battleship duking it out on the high seas - Sarah, what do you think of the involvement of aliens in this movie?

Sarah: I have to say, I'm a little leary of this movie. Movies based on rides? Pirates of the Carribbean? The Haunted Mansion? Sure, I can get around that. But a board game? I know Jumangi was a movie about a board game but this is taking it to another level. I used to play this game with my cousins ALL the time. And now they're throwing in aliens? I mean when I saw the preview all I thought was, "Michael Bay is doing a new movie that isn't Transformers?" I don't know, I think that this movie looks like a combination of War of the Worlds and Transformers all rolled into one.

What do you think?

A: When I first heard that Hasbro was going to start doing film adaptations of their board games because of the success of the Transformers franchise, I was skeptical. Then I started reading about the names being attached to some of the announced adaptations my interest was piqued. Check these out:

 - A Monopoly movie directed by Ridley Scott, possibly written by Aaron Sorkin
 - A new Clue movie directed by Gore Verbinski
 - A Ouija movie being developed by Platinum Dunes, the horror movie production company co-started by Michael Bay and known for their The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th remakes
 - A Candy Land movie starring Adam Sandler (this one is seriously happening)

And of course, Battleship. Out of all of these Hasbro games, this was the one I was most interested in because I felt that a movie about huge battleships fighting it out would be cool. But then I saw the trailer and it killed any hope I had for it because of the aliens. Now it just looks like a worse version of Transformers.

Official Trailer for Battleship

S: Yeah I'm still not super stoked about the idea of my favorite childhood board games being turned into movies, but I suppose that's not for me to decide. But just know that I will be critiquing them like crazy.

And I'm not too excited about this one if only for the fact that Taylor Kitch was basically ruined for me in John Carter and here he is again in an alien action flick. There are some other, much better names in this movie that I hope won't be tarnished forever by their choice to be in a boardgame movie.

A: You just brought up my next point about my skepticism of this movie - the casting. Taylor Kitsch seems like a nice enough guy but he was miscast in John Carter and I don't have high hopes for him in Battleship. Then you have Rihanna (!) in a lead role and I lose all hope. I'm waiting to see if it can be saved by the awesome Liam Neeson as the Navy Admiral in charge of Kitsch's Lieutenant, so we'll see.

Ok! Next on the agenda is a movie that we're actually kind of looking forward to, and that's the new ensemble comedy What to Expect When You're Expecting. Based off the pregnancy guide book of the same name, this stars a whole lot of famous people (a la Valentine's Day and New Year's Eve):

 - Jennifer Lopez (Maid in Manhattan) and Rodrigo Santoro (300) as a couple looking to adopt
 - Cameron Diaz (There's Something About Mary) and Matthew Morrison (Glee) as a singer and a dancer, respectively, who are a pair on a celebrity dancing show
 - Elizabeth Banks (Zack & Miri Make a Porno) and Ben Falcone (Bridesmaids) as a baby boutique guru and her husband who are pregnant for the first time
 - Brooklyn Decker (Battleship) and Dennis Quiad (The Parent Trap) as an "older man with younger wife" couple, and Quiad also happens to be Falcone's character's father
 - Anna Kendrick (Up In the Air) as a young woman who gets pregnant from a one-night stand
 - Chris Rock (Grown-Ups), Rob Huebel (I Love You, Man), Thomas Lennon (Reno 911!) and Amir Talai (Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanimo Bay) as "The Dads", a group of guys who bond together with their kids' playgroup

The trailer makes us laugh almost every time we see it, doesn't it Sarah?

Official Trailer for What to Expect When You're Expecting

S: Oh my gosh, I am so excited to see this one! It looks hilarious and i do laugh every single time I see the trailer. While I am a little hesitant of the integrity of large, highly famous actors all in the movie together, I think this one will be different. Since there are so many comedians I think it will be a nice balace. So many of these actors make me laugh that I am excited to see how they all work together!

Are you excited about this one?

A: I won't say I'm excited per se, because that's a little too much, but I do laugh at the trailer and I'm sort of looking forward to seeing it because of some of the names and because I want to see how well it fares compared to Rob Marshall's two ensemble comedies we mentioned earlier. I actually kind of like Marshall's films, so I want to see if I walk out of this one feeling the same way.

S: Yea, even with New Years Eve we enjoyed ourselves! I'm excited that this summer is looking to be a good mix of action and comedy with a little horror thrown in for good measure.

A: Now that you mention it, I think we should maybe do a Summer Movie Preview sometime soon of what we're looking forward to most in June, July and August. So definitely be on the lookout for that readers!

I can guarantee we will be seeing the two movies we previewed today sometime this weekend, so be on the lookout for those this weekend, and as always, thanks for reading!