Search options (Page 47 of 57)

http://www.superherohype.com/news/38064 … -the-rival

Once again, TF was ahead of the curve.

I agree and would love to see Nightwing on screen, but I'm guessing they're going to simplify things.  There was only one Robin, and he was "killed" (apparently by Harley per Suicide Squad).  He'd come back in a Red Hood story.  If Barbara Gordon is alive, she's not Oracle.

I said loooooonnnnnngggg ago that if they're going with an old Batman they'd get to do some cool Bat-Family stuff, but BvS gave *no* indication that the Bat-Family ever existed.  The Robin suit (which was shown but never mentioned in dialogue - "you've been a mess since *whoever* died") is the only indication that Bruce ever had a partner.  No partner in Suicide Squad, and if Harley did kill Dick/Jason/Tim, Bruce is able to control his emotions when he arrests her (the punch aside).

And I'd figure if they were setting up a Bat-Family, there would've been *something* in BvS.  Oracle or Robin or Nightwing offering to help or to bring Bruce back from the darkness.  Either before or after the "Martha" scene.  Maybe a phone call after Superman died to Barbara or Dick or Tim or whoever to apologize for acting crazy since *whichever Robin* died.  Promising to be better.  Even a line where Alfred says something about "you never even call back Master Grayson anymore" in the middle of the movie would've shown how alone Bruce was.

This was a movie at a) focused on Bruce and b) was definitely made with the intention of showing a bigger universe.  They didn't have to have a huge scene where Nightwing shows up - just a line of dialogue to indicate he exists.  Or an Easter Egg suit alongside the Robin one. 

The logical explanation for the lack of anything is the simplest one - Batman had a partner and he died.  No one is helping him because Robin was the only one who did, and Bruce never had another partner.  Alfred doesn't mention him because he knows Bruce would just fly off the handle.

Just my guess.

I don't know why I remember this or decided to do the research now, but:

Season 1 (Episodes 1-16) - Tuesday
Season 1 (Episodes 17-22) - Thursday
Season 2 - Thursday
Season 3 - Thursday
Season 4 - Thursday
Season 5 - Thursday
Season 6 - Friday
Season 7 - Friday
Season 8 - Wednesday
Season 9 - Tuesday
Season 10 - Tuesday
Season 11 - Wednesday
Season 12 - Thursday

It's a miracle this show has been so popular with how much it's been moved.  Or maybe just a sign of the times when no one watches live.

Again, I have no problem with Peter having a black girlfriend.  Or Barry Allen having a black girlfriend.  White male - black female relationships need to be represented because they're usually ignored in media.  It's a great way to add a level of diversity that no one else seems to be showing.

My point is that Iris West and Mary Jane Watson don't have character identification that's relevant.  Mary Jane is an actress and she's Peter's girlfriend.  Iris is a journalist and she's Barry's girlfriend.  Those are their two biggest descriptors.  So why not let Mary Jane (and Gwen) be students at Peter's school, but in this universe, Peter chooses someone else.  The idea that Mary Jane has to be white is just as laughable to me as the idea that Mary Jane has to be Peter's soulmate.

When you create a new character instead of race-swapping, you show that creating a new character works.  The new black girlfriend would join the ranks of new black characters that were created and stayed around despite the fact that their name wasn't one that was already popular.

It is odd that almost all the race-swapping is white to black.  Very few are white to Hispanic, and even less are white to Asian.  In fact, I can think of more Asian characters that were shown as white than the opposite.  The latest census shows that 13% of the US population is black, 5% is Asian, and 17% is Hispanic.

Back to the "black Mary Jane" story. 

Is it racist to ask that they just create a new character?  Because I've seen that accusation in the past, and it's not something I really understand.  For certain characters, I get it.  If you're trying to generate diversity among an established group (say, the Fantastic Four), then you have to race-swap someone.  Adding a new supporting character and having them assist the Fantastic Four wouldn't work, and swapping out Johnny Storm for a new black character doesn't work either.

For some, the answer is easier.  Hal Jordan was white.  Guy Gardner was white.  Kyle Raynor was white.  DC wanted a black Green Lantern so they made one.  And now, thanks to the Justice League cartoon, John Stewart is just as popular as any other Green Lantern.  Same with Miles Morales.  Peter Parker dies in the Ultimate universe, and he's replaced with a young black/Hispanic kid.  Now most comic fans know who he is.  It worked.

In some situations, the situation is a bit more lazy in my opinion.  Barry Allen, Jay Garrick, Wally West, and Bart Allen have all been the Flash.  But instead of adding a fifth Flash as a black man, they race-swapped Wally.  It's been shown that if you attach a new character to an existing brand, the new character can be successful.  But instead of elevating the new character to prominence, they altered Wally.

Now I get the challenges of creating a brand-new superhero.  For the most part, there aren't many popular new superheroes (black, white, or otherwise).  Almost all the successful Marvel and DC heroes are decades old. 

But my problem is with Mary Jane.  Mary Jane has been around for a while, and she's a key character in Peter's life.  But I don't know if she's crucial to the character of Peter Parker.  Yeah, he marries her in one continuity, but I don't think she *has* to be included for the character to work.  So why not do something different?  If they want Peter Parker to have a black girlfriend, that's great.  Comic movies do need more black women.

But why not create a new character?  Spider-Man: Homecoming is going to be a successful movie whether or not Mary Jane is in it.  It won't be made or broken by the female lead.  So why not try something new?

My question is why they need to raceswap Mary Jane at all.  Why not just make it a new character?  I understand having to raceswap Johnny Storm or Wally West, but is Mary Jane crucial enough to have to include?  The did MJ, they did Gwen.  Create a new love interest.  Denise.  She's in Peter's class.  She's smart and fun and beautiful.  Done.

I mean I understand that but I don't fear Kylo.  I don't fear Phasma or Snoke because I don't know anything about him.  So I walk out of Episode VII without really understanding who's what.  I walked out of Episode IV understanding that Vader is still really powerful and that, while our heroes won, there's still a lot of work to do.  It was clear.

My problem with TFA is and was that it's a pretty good setup to a movie that might be great down the line.  It's a pilot for a cool TV series but not a standalone movie.  It's the ultimate culmination in the storytelling we're seeing at Marvel or DC or Fast and the Furious or these tween movies - where each movie is a chapter that builds on each other.  The Force Awakens is a first chapter that an only be truly understood/appreciated once the whole story is complete.

So that's why I didn't love it.  I felt like it was a prologue to the new trilogy - not the first entry in one.

My girlfriend and I are watching it so it's going slower than usual.  We're on episode 4 so I haven't read anything you wrote

Well, I'm just thinking that characters need to serve a purpose.  "Not detracting from the overall plot" shouldn't be reasons to include characters.  If there's nothing for them to do, they shouldn't have been included.  It might be more realistic for Amanda Waller to put more people on the team than she needs, and it's realistic that all of them wouldn't have time to shine.  But this is a movie., and characters need to have some sort of purpose to the story.  It'd be realistic for Justice League to have the entire Justice League Unlimited roster to fight Darkseid or Steppenwolf, but it's probably not right for the movie.

I mean, again, if you think they added to the story, that's cool.  We're not going to get an SQ21 version where they're edited out so that's not something you need to worry about. 

I do hope that Wonder Woman and Justice League are movies where we get the "real" version in theaters.  No more hacked up theatrical releases and "fixed" blu-rays

The problem I have with Suicide Squad is needless excess.  In the theatrical version of the story, Captain Boomerang and Killer Croc serve almost zero purpose.  In the words of Nick Mason on the Weekly Planet, they're given "odd jobs" to do just so they feel like part of the team.  But like I said, they could be cut out and there's no real effect on the plot.  Someone else throws the bomb.  That's it.  Captain Boomerang only throws three boomerangs the whole movie, and they give him that "camera boomerang" gimmick just so he feels important (they were upset because they're Australian )

Joker's "present day" story, in the theatrical version, serves almost no purpose.  If you cut it out entirely, then there's just two effects:

1. Amanda Waller gets on the second helicopter "first"
2. You either have to explain why Harley is separated from the group after the helicopter crash or just cut out their reunion (either of which would work seamlessly). 

Other than that, there's just some text messages.  Joker's role could've simply been in the flashbacks (and if you want a final shot, him breaking her out of prison) and it still works.  You could even have him be "dead" from Batman instead of the helicopter crash, and her surprise that he's alive still works.

If you can cut that much of a character from a film and create almost no plot holes, then the character doesn't need to be there.  And I thought Leto's Joker was boring enough that he could've been cut, and my enjoyment of the movie would've been negligibly affected.

So I'd be counting on deleted scenes to justify the existence of these characters.  If I'm supposed to care about Killer Croc, Captain Boomerang, the Joker, or Katana, it's gotta be in deleted scenes.  Otherwise, those characters didn't need to be in the movie, and the "extended cut" should be versions where they're edited out.  Because, yeah, teams need redshirts, but Slipknot has more impact on the story than Joker/Boomerang/Croc.  And he's barely introduced, and he's in the movie for two minutes.

That's a problem, IMO.

As a side exercise, try to take out someone like Hawkeye or Fury from the Avengers and see what plot holes arise.  Even characters like Maria Hill and Dr. Selvig have crucial elements that cannot be eliminated.  Same with Guardians.  If you want to talk non-comic book movies, even something like Star Trek has a crucial scene for every main character.  Not just participating in a large action sequence, something they're actually contributing to the story.

That's the problem.  Imagine a Justice League movie where Cyborg does almost nothing for the entire plot and can be edited out without causing any plot holes.  It'd be a huge problem.

Ha, I love this place.  We came up with our own elaborate backstory to explain a rumor that may or may not even happen.  And if it does happen, there's no way they're going to be as detailed as we've been.

You guys are awesome

Well, if the show works upon a "branching" multiverse, then I think they could write it that way.  What if the branching event that causes Supergirl to live outside Barry's world happened after Reverse Flash did something?  For example, what if Reverse Flash decided to try and destroy another hero when he got the chance and used STAR Labs technology to either destroy Kara's ship or divert it from Earth, somehow?  So that's why Kara isn't on Earth-1?  And maybe that event either forced Clark to not come out of the shadows (maybe operating like Clark on Smallville), or Thawne was able to kill Clark as well.

To explain differences in Kara's Earth, you could also use this theory.  Maybe instead of going after Clark and/or Kara on Kara's Earth, maybe Thawne decided to take his anger out on STAR Labs and kill everyone there (maybe including Barry).  When Barry says that no one exists, it's all STAR Labs people - Cisco, Caitlin, and Wells.  So when Barry was searching for them, maybe he couldn't find them because they were dead.  Maybe the other heroes don't exist because this is a world where Superman exists so Oliver thought fighting crime with a bow and arrow seemed silly compared to that.  If Oliver doesn't become Arrow, then there's no Atom or Black Canary.

With Thawne defeated in the new timeline, none of that would happen and the universes "merge"

Well, the reason why I say that Deadshot "beat" Batman was based on a couple things - the "fantasy" sequence when Deadshot had killed Batman and the fact that the daughter stepped in at all.  Both of these are written off pretty easily - the little girl couldn't possibly be expected to understand how the fight is going.  She stepped in because she thought her dad was going to kill Batman - not because he necessarily would.  And the fantasy sequence is just that - a fantasy.

But the way that it was shot, Batman looked like he was helpless and Deadshot had him.  Now I know that Deadshot has a "blind spot" for Batman and usually can't kill him (or misses), but that's not presented in the movie.  He's sitting, ready to fire, when the daughter steps in.  I"d assume that Deadshot could've killed Batman there if he wanted.

I don't know.  I know it wasn't a Batman movie, but if they're going to include Batman in a cameo, I want him to be super terrifying.  And he wasn't.

I agree that teams need filler, but one of the problems was not enough backstory for a couple of people.  So here's what I would've done to change things.

- No Boomerang or Croc.  No backstory on either buys you 5-10 minutes, and it doesn't really impact the story (someone else just needs to throw the bomb....so we'll say Flagg just throws it himself.  It wasn't like the bomb was heavy or the throw was far).

- Include the entire seduction/corruption of Harley by Joker.  Instead of "she was a doctor and then she fell in love with her patient....show the whole thing.  Batman the Animated Series did a great job with it, and it only took three minutes of screentime.  It explains so much about Harley's character, and I think it would make more sense.

- Like you said, introduce Slipknot with the same introduction as everyone else.  Also include a scene where Amanda Waller is talking to someone about the bombs either being a trick or not really working in earshot of Slipknot.  The assumption being that Slipknot would automatically try and escape on his own, which would be Amanda's plan the whole time.

- Introduce Katana correctly.  She's just sorta tacked on in the middle, and the audience feels less for her.  Include her from the beginning.

- Make Joker less Scarface and more Joker.

- If you want to include Croc, make him show up as a cameo in the sewers scene.  But if you're going to include him, make his scene matter.

- Batman needs to be terrifying in the flashbacks.  Fast, strong, and big.  Batman also needs to meet with Waller on a rooftop or alley in the mid-credits scene.  Not Bruce in a restaurant (pet peeve).

That's just what I would change.  I think that would make the movie tighter and more character oriented.

I mean, I'm sure there'll be a reason.  It'll be technobabble BS, but it'll be there.

"When you changed history, you sent a shockwave through the entire multiverse.  Entire worlds were merged together.  Mathematically speaking, the two closest worlds to our Earth.  So any world you've been to, I assume."

"Oh hey Kara and Harry!"

Well, it makes logistical sense for Kara to be in the Arrowverse.  We know guys like Cold and Merlyn and Laurel are going to be on all four shows, and those guys can't be jumping around the multiverse.  So she has to come over.

And if she's coming, her side characters have to come.  If they don't, even if it's fun to explore alternate Arrowverse versions of Winn and James and Cat, the whole plot of Supergirl is going to have to revolve around something she can't do (go home).  And even if she brings along everyone of relevance, there's still issues that are left unresolved.  What about Clark?  Does he come?  If Clark and Kara both go, is it fair to leave Earth-Kara essentially unguarded?

So merging it actually makes the most sense.  Kara doesn't have anywhere to go, and all relevant characters exist in the same universe.

I'd prefer a "Joker only appears in Harley flashbacks with additional flashbacks" edition

Yeah, I'm also not sure Lien would've appreciated being the sexy one.  I don't know why I think that.  Although, again, I feel like she was already moving that direction in season 3.

And I actually thought of a reason.  If she lives only a handful of years, season 4 could've been a "puberty" for her so she starts exuding more sexuality. 

The idea that she would've been old in the final season(s) is one of the reasons I'd love for her to stay aboard.  It could've put Voyager's journey in much more perspective since it only lasted 7 years but lasted "a lifetime" to her. 

Plus, I saw a video about the unusual relationship with Vulcans and Humans.  Vulcans live so much longer than humans that they might think of us like we think about dogs.  Yeah, you love your dog, but you're also sorta taught that dogs are temporary.  Humans might be like pets to Vulcans

And Kes would be the opposite.  How do you form a bond with someone who will only be a minor blip in your lifetime?  It's definitely a cool concept that they ended up abandoning.

It's just so weird because there's a build-up to it, and it just falls so flat.  It bothers me every time

Another point about Suicide Squad

S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S

Why didn't any of the members of the squad know each other?  I understand why none of them might know Captain Boomerang if he spent his entire career on the other side of the world.  But Harley and Deadshot worked out of the same city, and it didn't seem like they'd ever interacted before.  Killer Croc also worked out of Gotham and is a major Batman rogue.  I know he probably doesn't collaborate a lot, but they've run into each other, right?

If they wanted some fun character stuff, shouldn't there have been a scene or two where the Squad members talk about previous jobs they'd worked together.  Or at least their hatred of Batman?  Or maybe their hatred of Belle Reve?

They bond over the course of the movie (a little), but there's no indication that they'd ever bonded previously.  Am I taking too many liberties in the comic universe where villains seem to interact with each other all the time?

I mean, I get that he's hard to identify with.....but he's Superman.  That doesn't just extend to strength and invulnerability.  He's confident because nothing can hurt him.  He's had no reason to be scared of anything his entire life.  I know there's physical pain and emotional pain (which Clark *isn't* invulnerable to), but he's also never sick.  He's attractive.  He's smart.  These are things that would've made him popular by itself.

I'm not saying Clark wouldn't have issues.  Because, of course he would.  Like I said, he's still vulnerable to emotional pain.  The head cheerleader turns him down, he gets sad.  He fails a big math test, he gets sad.  He can't afford the car he wants, he gets sad.  These are very human problems that would also affect Clark.

But he's still Superman.  He still can do things that no one else on the planet can do.  And that's terrifying, but it's also gotta be, on some level, really satisfying.  Even if his parents were straight monsters who taught him to hate himself because he's different, he can still do all those things I said he could do.  Even in his drifter phase, he was always employed and got to see the world.

I know I sound like Clark's psychologist, but I just expect his life to actually be better.  There's Elon Musk and there's Clark Kent.  Elon Musk's life might not be that great.  Clark's life, on some level, just has to be pretty great because he lives free of fear.

You'd change lives with Clark in a second, right?  Wouldn't just about anyone?

I think it could've been about Penguin's rise and crazy sort of things happening.  That there was a level of insanity on the brink of erupting, and that Batman was the catalyst for things to change.  I was cool with the beginning - Nygma is in the police force but going a little nutty.  Penguin as a foot soldier with ambition.  Selina and Ivy as kids.

But they got impatient.  Added Harvey Dent and Mr. Freeze and pseudo-Joker and a bunch of others.  So it's basically Batman without Batman.  Which is fine, except for the reasons I said.

For the record, I still like the show a lot.  I just think they could've done it better.

My problem is how the show is sorta changing a fundamental aspect of the Batman character.  There's a thought that runs in stories like Batman Begins and Year One that Batman is sorta responsible for the craziness in Gotham.  That he shows up in this garish outfit, and that is what sets Gotham on the path to craziness.  That if Bruce had never shown up back in Gotham, that his villains wouldn't exist.

That Batman, more than anything else, created his own villains.  Gotham (the show) implies that Gotham was already crazy and that many of its villains were already the way they were.  And that Batman is a reaction to Gotham and not the other way around.

And while it's not a terrible change, I think it's a less-interesting one.  The idea that Batman might not actually be good for Gotham - that he might create as many villains as he puts down, just by existing in the city.  The idea that, if he quit, maybe the city would go back to "normal."  That's a pretty cool concept, and it's something that a lot of Batman stories sorta leave ambiguous.

Gotham answers the question pretty clearly - Gotham goes crazy with big colorful villains way before Bruce ever gets on the scene.  Even if Bruce waits another 6-10 years to show up as Batman, he's absolutely reacting to something that had been going on in the city for years.  In fact, almost none of Batman's villains would've been a reaction to Batman.  Even Joker would've simply been a reaction to Jerome.

It's definitely an alternate reality.  I'm just worried it's a less interesting reality.

He claims a lot of his part was cut (and we know some of it was based on shots from the trailer).  But the more I think about it, Joker was the most disappointing part of the movie.

I wonder if his character is the biggest victim of the alleged major re-edit.

So they're recasting Poison Ivy with a sexy young actress - now 19 years old instead of the 12(?) year old she was before.

The show has done a decent job of planning and foreshadowing, but their characterization of Poison Ivy has been all over the place.  She was really important in the Pilot, showed up a few times, completely disappeared, and now she's jumping a few years in age so they can hire another hot young actress.  Oh well.

http://www.superherohype.com/news/37976 … y#/slide/1

I mean, I just don't see the character as someone who'd be weighed down by his powers.  Would you not switch lives with Clark in an instant?  Wouldn't anyone?  So when the character is written as moody or depressed, it's like writing Richie Rich as depressed.  "Damn all this money!  It makes it harder to connect with my fellow kids?"

Maybe the Christopher Reeve movies were an extreme of this where his life is great and nothing ever goes wrong, but again, I think there's a happy medium in between those movies (for the record, I think the Reeve movies are boring and I cannot watch them).

Clark would have problems like everyone else.  But unlike everyone else, he can enjoy life in a way that no one else can.  This version of Clark could apply to someone like Ben Grimm (who has cool powers but cannot fit in) or maybe Martian Manhunter (who is weighed down by being the only Martian *and* living through it).  But Clark shouldn't identify as a Kryptonian.  He's SuperMAN.  I think he should identify as human since he was human longer than he was Kryptonian.

So he's a human with cool powers living on a planet with 7 billion other humans.  So I don't know why he'd ever feel like his life is joyless.

Well, the complaints were that Superman was too moody.  Not so much in Man of Steel but definitely in BvS.  If he's that moody in Man of Steel 2, then that is a problem.

I know it probably won't happen, but I'd like to see someone else direct Man of Steel 2.  I'm thinking Snyder just doesn't want Clark to have any fun at all

The more I think about it, the more I really think this movie just needed one more rewrite to be really great.  Mini spoiler alert, but in my rewrite, I would've eliminated two characters from the lineup.  I thought back, and with only one minor plot point, both characters are basically Rogue from Days of Future Past - they could be eliminated from the plot entirely with no plot holes.  So I'd get rid of them.

With those characters gone and no additional scenes needed to fix any errors (just one character doing something significant instead of another), there's three scenes I'd like to add.  It'd probably end up being slightly longer than the original cut, but it wouldn't be super-noticeable (and there's a scene or two that could be cut to keep it at a certain length.

And this is why I really like the idea of someone like Feige or Johns who is overseeing everything.  Because if it was me, I'd ask the screenwriter two questions about each character: 1) does the audience have enough to care about this character and 2) does this character serve the story?  For the two characters I'm talking about, the answer is "no" to each. 

And if the writer says "well, they serve a purpose down the road" then I'd either include them as a cameo or move their introduction to another movie.  Allegedly, the Batman solo film is going to take place in Arkham, and any character from Suicide Squad could be introduced in that movie and included in a Suicide Squad sequel.  I know the Batman stuff hasn't been confirmed so it definitely wasn't confirmed when Suicide Squad was being written....but, again, if there was a bit more planning, that might've been known before things started getting written and shot.

I get that.  But, like I've said in the past, I think these movies are aiming higher and get judged on a higher standard.  I don't think it's really fair that Thor the Dark World and Suicide Squad are measured against each other just like I don't think The Secret Life of Pets and Sausage Party should be measured against each other.  They have things in common, but they have completely different goals.

When you have Thor punching a giant rock monster and your primary villain gallivanting as Captain America in a humorous cameo, you're telling your audience that they don't have to be emotionally invested.  But in Suicide Squad, the "heroes" are told that if they step out of line, they explode (I hope that's not a spoiler).  And unlike Loki, if you die, you don't come back. 

So for Thor, the movie is judged on "did you have a good time?"  And yeah it was stupid and I don't think I'll watch it again, but I had a good time for two hours.

With Suicide Squad, just being fun isn't enough because the movie made it clear it was trying to do more.  So I have to judge on whether or not character motivations make sense.  I have to judge it on plot details.  I have to judge it on characterization.  When something doesn't make sense in Avengers, they make a joke and move on.  DC can't aspire to be better and do that.  It's why we care when Metropolis is destroyed but not when New York is.

If you want to be better, you're judged more harshly. 

It's also weird to me that you bunched in Iron Man 3 with Thor 2 and Avengers 2.  Iron Man 3 failed in some areas, but it was the most un-Marvel of the entire MCU.  It tried things that no other Marvel movie ever tried.

SPOILERS

S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S

Okay, so I saw it.  I'm not really sure why the movie is getting such bad reviews.  It's a bit of a mess, but I thought it was fun.  I thought it was sorta like a more serious Marvel film - much more fun than BvS or even MoS.  And it still sorta felt like the DC universe even though it was brighter and people were smiling.

I thought Margot Robbie was good as Harley, although I really didn't think they played up the tragedy of her character that much.  Even Batman: The Animated Series devoted more time to Harley's fall, and since she was such a central character, I would've liked to have seen her downfall to madness more than we got.  One of the problems of the movie is that it gets bogged down, but I think I only really understood her backstory because I've seen it elsewhere.

Will Smith was good as Deadshot.  But again, I don't really think I understood where his character was coming from.  Was he always a character who wanted to be better, or did having a daughter change him?  Did he truly like killing, or was it a means to an end?  It was hard to say.

El Diablo was a pretty great character, actually.  Maybe my favorite.  I think I understood his character the best, which was odd.

The rest were just sorta there.  I thought Katana was oddly added, and there wasn't much to her character.  Killer Croc and Captain Boomerang were forgettable in the background, and I thought Rick Flagg was pretty forgettable in the foreground.

Then there's the Joker.  I really didn't like this version of the Joker, and I'm a little upset about it.  And my main problem is that he didn't feel like the Joker to me.  Not at all.  He just seemed like a sorta-psychopathic gangster to me.  Nothing about any of his exploits really screamed "Joker" to me, and he wasn't even laughing all that much.  I know Heath Ledger's Joker wasn't really using "Joker" weapons or props, but I got the idea that he was at least an agent of chaos.  I really just didn't get a Joker vibe from him the entire time.

Amanda Waller was pretty well done, but I also wasn't really sure where her character was coming from.  The scene where she kills a room full of agents was bizarre, and I never really understood her motivations.  Was she just out for herself?  If so, why didn't she give Enchantress what she wanted when she was captured?  Why didn't she try and make some sort of deal?

I thought Batman's part was a bit weird.  I liked the mid-credits scene quite a bit(*), but I thought the two flashback scenes were sorta bizarre.  Batman gets the drop on Deadshot with this daughter, but would Deadshot have killed him if his daughter hadn't stepped in?  Did a little girl save Batman's life?  Deadshot basically beat him in the fight.  I know it's not a Batman movie, but it was a little odd to me.  And the Joker scene was really quick for how much it was prominently featured in the promo materials.  Flash's brief cameo capturing Boomerang was almost better than the two Batman cameos.

* I really liked the interaction between Bruce and Waller, but I had a few questions about it.  I know Waller knows everything, but is Bruce too old to care that much about his secret identity?  Including the Justice League trailer, Bruce is basically working as Batman in his Bruce Wayne persona a lot.  These are scenes that I expect Bruce to have in costume.  Instead of meeting with Amanda in a suit in a restaurant, I'd imagine that scene would take place on a rooftop as Batman.  It just feels a bit weird for Bruce to be doing so much of the work. 

* continued - And I'm still confused about why Bruce needs *more* information on Aquaman/Flash/etc.  The dossiers didn't seem that long, and he already has the information from Lex.  It just seems a bit of a retread.  Maybe Bruce just wants to be thorough.

All in all, I thought it was fun.  The first half of the movie is better than the second, but I didn't hate the second.  The action was pretty fun, and I liked the characters.  One thing that surprised me is that the movie really isn't very funny.  I can't think of any times, really, where I (or, really, anyone in the theater) laughed out loud.  There's comedy, sure, but I was surprised at how few genuinely funny scenes there were.

Oh and one last thing.  Just like Katana was tacked on, I thought there was some lazy writing with Slipknot.  His death was so telegraphed.  After every character (even Enchantress) gets an introduction with a flashback and a scene at Belle Reve....right before their first mission, "Oh, and here's Slipknot.  His power is whatever."  He gets one brief scene where you see that he's a bad guy and then he's simply a prop to show that Waller/Flagg can really kill them if they want.  They should've either pretended he was a real character (so we care whether he lives or dies) or use him to show how ruthless Waller is (maybe have a scene where she tricks him into thinking he can escape so he'll try - to basically sacrifice him to show that she's serious).  I just thought it was really lazy.

I'm disappointed that it's getting bad reviews, but I can see why people might not like it.  It's two different movies (setting up the characters and then going on a mission), and the characterization is definitely unbalanced.  What they get right (Harley, Deadshot) is good, what they get wrong (Joker) is bad., and then there are just a bunch of characters that are just there.  And I barely mentioned the plot, but there was a lot about it that didn't make a ton of sense (no one seemed to know what the mission was, I don't really know whether or not they were actually trying to kill Enchantress or not, a lot of time seems to pass between the initial attack and the Suicide Squad showing up - where were the other heroes?, etc).

So, yeah, there were issues.  But for what it is (and it knew what it was), I though it was enjoyable.