(Warning. There are spoilers for “Suicide Squad” contained in this column.)
There are movies, and then there are things you record as a sequence of photos that when displayed in quick succession will show you an event that took place in motion.
Security camera footage isn’t a movie. A football game you watch on TV isn’t a movie. A sex tape isn’t a movie. A movie trailer isn’t a movie.
And “Suicide Squad” isn’t a movie.
A movie, at its most basic level, has to function a certain way. We’ve been watching movies for so long that most people take those fundamentals for granted or don’t even realize they’re there.
Also Read: 18 'Suicide Squad' Characters Ranked, Worst to Best (Photos)
We refer to that fundamental aspect of cinema as its language. It’s how we understand what’s going on when the camera cuts from one person to another within a scene, or when one scene transitions to the next, or how every scene eventually adds up to form the whole thing.
There’s a tremendous amount of flexibility in that language — that’s why there’s also a tremendous amount of variety in cinema overall. At the end of the day, Terrence Malick is playing by the same rules Michael Bay is. They just have different accents and use their own colloquial phrasings. Just like how an American and English person will speak English differently than each other even though they’re using the same language. Movies from Malick and Bay may have very different ideas for how to deliver a narrative in a movie, but they’re both speaking fluent film.
But “Suicide Squad” doesn’t speak cinema. It knows some of the words but has no grasp of the grammar and can’t form even the simplest of complete sentences.
Also Read: Inside the Fight for 'Suicide Squad': Director Pressured to Lighten Dark Vision
What a movie has to have on the absolutely bottom level is narrative cohesion, whether that narrative is actually a “story” or some less concrete attempt at expression. There is something to be communicated, and the entire film is supposed to try to deliver it. Often the narrative fails, and a movie ends up being bad.
The reason “Suicide Squad” isn’t just a bad movie is because a side effect of that lack of understand of the language is a lack of understanding of that basic function of movies. It doesn’t fail in its attempt to tell a coherent story — it doesn’t know what a story is, what a movie is, how scenes work or what characters are.
The easiest way to explain this is with the character of Slipknot. He’s one of these bad guys Amanda Waller wants to include on her Task Force X, but “Suicide Squad” doesn’t treat him like one of the team. The others are all introduced with little montages, but Slipknot just shows up when the team is being assembled. He had not, to that point, even been referenced aside from his picture being arrayed among the others on a screen behind Waller when she was pitching the Suicide Squad concept to her superiors.
Also Read: Every DC Movie Villain Ranked, Including 'Suicide Squad' Baddies (Photos)
I expect the reason Slipknot’s intro was cut is because he dies very early on — he’s the one Rick Flag kills to show that he and Waller mean business with those bombs they’d put in each of the squad members’ neck.
But the part where Slipknot gets his head blown off doesn’t mean anything because we had not actually been introduced to him. This kind of thing only works if character getting offed had previously been treated the same as everybody else. Think, for example, Nobu in “Battle Royale” — the teacher running the death game kills him as an example early on, and it’s shocking because he’s the main character’s best friend and that relationship was well established.
“Suicide Squad” shows that sort of disregard for meaning or purpose. The first third is just a series of redundant montages and flashbacks rather than cogent scenes, all structured like character-focused teaser trailers. And there’s no rhyme or reason to the arrangement of these bits or anything that comes after. Scenes appear to take place out of sequence — the only mission the Suicide Squad is given is to handle the fallout from the decision to form the Suicide Squad.
Also Read: 'Suicide Squad' Says Harley Quinn Killed a Major DC Comics Superhero
And actually using the team against the threat of Enchantress and Incubus makes no sense. I mean, sure, send the fire god in, but what’s the logic behind tossing the boomerang guy, the clown lady with a baseball bat, the ropes guy and the dude who shoots guns good against 6000-year-old magic people who are invulnerable to all those things?
The list goes on and on, and it hurts to watch. Since we’re familiar with the language, we subconsciously know what to generally expect from a movie — the effect of “Suicide Squad’s” ignorance of that language is that it just feels wrong all the way through.
I imagine “Suicide Squad” wasn’t always so willfully disorienting and bizarre, given the tales from the past week of all the behind-the-scenes shenanigans and meddling from above that took place over the last several months. The result of all that doesn’t feel like a hackneyed salvage job, though, like last year’s “Fantastic Four” was. It instead feels like somebody recut it using an algorithm for fun that was spit out by a computer that didn’t have access to any information about movies.
Also Read: 'Suicide Squad' Executive Producer Is Donald Trump's Chief Fundraiser
The best comparison I can think of is “Meet the Spartans.” That thing was really a series of product placement ads masquerading as a movie, and it was impossible to trace any kind of line from one scene to the next because of it. “Suicide Squad,” at least, isn’t some big commercial, but the way it functions is very similar. They’re both chaotic, seemingly put together at random, and the sequence of events from end to end is impossible to grasp.
It’s not just a “Suicide Squad” problem, though. Seeing this thing last week put me in a funk because this kind of haphazard assembly of a big-budget blockbuster that disregards the fundamentals of how movies work is starting to feel like a trend. “Jurassic World,” “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” “Batman v Superman,” “X-Men: Apocalypse,” “Warcraft” and “Suicide Squad” is just the latest. If it were intentional, like some kind of new New Hollywood movement, it might be worth getting excited about.
But there’s no ideology here. It’s just studios seemingly not caring about whether their movies are good as they mindlessly chase demographic focus group checkboxes. And right now we’re staring down the barrel of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” about which the behind-the-scenes chatter this year has been startlingly similar to that of “Suicide Squad” in the months ahead of its release.
So I’m worried.
Every DC Comics Movie Ranked From Worst to Best, Including 'Suicide Squad' (Photos)
The DC Comics universe hasn't flooded the big screen the way Marvel ones have, but the DC brand has been hitting the big screen longer in the modern era. We ranked all those modern flicks, from "Superman: The Movie" to "Batman v Superman Ultimate Edition."
29. "Jonah Hex" (2010)
Despite the efforts of Josh Brolin and Michael Fassbender, this is one of the worst comic book movies of the modern era.
28. "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace" (1987)
Christopher Reeve is by far the best Superman. But "Superman IV" is a bomb in every sense -- partly because of its heavy-handedness about bombs. Nuclear bombs. The film finds Superman trying to eliminate the world's nuclear threat, but his best intentions run afoul of a silly, badly dated villain named Nuclear Man.
27. "Supergirl" (1984)
We had a female-superhero movie in 1984, and it was pure cheese. But hey, at least they tried. The best thing I can say about it is there are worse things in life than this movie.
26. "Suicide Squad" (2016)
Less a movie than it is a fever dream of unrelated sequences and montages that somehow end up using more than two hours of your time. Totally incomprehensible experience.
25. "Steel" (1997)
Best known as "the one Shaq was in back when he tried acting," "Steel" is pretty bad. But the fun kind of bad.
24. "Man of Steel" (2013)
Could have been worse, I guess. But it's still morally gross and has a plot that doesn't make sense. That it's very pretty to look at doesn't override those things nearly enough to make it watchable.
23. "Catwoman" (2004)
Thoroughly horrible, but the fun kind. Sad that it's seemingly been swept into the litter box of history.
22. "Batman & Robin" (1997)
Rightly hated, but it's tremendously entertaining here and there. Uma Thurman and Arnold Schwarzeneggar are going so far over the top I can't help but admire them.
21. "Superman III" (1983)
Featured a brilliant corporate rip-off -- one later referenced in "Office Space" -- but the attempt to funny things up with the addition of Richard Pryor didn't gel. There was also a weird bit about a weather satellite creating bad weather, which isn't what weather satellites do. Seeing Clark Kent fight Superman was pretty cool, though.
20. "Green Lantern" (2011)
Overreliance on cartoony visual effects during a period when big blockbusters were moving away from that aesthetic meant this was a movie nobody liked. Not that it was especially horrible. It just looked like a dumb cartoon and is hard to watch.
19. "The Dark Knight Rises" (2012)
Probably wasn't intended to be a grim and gritty Shumacher Batmovie, but that is indeed what it is. This is Nolan going full Hollywood, smashing plot points into place by sheer force of will rather than because they make sense. An extremely theatrical Tom Hardy as Bane is amusing front to back, and a nuke with a countdown clock on it will never get old.
18. "Watchmen" (2009)
I have no particular affection for the revered "Watchmen" comic the way a lot of other nerds do, so my distaste for this adaptation isn't personal. It just doesn't add up to nearly as much as it thinks it does.
17. "Batman" (1989)
Fondly remembered mostly because it was the first Batmovie in a couple decades. It isn't actually very good, though. The reveal that a younger version of the Joker killed Bruce Wayne's parents is as hamfistedly dumb as it gets in a "Batman" movie.
16. "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" (2016)
A total mess that hates Superman and turns Batman into a total maniac. None of those things are good. Ben Affleck can't save the thing, but he's excellent nonetheless and gives it a huge bump it probably doesn't deserve.
15. "V for Vendetta" (2006)
Felt nothing watching this. I tried, OK. It's impeccably made, though, and very watchable.
14. "The Losers" (2010)
Chris Evans, Idris Elba, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Zoe Saldana. How was this movie not amazing?
13. "The Dark Knight" (2008)
Should be way shorter, but Heath Ledger's Joker is far and away the best villain in any of these movies. Ledger elevates what would otherwise be just another self-indulgent Christopher Nolan exercise into an endlessly watchable picture.
12. "Batman v Superman Ultimate Edition" (2016)
Giving this its own slot because it fundamentally changes the narrative of the movie and the character of Superman in the DC Extended Universe. This version is still not great (especially at three freaking hours), but it's a monumental improvement over the theatrical version.
11. "Red 2" (2013)
Did you even know these were comic book movies? Whatever, it's a great cast in a serviceable action movie and everybody's having a good time. Hard to remember, but fun.
10. "Red" (2010)
Better than its sequel, but they're basically the same.
9. "Batman Forever" (1995)
Hits just the right tone for what Joel Shumacher was trying to do with the two films he directed. Tommy Lee Jones, as Two Face, is doing stuff in this movie that is hard to believe even today, given his perpetual sour face in nearly every other movie he's been in.
8. "Superman Returns" (2006)
Actually a pretty decent attempt by Bryan Singer to do a Christopher Reeve "Superman" movie in the present day, but Brandon Routh couldn't pull off the charisma it takes to be the Man of Steel. It was his first movie, so that's not surprising. But it's a shame, because Routh has gotten much better in the years since.
7. "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm" (1993)
Remember that time they released a "Batman" cartoon theatrically? It gets lost amongst all the live-action ones, but "Mask of the Phantasm" is better than most of them.
6. "Superman II" (1980)
Made kids everywhere cry as they watched Superman give up his powers for a normal life with Lois Lane (Margot Kidder). There are different edits of this movie, and we frankly can't keep them straight. But the sight of a powerless Clark getting beat up in a diner made Superman as sympathetic as he's ever been.
5. "Batman Begins" (2005)
The most complete film, on its own, in the entire live-action franchise. It's just, like, a regular movie... except it's about Batman. It has actual characters and everything, and Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne even has emotions. It's weird.
4. "Batman Returns" (1992)
One of the best of the franchise because it's really just a political thriller. The Penguin emerges from the sewer and runs for mayor of Gotham! It's great stuff, especially as we continue to watch the rise of Trump in our world.
3. "Superman: The Movie" (1978)
This is the gold standard of Superman movies, and was the best superhero movie bar none for many, many years. John Williams' score soars, and so does the believable and compelling romance between Superman and Lois Lane. The film convincingly blended camp (in the form of Gene Hackman's wonderful Lex Luthor), an epic origin story that actually felt epic, and funny lines. The scene in which Supes and Lois fly together is one of the most beautiful metaphors for new love ever captured on film.
2. "Constantine" (2005)
A happy balance of serious and ridiculous, manages to find exactly the right tone for this weird religious fantasy and a cast led by Keanu Reeves. They all seem to get it.
1. "Batman: The Movie" (1966)
Has a timelessness that none of the other films do, and it's just a delight from beginning to end thanks to Adam West's winking Batman and the coalition of villains who can't stop cackling maniacally. Watching it again recently, I found it functions almost perfectly as a parody of the super-serious Christopher Nolan Batfilms, which is incredible.
1 of 30
Where does the critically reviled supervillain mashup fare in our rankings?
The DC Comics universe hasn't flooded the big screen the way Marvel ones have, but the DC brand has been hitting the big screen longer in the modern era. We ranked all those modern flicks, from "Superman: The Movie" to "Batman v Superman Ultimate Edition."
View In Gallery
Related stories from TheWrap:
5 Reasons Why 'Suicide Squad' Slayed at the Box Office
'Suicide Squad' Mid-Credits Scene: The Implications of Amanda Waller's Big Meeting
'Suicide Squad' Says Harley Quinn Killed a Major DC Comics Superhero
Zack Snyder Directed Key Scene In 'Suicide Squad'