Unreality Companion: Why I'm Not Worried about Suicide Squad

In which I expand upon the content of my weekly Unrealitymag.com article.

This might seem like something of a contradiction given my lingering doubts over Batman vs Superman, but I am still excited for a lot of projects that are coming out of the DCCU.  Seriously.  They can't all be directed by Zack Snyder, which means that they can't all be over-the-top, needlessly dark versions of DC's pantheon of Superheroes.  Murphy's Law dictates that some of these have to feel like they're supposed to feel.

The project that I'm most excited for right now is actually Suicide Squad: DC's companion piece to next year's Dawn of Justice.  It features a team of C and D-list supervillains - including Harley Quinn, Deadshot and Captain Boomerang  - conscripted by the US government as deniable assets in exchange for reduced prison terms.  And no, I'm not joking about this.  It's going to be awesome.

But why am I more excited about a no-name property of admittedly low-grade Batman villains than the two titans of DC duking it out for the first time on the big screen?  Well, you already know my concerns about Batman vs Superman.  It's hilariously too dark (both tonally and aesthetically), it completely ignores the context of the two fighting in the first place (irreconcilable political ideologies between old friends) and absolutely no part of it strikes me as being even half of a Superman movie.  It took an awesome premise and seems to be doing nearly everything wrong with it.

Can you guess what part of the trailer actually was awesome though?  Every single shot with Batman straight up worked in a way that it never has for Superman, a fact that I was quick to address in my Unreality article:

Ben Affleck has the grim, brooding look of a haunted man trying (and failing) nightly to somehow undo his parents fate.  Jeremy Irons' voice over as Alfred comes off as the perfect cross between Gotham's Sean Pertwee and Michael's Caine's "some men want to watch the world burn" speech from The Dark Knight.  This may very well be the best version of the Batman costume ever put to film, and that's not even touching on how awesome-looking the robotic version is.

The one thing that DC has always held over Marvel was the absurd quality of their villains.  Marvel struggles with their every antagonist: only occasionally hitting one out of the park.  DC, however, specializes in them, and no property more than Batman.  His rogue gallery is so strong that even D-listers like King Shark and Deadshot are better than most Marvel efforts.  This makes Suicide Squad everything that you love about DC with none of the baggage.

Furthermore, the company tapped who is perhaps the perfect director for this exact project: David Ayer.  Ayer has made a career of dark, unromanticised, realistically shot action movies.  I saw Fury after he became attached to the project and it did nothing but confirm in every shot and scene why Ayer was perfect for the movie.

Say what you will about how lackluster a movie Focus was, but I got everything out of it that I wanted: confirmation that Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn) and Will Smith (Deadshot) were going to be awesome together.  The rest of the movie was a non-issue.  These two had an absolutely absurd amount of chemistry together, which given the semi-romantic / sexual nature of their Suicide Squad hookup, was an absolute must for them.  I'm not ashamed to admit that I saw this movie solely for the sneak peak into Suicide Squad that it offered.

And let's not forget Jared Leto's Joker.  While we admittedly don't have much to go off of, what has been leaked so far has been nothing short of amazing.  He might not be quite as edgy and dark as Heath Ledger's take on the character, but it's the perfect marriage of Ledger's galvanic menace and Nicholson's absurd antics: realized in who is possibly the most unquestionably perfect actor for the job.

The icing on the cake is that we already have the perfect template for this movie, which I doubt will be strayed from very far - Batman: Assault on Arkham.  If all we get is a live-action remake of that movie, I'll consider myself happy.  If it manages to address the few issues that I took with it, however, it's definitely going to be a movie to beat in 2016.

So what movie in the DC Cinematic Universe are you most excited to see?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Join the Filmquisition on Twitter (@Filmquisition) or by subscribing to this blog.