Since the announcement of the movie, everyone across the nerd spectrum was pumped to see Suicide Squad. So when critics’ reviews arrived and nearly all declared the movie complete trash—including a 27 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes—people were a little shocked.

The movie follows a gang of supposedly evil people on a mission to save someone important—the government official in charge of the Suicide Squad, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis). Although they are branded as the worst of the worst, these supervillains are hardly scary. Yes, their priorities are sometimes a little off, but they are too busy trying to be funny to be that evil. Even though Deadshot (Will Smith) is really handy with a gun and I would not want to upset El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), the only truly evil person is Waller, who would do anything to make sure she succeeds. It’s safe to say the supervillains had more morals than she did.

The Suicide Squad is meant to be a covert team fighting metahumans now that Superman is gone, but the team only completes one mission in the entire movie, leading to the main problem with the film: the plot, or rather lack thereof. “Suicide Squad” is very much a character-driven movie rather than one that focuses on plot. A large chunk of the movie is spent giving initial background on the squad with additional flashbacks throughout the film, taking away from time that could be devoted to plot development. The actual mission seemed rushed, confusing and not all that important, considering the main villain was disappointing.

Despite the time spent on character background, the villains left mixed impressions. Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) was quite the character to watch and a badass despite the film’s focus on her sexual nature and lovesick attitude towards the Joker (Jared Leto). The Joker’s involvement was minimal, actually, which I was okay with. Despite Leto clearly doing his best to embody this character, I wasn’t impressed. The Joker’s craziness more closely resembled that of a pimp with a gang than the Joker of recent Batman movies. As for the other characters not mentioned in this review, let’s just say they didn’t blow me away.

This movie had the potential to set DC apart from Marvel with its unique take on villains. However, with the lack of plot and subpar bad guys and CGI, that didn’t happen. But did I enjoy it? I suppose. Was it great? No. Does that matter? No, because the film is smashing box office records, and that’s all that really matters to the studio.      

Movie: “Suicide Squad”

Director: David Ayer

Release Date: Aug. 5, 2016

Rating: 3/5 Stars