With less than a week left until the release of another major DC film, there's a strong possibly Suicide Squad could be the saviour that Batman V Superman never was. Batman V Superman has its die hard fans and its naysayers just like any other movie and it grossed nearly $900 million, great returns for any big budget movie. But it wasn’t nearly as universally loved and admired as Captain America: Civil War, nor did it generate the great moral discussion that Civil War did.
Suicide Squad is another story. It’s getting everything right that BvS did not. Just look at the marketing strategy. Whereas BvS gave away the entire plot of the movie in the second trailer (where they showed Doomsday), Suicide Squad hasn’t given anything away. All we know is that these villains are recruited for a mission by the government. Little tidbits about the characters have been released but that’s it. And yet the marketing campaign has successfully generated enough hype for the movie to be one of the highest grossers of the year, perhaps even ever.
Suicide Squad also looks like a ton of fun. That’s also something that BvS lacked completely. Whether Suicide Squad will try to mimick Deadpool in that department is irrelevant, this is supposed to be a kooky bunch. I just hope that the rumours that the movie was re-shot after Deadpool came out to make it funnier aren’t true. It doesn’t necessarily mean the movie will be bad but it does mean the movie won’t be true to the filmmakers’ vision.
Finally, the movie is introducing a ton of characters that the world at large isn’t familiar with. People would have heard of the Joker and even Harley Quinn but Deadshot and Killer Croc and the rest aren’t exactly big names outside the comics. And that could be the movie’s biggest strength; introducing a whole new world to people that they will be blown away by. It’s what made the X-men series so successful. People didn’t know where all the characters were coming from but Bryan Singer had the gall to introduce a team and expected the audience to be okay with that. And guess what, they loved it.
Suicide Squad comes out Friday, August 5th.