The Writers Box - Suicide Squad
So, I want to introduce something new that I'm going to be doing with this blog, and I'm calling it "The Writers Box." Basically, it's just my place where I'm going to be talking about the structure of writing, not necessarily my own, but in a popular movie, video game or book. You'll understand what I mean in the next paragraph, but if you're interested in the sort of behind the scenes of story, then continue reading. Oh, I will mention their will be a few spoilers of the movie Suicide Squad, so if you haven't seen it, and plan to, then I would stop reading now. Furthermore, this is NOT a movie review, nor is it a summary of the film, just an observation of the writing aspects of the film. Still here? Alright, let's move on.
Well, I finally got a chance to see Suicide Squad just a few days ago, a movie I was beyond excited for. But, like most people, things got in the way, and I wasn't able to see it until a month after it's release. Almost immediately following it's release, I Googled what people thought of it. Was it good, bad, ugly, or just misunderstood. A week or two in, I dug up fairly negative reviews, and several horrible ones, bashing the movie in more places than one. Currently, the movie in the 20 percent rage on Rotten Tomatoes, 40 percent on Metacritic , and just below a 7 on IMDb. "They can't be right though!" I thought to myself, struggling with the reality of the situation. But then two days ago I saw the movie, and I realized that they were right, and how disappointed I was.
The movie is just a mess. And when I say a mess, I mean it just did not know what it wanted to be. For instance, the "squad" didn't make any sense to begin with. The story never really establishes any unity, or common goal among the characters, going as far to establish some individual goals, but forgetting about other members of the team. It was abundantly clear in the start what Deadshots goals, and struggles were going to be. He wants to be with his daughter, but at the same time, he must battle with the internal struggle of being a villain, and wanted to kill people. Okay, that's fine. Harleys was a struggle between who's side she is really on, does she truly want to call these band of misfits her friends, or does she solely want to serve the Joker. That's alright to. The other characters? Boomerang, is, well, just there, and so is Killer Croc. As a matter of fact, their back stories are barely even established, further proving they have no reason to be there. I could go on for hours about the countless character problems in the movie, (and each character on the screen had a constitution length of problems), but at the core of the issue, the problem was almost zero character development, and very little establishment. Why do we care about these villains? What's their goals? Are they relate-able? Is the audience going to hate these characters, or just love to hate them? There's an important distinction, and when your developing a story that has very weak characters, the story will ultimately fall flat. Which is what I want to address next. The story.
Poorly written characters aside, the story had it's fair share of issues. Like I mentioned earlier, only a few characters got the full backstory treatment, we were left guessing on the others. So, if it's probably not a very good idea to start the movie with backstory, if you do not have much backstory to write about. In defense to that thought, you don't want there to be an overwhelming amount of backstory either, that will simply bore the reader/audience and confuse them. It's a balance, tell them what you need to, and get on with the next plot point. Suicide Squad quickly ran through what it wanted to, and then IMMEDIATELY jumped into the third act of the story. Let me explain, the first act of a story would be like the introduction. Setting, into of characters, establishment of plot etc. The second act would be the rising action, so, how are the characters in the story proceeding? What are they going to be working towards for the remained of the novel/movie? The third act would be the climax, and a return to where the story began. They fought the big bad guy, or had a successful prom, or found the evidence that they were looking for, whatever the story is about, it end in the third act. In Suicide squad, we are introduced to the characters, a few small side plots open, and then BAM, time to bring together the squad because the city is overrun and being destroyed. No scene where the team meets, or builds some sort of rapport, no training together, not even an establishment of a common goal they wish to strive for. Nope, just, we're bad guys so we stick together. I'm not going to nitpick at all the plot holes, because there were many, but I would just like to point out that pacing is a huge factor in story telling. Had their been more of an establishment of the team before act three, then the film would have been significantly better. And there would have been an act to, but for whatever reason, we are left with gaping holes in both story and characters, which brings me to my final point. Themes and messages.
Even if you look past the lack of character development, and endless plot issues, can you still tell what the movie was about? What was the underlying message that the story was trying to get across. The message or theme can very between viewers, and can range from "always follow your dreams!" to "love conquers all!" That sorta thing. Well my friends, I can honestly not tell you what Suicide Squad was about, or even what it was supposed to BE about. The entire movie from start to finish was like a scatterbrain of unfinished thoughts. It would open one concept like family values for instance, and never finish that arch, or even give the viewer enough information so that we can finish ourselves. The minute you think that the movie is leaning towards one umbrella idea, it quickly passes over it, and throws a brand new concept at you. Now, one could argue that this is actually good story telling, and if done properly, it can really catch the reader off guard, and truly make them think. In a genre like horror, it can work, because of the already disorienting nature of the subject, but in Suicide Squad, an action influenced origin story, it only confuses the audience. They're not thinking, they're not asking why, they're are simply left going, "What?" or "I don't get it?" If the piece was super poetic or artistic, I could understand this reaction, but it Suicide Squad wasn't. it wasn't even convoluted, it just lacked the dialogue and pace to support any of the concepts it was trying to convey.
In a nutshell, the film was a mess. From start to beginning it was confusing, it was meaningless, and to be completely honest, in some spaces, kinda boring. I didn't care what happened to any of the characters because I didn't know them, and the plot didn't give me an opportunity to even try to. With all of this being said, it was not the worst movie I have ever seen, but it was one of the biggest loses of potential I have seen in a movie in a long time. I was so excited to see it, and I'm glad I did, but ultimately, the movie had almost no redeeming quality that I can think of. Other than the action and pretty characters, which great, if I wanted that out of a movie I'd go watch Transformers. Anyway, thanks for sticking along this long, I know that was a lot but it needed to be said. It's only my opinion though, you should totally go see it, maybe you'll think otherwise, or you might see that my opinion can be completely supported. Let's do this again sometime, and don't worry, I'm not always go to talk about bad movies they'll be a good one I'm sure. At least I'll think it's good.
