David Ayer's blockbuster project Suicide Squad may have gotten the lion's share of attention in this Comic-Con cycle, but early reviews indicate the project might have been all flash, no substance. (Rolling Stone's Peter Travers would have you believe it's because of Ayer's "willingness to go all limp-dick and compromise his hardcore action bona fides.")
From Vanity Fair's assessment that the project is "a muddy and smothering soup of wasted possibility" to IndieWire's opinion that the film is "mind-bogglingly stupid," we've gathered the best (or worst?) reviews of Suicide Squad.
Here's it all broken down--the good and the bad, the sexist and sloppy.
From Vanity Fair:
"A tired image, a stale and meaningless stab at grandeur."
"Bad. Not fun bad. Not redeemable bad. Not the kind of bad that is the unfortunate result of artists honorably striving for something ambitious and falling short.Suicide Squad is just bad. It’s ugly and boring, a toxic combination.
"Dull chore steeped in flaccid machismo, a shapeless, poorly edited trudge that adds some mildly appalling sexism and even a soupçon of racism to its abundant, hideously timed gun worship."
The Hollywood Reporter:
"A puzzlingly confused undertaking that never becomes as cool as it thinks it is."
"A sports dream team whose combined efforts don’t nearly measure up to the talents of its individual players."
"Fuzzy and hokey."
"It certainly feels like it’s taken far too many sleeping pills."
"Mundane, milquetoast, and often mind-bogglingly stupid."
"[A] dank sewer of messy actions beats and misplaced machismo."
"Painfully PG-13."
"There are more shots of [Margot Robbie's] ass than there are of several of the film’s supporting characters."
"Robbie’s take on the iconic sidekick is a spellbinding bit of bubblegum savagery, a caricature of male fetishism."
"If not for the Joker’s storied history, [Leto's] presence here would be truly baffling."
"[The Enchantress] is a perfect shitstorm of bad decisions. [Cara] Delevingne is a talented young actress, but she’s helpless to save this part, a victim of putrid ideas poorly executed."
"A weird movie ... A strange blend of different tones, stories, and pacing all mashed into something that has cool individual elements, but never really comes together."
"There’s no big, meaty, iconic Joker scene for us to marvel at. [Jared Leto's] occasional appearances detract from the smaller characters the movie is actually about, to the point you almost wish he wasn’t in the movie at all."
"It’s as if [David] Ayer had too many balls to juggle and when they all came tumbling down he said, “Well that’s still kind of cool.” Cool? Maybe. That doesn’t make it any less disappointing."
"I call bullshit."
The verdict: Maybe save yourself the $15 bucks and go see something else—literally anything else—instead.