Just got back from seeing this. Here is what I'll say right off the bat: It's not nearly as bad as I anticipated based on the reviews going in. If the entire film was exactly like the first 30 minutes, I would LOVE this movie. Sure it would have been 2 hours of set up, but how much fun was that first 30 minutes?!
THE GOOD
Harley Quinn. Robbie lives up to the hype on this. Seeing the ads I wasn't head over heels. I just wasn't seeing the charm of it in short bursts. But seeing the movie totally reminds me of watching the animated series, which I haven't revisited in awhile. Makes me want to go back. She was the best part of this movie.
Will Smith. I imagine fans of Deadshot will have plenty to say about what he got wrong about the character. I didn't know Deadshot existed until this movie. I'm not a huge comic book guy anymore, so I was going in blind on this. I loved him. I thought he was great. Still not 100% the Will Smith I want to see up there, having a blast, but this was pretty damn close.
The music. They went the Guardians route with the soundtrack and it works. I'm a sucker for a recognizable old jam in a movie and there are plenty in this.
Ike Barinholtz. Big fan of this guy and he's friggin' hysterical here. He was a big part of that first 30 that I loved so much. Seeing him interact with Harley, etc, was great.
THE BAD
Everything after the 30 minutes of "We're putting together a team." Once they're assembled and the completely ridiculous plot begins, and the long stretches of boring make you even more aware of how many leaps you have to take to believe the plot, the more checked out I became. I know you have to allow some suspension of disbelief in these kinds of movies, but this one asked a lot.
Insanely subpar CG. What the hell was going on with the look of the villain? These were Mummy-level "The Rock's face pinned to a blurry CG body" effects. Just baffling.
The end was the same as every single one of these movies, whether they're good or bad, it's just a group of characters who have to use their skills to battle a CG monster, each of them fail until for some reason the last big thing they do works. Whatever. Also the end look of how the power was shooting out of the building looked very Ghostbusters (any of them really).
The Joker. Look. His Joker was just fine. I liked his look, he was even being kind of crazy sometimes. But for the amount of screen time he actually gets DOES NOT equal the amount of articles I had to see about this dude pranking people on set and being disgusting and sending gross gifts to Viola Davis blah blah blah. Seriously, the PR train on this has been going strong for what feels like a year and a half and it all amounts to....15 minutes, all together? Sure sure this will set him up for other stuff but come on. So many articles about him being in character and pranking. So many. The other actors had to hate it. Especially considering the fact that they BARELY share the screen with him! It'd be like Jeremy Irons pranking the shit out every single cast member in BvS "for his character." Lawrence Fishburn would not stand for that shit.
Anyway, I didn't completely hate it. I had fun sometimes. I laughed at things they didn't want me to laugh at sometimes (so did the rest of the theater). But it wasn't the worst.
