Justice League

#StokerScore 6/10

Have you ever booked yourself a holiday, you know, done all of the research and then booked it all yourself, rather than let a travel agent do it all for you? You have that feeling of pride that you've navigated all of the hurdles yourself and that you'll enjoy the holiday that much more because of it? And then have you read a review site shortly before going on said holiday, a review that tarnishes your expectations so that on your ultimate arrival at your destination of choice you can't help thinking about the two or three things that the negative review pointed out?

I've been telling myself for the last few weeks that I want to like this film, that while I know it's going to be a mess, especially considering its journey to the screen, that somehow there will be redeeming features, that it's a bloody Justice League movie, for Pete's sake, and made on a superhero-sized budget rather than a Roger Corman shoestring. Well I have good and bad non-spoiler news for you, dear readers.

Is it better than I expected? Well, no...not really. Instead it is exactly what I expected. The story doesn't stick exactly to the formula I had in mind as the helping hand that defeats the villain doesn't come from an entirely unexpected source. This is a superhero movie dressed as a classic Spaghetti Western. It has all of the familiar ups and downs and takes absolutely zero risks. 

I will say that Warners are trying to be less dark in the tone of their movie, but ultimately, without the background of the new guys, it just didn't really matter. The Flash steals the movie in a childish way. Aquaman gave the audience a physique to ooh and aah about that more than made up for the scantily clad Amazons, and Cyborg, well he was just the exposition explainer. Batman and Wonder Woman were my favourite characters, probably because I know them better, and who's fault is that, Warner Brothers? 

The movie was short, just under 2 hours for the one that I saw, yet it could have done without certain scenes and would have benefitted from the inclusion of others. 

I was left feeling that there's nothing these guys couldn't really handle and that the over-riding message was "always give the ball to the best player in your team", even if you have to drag him out of retirement to do it.

Suicide Squad

#StokerScore 4/10

The DC Extended Universe of movies deserves a break, doesn't it? No matter what it does at the moment, be it appealing to fan-boys by placing classic scenes onto the screen, or trying to listen to criticism and changing out stuff to appeal to the masses, they just don't seem to be getting a rub of the green.

But is it audiences or critics who don't like their movies? Personally speaking, I place myself in the former category, I just so happen to love movies and I also like to write about them. 

I have to confess, I enjoyed Man of Steel. I thought that even though we were treated to yet another telling of Clark's origin story, and apart from the phallic prison tubes that Zod and his cronies were forced into on Krypton, I enjoyed it. But Batman vs Superman came across as confused (here) and this latest effort is just a glorious, glorious mess.

David Ayer, the director, is responsible for writing 2001's Training Day and directing 2012's End of Watch. Both movies had black humour and grit in equal measures. Does he then try to transfer that over to Suicide Squad? Well I think you can see where he tried to but where the other two movies were grounded in reality Suicide Squad's basic premise and characters are ripped from the pages of a comic and therefore don't get to consider the realities of the world. This is especially so when one of the squad's number has a soul-storing sword. Kind of takes away the whole reality thing.

Because of this, the characters who came across best for me were the absurd and weird. Diablo who can channel fire and Killer Croc (yes, you heard me) felt more comfortable in the movie than Rick Flagg or Will Smith's Deadshot. In my opinion, Harley Quinn isn't a lead character for me, she's way too one dimensional which in a comic is fine but here starts to fade into the background misway through. In fact the stand-out character for me was Amanda Waller, the head honcho at the CIA, who came up with Task Force X, she manages to combine the real with the fantastic and yet still retain a believable level of menace

For me, the attempts to shoe-horn in other DC characters was unnecessary, The Joker should have been saved for his own movie, and this would have freed up more time to tell a better story or even scale it down to a leaner running time.

I think that by now everyone in the world is aware of superheroes and supervillains but the problem here is that the backstories weren't fleshed out enough for us to care who lives and dies. At least I didn't. This is in part due to superhero universes having access to 'McGuffins' with which they can miraculously bring people back to life (see you later, Supes)

As a bit of summer movie hokum it's ok. Go and be bombarded by the images and the silliness and when Gozo eventually takes.....oh wait, that's Ghostbusters......Look, just watch it and make up your own mind, but for the time being don't expect to see a DCU movie as layered and fulfilling as a Marvel superhero movie....See you in November, Doctor Strange...