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A Review of Netflix’s Death Note

Netflix’s Death Note adaptation is bad. The film has been panned by critics, diehard fans of the show, and even casual Netflix browsers. Death Note (2017), to be blunt, has absolutely nothing to offer that is new or interesting. It is a film embarrassed of its source material, while simultaneously relying on it as a crutch for when it fails to create anything original. It’s worst crime isn’t that it just fails to be a Death Note adaptation, but that it fails to stand on its own.

The plot of this movie is extremely simple. Light Turner, played poorly by Nat Wolff, one day stumbles across the Death Note, a notebook that kills whoever has their name written in it. Together with his forced romantic lead, Mia Sutton, played by Margaret Qualley, and the death god that accompanies the Death Note, Ryuk, played by Willem Dafoe, Light decides that he will use the Death Note to rid the world of crime, all while avoiding the detective extraordinaire, L, played by Lakeith Stanfield, who will stop at nothing to put an end to Light’s killing spree.

Let’s start with the good:

1. Willem Dafoe as Ryuk

Willem Dafoe was a perfect casting choice for the role of a uncaring cold monster who loves death and destruction. We know this because he was the Green Goblin in Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man film. And while he’s entertaining in this film, you can’t help but feel as though he’s just going through the motions of being the Green Goblin once again. I’m not sure I would say that he’s just phoning it in, but it’s very clear that he was chosen because of his role as the Green Goblin. He’s easily one of the “best” parts of the movie, but we’ll be touching more on him later.

2. Lakeith Stanfield as L

He puts in effort into playing the character, one that’s easy to see especially compared to the horrendous performances put forth by the majority of the rest of the cast. He is actively trying to nail the character that he was hired on to play, even attempting to get the anime/manga character’s mannerisms down. He is easily the most competent person in this movie, but that’s not a huge compliment considering the rest of the film.

That’s it. That’s all the positives that are worth mentioning.

Now onto the negatives:

1. Light Turner

Casting a person of asian descent as Light would have in no way saved this movie. While it would have definitely limited the amount of controversy that the film acquired as early as the first trailer, the character of Light is so fundamentally broken and unlikable, that I doubt that even someone as charismatic and likable as George Takei would be able to make him enjoyable. It’d be more entertaining, that’s for sure, but it wouldn’t be good.

Light is a walking contradiction played by Nat Wolff as every 90s punk-stereotype loner kid. The fact that Light never once says “welcome to my twisted mind” is astounding to me, as it would legitimately fit his “character” here. He is very much so like every 80s comic that attempted to leap off of the success of Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns comics: the attempt to appear deep is more important than actually being deep. We are simultaneously supposed to root for Light as the good guy while he takes pleasure in killing, develops an egotistical god complex, and takes tips from anonymous strangers on the internet on who to kill. But that fails because he is not a deep, complex character. He is simply a loner murderer that can easily be explained in that sentence alone, the fact that they are presenting him as this deep, psychologically challenging character is, frankly, insulting to the audience. You can’t have him be simple enough for every person to figure out but complex enough to need to peel back layers, you can’t have it both ways.

Maybe we’d be able to buy that perception of depth, if he weren’t such a unintelligent character that simply cannot plan ahead for the life of him. He is simultaneously a genius, but is completely unable to tell that his murder-loving girlfriend, Mia, is psychopathic, unhinged, and willing to do anything to save herself. He is simultaneously a mastermind, and yet he walks around with the Death Note out in plain sight and literally tells Mia everything about it without the slightest bit of provocation. Light is a dumbass, and yet we’re supposed to believe that he is a mastermind capable of knowing multiple languages and outsmarting everyone aside from L.

2. Mia Sutton

Mia Sutton has two personality traits in this movie. Either she is Light’s loving, obsessive girlfriend who revolves her entire life around him, or she is a psychopathic murderer who thinks that she can have moral superiority while in the middle of killing innocent people.

The big plot twist of this movie is that she kills several FBI agents who are investigating Light, and it’s meant to be a massive reveal. The only issue is that it isn’t a reveal, it can be seen coming a mile away. She even tries to get Light to kill his own detective father just so that he can be assured that no one will come after him. She is psychopathic from the very beginning, but it’s meant to be taken as a massive shock when Light figures it out.

Couple all this with the fact that Margaret Qualley just doesn’t act when playing her, and you have an absolutely boring and pointless character who’s only purpose is to be romantically involved with Light. It would be sexist if it weren’t for the fact that it might just be purely incompetent writing. It might just be too stupid to be able to accept fault.

3. Tone

Death Note (2017) doesn’t know what it wants to be. It’s an adaptation of an anime/manga series steeped in philosophical undertones directed by a man who’s known more recently for cheap, jumpscare laden horror films like the recent “Blair Witch” sequel reboot.

The opening scene displays this perfectly as we cut to an overcast and dreary day in Seattle, paired together with an unfitting 80s synth pop tune. From the opening scene, you should be able to grasp at least some form of tone for the rest of the film, but Death Note (2017) can’t understand how to maintain any tone they put forth.

The opening suggests a character drama from the way that we focus on the two leads and how they interact with the world around them. We pan across the overcast Seattle day towards a local high school, where we see Light Turner finishing homework for other students for money, he looks up and sees Mia, a disinterested cheerleader who smokes on school property. All of a sudden, the Death Note falls from the sky right next to Light.

But then not even twenty minutes later, it turns into a horror film with the introduction of Ryuk. Light is in detention having been caught by a teacher. The lights cut out and something breaks in the darkness of the room. Slowly Light traverses the empty room, and comes across the silhouette of something unearthly and demonic. He stares, frozen in terror, when all of a sudden the beast looks dead at Light with glowing red eyes. It’s transformed into a horror movie with no provocation, completely contradicting the serious tone previously established. With that tone being immediately broken with one of the most unmanly screams ever put to film. Nat Wolff’s scream is the equivalent of the shitty joke where someone runs over to a character saying “we heard a girl screaming” only to reveal that it was a male character who screamed. If I were Nat Wolff, I would be legitimately pissed that Adam Wingard and the editors chose to put this take in the movie.

And then we get to the first kill. Light, still in detention, looks out the window and sees the stereotypical bully and lacky who picks on him attacking another student. Remember that this kid, although he is an asshole, is still a kid whose worst crime is punching another kid, but we’ll get back to that later. With Ryuk egging him on, Light decides to take revenge on his bully and writes his name in the Death Note, with the instructions that he will be killed by decapitation. A truck with a ladder is run off the road, and the ladder flies off the top of the truck, and completely severs the bully’s head in a puddle of blood and guts and grey matter and gore. In the span of thirty minutes, this film has gone through presenting itself as a serious character drama, a dark monster horror film, and a gorey shocking film like a bad slasher flick. And it doesn’t get better from there.

Adam Wingard cannot manage to maintain a tone, which is completely baffling to me considering that this appears to be the only movie he has directed that I know of where he cannot manage that. Over the course of the film the tone can be anywhere from the aforementioned serious dramatic story, to a cheesy romance story with as much chemistry as a Twilight book, to a serious in nature crime procedural, to a dark ending where a main character dies to an upbeat 80s synth song about love. And while some filmmakers can easily shift between tones, Adam Wingard shows that he cannot as you feel every single tonal shift that this film has with the force of a semi-truck colliding into a smart car.

4. Pacing & Character Development

Because this is an “adaptation” of the anime/manga Adam Wingard chose to fit as much as he could of the 25 episode run of the manga into an 1hr 45m movie and, naturally, it runs into the same problem that movies like “The Last Airbender” and “Dragon Ball Evolutions” run into. You cannot condense every single ounce of character development that the original source has into something so small. And while the original Death Note anime/manga isn’t as long as Dragon Ball’s 300+ episode run, it’s still a lot to try and condense into such a short amount of time, one might even say it’s impossible to successfully condense.

As such, Adam Wingard and the screenwriters compensated for the condensation of the original source material by completely scrapping all character development of every character aside from Light, and just glancing over Light’s transition into a murder obsessed psychopath in the middle of a 20+ minute montage that covers:

The beginning of Light and Mia’s relationship

Light’s transition into a serial murderer

The majority of the Death Note kills in the entire movie

The impact Light has on the world with his murder spree

The start of the FBI’s investigation into the murders

All of that would seem like it would be fairly important to cover in the actual movie, and you would be right for thinking that. Why they chose to only give character development through a montage that has no concrete end date is beyond me. Maybe that montage lasted one month in the time of the movie, maybe it lasted up until the beginning of Mia and Light’s senior year. I don’t know, because they never say.

By the time you reenter the world of the movie post-montage, it’s a completely different one. Character relationships have changed, Light has killed hundreds if not thousands of terrorists, dictators, and other criminals and has formed a god complex where he has deemed himself a dispenser of justice onto sinners, and violent crime has begun to decrease worldwide because of Light’s actions. All of that isn’t shown over the course of the movie, but in the quick montage that also focuses more on how Light and Mia are a couple. This single montage absolutely kills the pacing of the movie.

5. The Script & Deus Ex Machinas

I’ll be frank in saying that Death Note (2017) feels incoherent script wise. It’s like the first two credited writers had brilliant ideas and wanted to possibly create an American Death Note spin-off series to the original anime/manga, with the only connection being the titular book and possibly Ryuk. But then after they pitched the idea to Netflix and got it approved, it’s as if Adam Wingard and another screenwriter got absolutely terrified that nobody would look at a Death Note adaptation without Light and L and so they quickly changed everything and added in the two characters.

It feels this way, because the script feels rushed and unnatural. I would easily say that the script is over 50% just pure exposition. Exposition from Ryuk on how the Death Note works, exposition from Light on how his dad, the cop, acts read as though it were a character description taken directly from the script, exposition from L about how he’s solving the case, exposition from characters on who’s what, why, and how, and so on and so forth. It’s bad writing, not just for a Death Note adaptation, but in general.

This is especially apparent in the numerous Deus Ex Machina’s that the script willingly stumbles into. One of the most apparent to me, aside from the entirety of the ending, is when L discovers that Light is operating in Seattle. He knows this because Light’s first known victim is a guy from Seattle who was in an armed stand-off with the police, which Light watches via a live news feed over the internet. According to L, the live news feed was only broadcast to the Seattle, but Light found the feed on the internet. You know, the internet. Where I can find live video footage from pretty much every country in the world. This is an asspull at best and lazy at worst. Had this been before the prevalence of the internet as a way to see live footage, like the original Death Note, this would make sense. But it’s not. You can argue that because of proximity Light’s internet search would bring him the closest result first, but L has no way of knowing that. Logically he should know that Light could’ve scrolled through pages of live crime newsfeeds before finding one to test the Death Note out on. This is circumstantial evidence at best yet the movie treats L as if he’s a Einstein level genius for figuring it out.

And if it’s not Deus Ex Machina’s it’s just butchering characters to make the plot work. As stated previously, Light openly walks around the school with the Death Note and, despite not yet knowing Mia personally and knowing that the Death Note is actually able to kill people, just reveals everything to Mia without any real provocation. She legitimately just walks up to him, asks what the Death Note is because she sees it, and he tells her. But at the same time he’s supposed to be a mega genius who can do everyone else’s homework for them for some spare cash and a loner who has absolutely no friends nor any interest in making friends. The screenwriters have the characters bend to fit the plot rather than the plot working around the characters.

6. Who Is This Made For?

When visual media adaptations come out, I always ask one question: why should I watch this over the original? And this point still stands here. The film fails to live up to the potential set in place by the original manga/anime, but fails to stand on its own as its own thing. You have absolutely no reason to watch this over the original anime/manga, especially when considering quality.

Frankly, this film doesn’t seem to have a target audience and instead tries to give something for everyone. Casual horror fans were meant to enjoy the creepier, horror movie moments. Action and gore fans were to enjoy some of the more creative deaths. And Death Note fans were to enjoy the fact that it’s based on an intellectual property that they enjoy. But in trying to please everyone, you get this vapid, bland film that appeals to almost no-one.

Every American film adaptation of anime run into these same pitfalls headfirst. “Dragon Ball Evolutions”, “The Last Airbender”, “Ghost in the Shell”, and now Death Note (2017). All of these films share the fact that they don’t know how to interpret their source material, yet they rely too heavily on it. And my point still stands. Why should I watch the abysmal “Dragon Ball Evolutions” when I could easily watch the cultural icons that are Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z? Why should I watch one of M. Night Shyamalan's worst film when I can just watch one of my favorite cartoon of all time, Avatar: The Last Airbender? Why would I watch the derivative “Ghost in the Shell” film when I could see the animated feature that inspired the Wachowski sisters to create “The Matrix,” one of the most influential action films of all time?

Right now, Netflix is one of the only streaming service that has the original Death Note anime. Even Crunchyroll, a streaming site for anime specifically, doesn’t have it. And this makes the film even more pointless. Why would anyone want to watch the critically panned film when they could just scroll the screen a bit and have the cultural icon that is the original ready to go in seconds? When you search “Death Note” on Netflix, you are inevitably going to get the anime and the movie right next to each other.

Don’t watch Death Note (2017).

If you enjoyed this, please consider following this blog to read this and other reviews that I have written and will be writing. Or consider donating to my monthy patreon, any amount helps.

Thank you all and have a good day.

[theraptorreviews]

Moana Review

I thought that Disney could not do any better this year. Zootopia came out in early February, and already Disney had set their own bar so high, so early that I thought they had no way to go but down. When I saw the first trailers for Moana, I was extremely excited but kept my expectations tempered.

“How could this movie be better than Zootopia? A movie that came out of nowhere and unceremoniously became my favorite movie of the year, not just shattering, but absolutely disintegrating all of my expectations.”

I had thought that Moana would just be another “Disney Princess” movie, another attempt by Disney to recapture the specific formula that somehow made Frozen the highest grossing animated movie. And, I don’t mean that as an insult, I love the Disney Princess movies: they’re classics for a reason. I had thought that Moana would just be a bloc standard Disney movie: good, memorable, fun for kids, and automatically nominated for as many Oscar’s and Emmy’s as possible for an animated movie because it’s Disney.

But once again this year, Disney absolutely shattered my expectations.

We are in the midst of another Disney Renaissance, with two films this year that I would describe as nearly flawless and that I will more than likely see in theaters again - that’s how good Moana is, I would willingly pay for another ticket because this movie deserves it.

The soundtrack, the music, the visuals, the characters, the voice acting, everything in this movie is crafted with such heart and such a desire to make a good movie that you can physically feel how much respect and love this movie is coated in.

Auili’i Carvalho plays Moana Waialiki, the daughter of her island’s chief, and a girl who sees a life for her people beyond the confines of this island. She’s chosen by the ocean to sail across the sea and force Maui, played excellently by Dwayne Johnson, to return the heart of Te Fiti to stop a curse from destroying life on every island.

The chemistry these two share is absolutely amazing, both characters play off of eachother so well that it’s impossible not to smile as you watch them interact.

Auili’i Carvalho’s voice in this movie is, if I dare say, perfect. The fact that this is her first movie ever is breathtaking. She tackles so many of these songs with the grace and voice of someone who has been in Broadway shows since they were eight.

Even Dwayne Johnson has a song in this movie, and he handles it amazingly. I didn’t even know The Rock could sing, and yet he has one of the most memorable songs in the movie.

Disney movies are known for their quality in both their songs and animation, and yet Moana manages to be of a higher quality than perhaps Disney has ever reached in my mind. The respect and love for the Polynesian people that you can visibly see and audibly hear in every single facet of this movie is breathtaking and heartwarming.

I love this movie.

And I know that it is liable to change (and it has changed several times this year) but Moana looks like it is going to be my favorite film of 2016.

Go and see this movie, bring other people to see this movie. I cannot recommend it enough.

If you enjoyed this review, please consider following me here on Tumblr.

[theraptorreviews]

Moana Review

I thought that Disney could not do any better this year. Zootopia came out in early February, and already Disney had set their own bar so high, so early that I thought they had no way to go but down. When I saw the first trailers for Moana, I was extremely excited but kept my expectations tempered.

“How could this movie be better than Zootopia? A movie that came out of nowhere and unceremoniously became my favorite movie of the year, not just shattering, but absolutely disintegrating all of my expectations.”

I had thought that Moana would just be another “Disney Princess” movie, another attempt by Disney to recapture the specific formula that somehow made Frozen the highest grossing animated movie. And, I don’t mean that as an insult, I love the Disney Princess movies: they’re classics for a reason. I had thought that Moana would just be a bloc standard Disney movie: good, memorable, fun for kids, and automatically nominated for as many Oscar’s and Emmy’s as possible for an animated movie because it’s Disney.

But once again this year, Disney absolutely shattered my expectations.

We are in the midst of another Disney Renaissance, with two films this year that I would describe as nearly flawless and that I will more than likely see in theaters again - that’s how good Moana is, I would willingly pay for another ticket because this movie deserves it.

The soundtrack, the music, the visuals, the characters, the voice acting, everything in this movie is crafted with such heart and such a desire to make a good movie that you can physically feel how much respect and love this movie is coated in.

Auili’i Carvalho plays Moana Waialiki, the daughter of her island’s chief, and a girl who sees a life for her people beyond the confines of this island. She’s chosen by the ocean to sail across the sea and force Maui, played excellently by Dwayne Johnson, to return the heart of Te Fiti to stop a curse from destroying life on every island.

The chemistry these two share is absolutely amazing, both characters play off of eachother so well that it’s impossible not to smile as you watch them interact.

Auili’i Carvalho’s voice in this movie is, if I dare say, perfect. The fact that this is her first movie ever is breathtaking. She tackles so many of these songs with the grace and voice of someone who has been in Broadway shows since they were eight.

Even Dwayne Johnson has a song in this movie, and he handles it amazingly. I didn’t even know The Rock could sing, and yet he has one of the most memorable songs in the movie.

Disney movies are known for their quality in both their songs and animation, and yet Moana manages to be of a higher quality than perhaps Disney has ever reached in my mind. The respect and love for the Polynesian people that you can visibly see and audibly hear in every single facet of this movie is breathtaking and heartwarming.

I love this movie.

And I know that it is liable to change (and it has changed several times this year) but Moana looks like it is going to be my favorite film of 2016.

Go and see this movie, bring other people to see this movie. I cannot recommend it enough.

If you enjoyed this review, please consider following me here on Tumblr.

[theraptorreviews]

Kubo and the Two Strings Review

I have struggled for a full week with writing this review.

Procrastination, distraction, and a lack of inspiration has lead me to delay this review for weeks when I should have written it immediately after seeing this movie, because Kubo and the Two Strings is a modern animated masterpiece.

I have not seen a movie animated so beautifully and filled with as much creativity and beauty since the Lego Movie - and just how much I found this movie amazing is equally surprising.

This is the first time that Laika’s CEO and President, Travis Knight, has directed a film and if he only manages to get better from this point on we could easily be looking at the next Hayao Miyazaki, and I mean that wholeheartedly.

When I said that Zootopia had little competition for my best film of the year, I had no idea that a film directed by a man who has never directed a single movie before from a company that has only three previous feature films under their belt would even remotely be able to measure up to the best that Disney has had to offer in, possibly, it’s entire existence as an animation studio. And yet, here we are.

This is a film that is a classic callback to a traditional heroic Greek epic, like that of Twelve Trials of Hercules or even the Odyssey. It starts with Kubo (Art Parkinson of Game of Thrones fame), a young child who is separated from his mother by the actions of his evil grandfather the Moon King (Ralph Fiennes aka Voldemort). However, like his grandfather and mother before him, Kubo is imbued with powerful magic - magic that allows him to create anything he wants out of any materials he has simply by playing his shamisen (an act that allows for not only beautiful animation but for a fantastically emotional and haunting soundtrack as well). Now that he is separated from his mother, he must rely on the guidance of a magical wooden Monkey charm that has come alive (portrayed by Charlize Theron or Furiosa) and the assistance of a samurai Beetle who cannot remember his past (Played by Matthew Mcconaughey, who, let’s face it, everyone knows). Together they have to find the three mystical pieces of armor that, when brought together, can defeat the Moon King and his two other daughters (Rooney Mara) in order to save humanity and, more specifically, the village that Kubo has grown up in and come to call his home (including villagers voiced by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Brenda Vaccaro, Meyrick Murphy, Minae Noji, Alpha Takahashi, Laura Miro, Ken Takemoto, and George Takei). And despite their often few lines, their inclusion in this story makes them, without a doubt, the most important characters within this movie.

Every single voice actor in this movie does a fantastic job, including, surprisingly enough, Matthew Mcconaughey, who actually gives an amazingly strong performance - to the point at which if you did not know it was Matthew Mcconaughey playing him, you would not know who voices Beetle: it’s just that strong of a performance. Rooney Mara manages to knock it out of the park as the sisters, creating two nightmarish and horrifying characters that are legitimately intimidating - almost reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Charlize Theron, yet again, plays a maternal wise character and, once again, she’s perfect for it: you never once question that she cares about Kubo but that she is also that character that doesn’t mince words and is realistic. And Art Parkinson joins the ever growing list of child actors that make the question of “why can’t all child actors be good at acting” even more glaring - between this and Stranger Things, I’m beginning to question why so many films and shows manage to have the stereotypical bad child actor.

The story is fine, a bit run-of-the-mill and standard during the middle, but fine. In fact, the okay story is literally the lowest point of this entire movie. If you can enjoy the standard heroic epic, then you will enjoy this.

But the true high point of this movie is the stop-motion animation - it is possibly the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen in any film in general. If you were to take individual frames from this movie and put them in legitimate, influential art museums with fake plagues nobody would say that they do not belong in the museum - it is possibly the best reason to call movies art that I have ever personally seen. Everything that the animators have done to make this movie works, the amount of attention and detail in every frame of this movie is mind-boggling. During scenes with wind, every individual hair on Monkey’s body is moved by animators from frame to frame and never once do you see a single model jump from location to location. It would take the animators an entire week to create just three seconds of footage, and the dedication they had to finish this story shows everywhere in this movie. I cannot express to you in words how amazing this movie looks and is. This is a movie that oozes passion and love and effort to the point that it is inspiring and terrifying. I am terrified to think about how much work they had to have lost during the production of this movie.

But what terrifies me more is that this movie will, like the rest of Laika’s filmography, go relatively unnoticed at the Box Office. This is a movie that during it’s opening weekend earned only $12.4 Million USD in America on a budget of $60 Million USD: it came fourth behind Suicide Squad and Sausage Party of all things.

If there is anything I can recommend you to see this summer, it’s Kubo and the Two Strings. Please support this movie.

[theraptorreviews]

Suicide Squad (2016) Review

Suicide Squad was perhaps one of my most anticipated movies for 2016.

And, in concept, how could you not be excited for it? Will Smith playing a charismatic lead, Viola Davis taking the role of Amanda Waller - one of the most intimidating DC characters ever to grace the comics, a diverse multi-ethnic cast comprised of both men and women, and the debut of Harley Quinn in the new DCCU.

But then came along Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and people began to worry. If DC could screw up a flawless story like Batman fighting Superman, then what chance do the rest of their properties have?

But, fears began to dissipate as trailers came out for the movie, showing the competent cast playing the biggest and baddest DC has to offer (and Captain Boomerang).

Then along came Jared Leto as one of the most important DC villains: The Joker.

I don’t know who screwed up here - Leto, director David Ayer, or a combination of both - but someone screwed up. Between Leto and Eisenberg I don’t know who played their big debut villain role worse. Between Eisenberg playing coked-out Lex Luthor and Leto throwing recently slaughtered pigs onto table readings I think that it’s safe to say that whoever has the dishonor to play Brainiac or Darkseid have their work cut out for them.

Perhaps the most amazing thing is that Leto spent the majority of his time during and after filming trying his best to hype up his interpretation of the Joker as one of the darkest ever to grace the screen - big or small. However, in doing so, not only did he alienate literally everyone of his major beloved castmates (Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Ben Affleck, etc.), but he portrayed perhaps the blandest form of the Joker ever. This is not the Joker, not by a long shot. This is just some petty gangster fresh off of the WWE 2k16 character creator - if the character creator was being used by somebody with the imagination of a dying turnip.

You know, I honestly wouldn’t be focusing on Leto so much, but he was a majority of the marketing and the biggest pain in the ass to read about. This is the guy that was so confident in nailing the darker approach to the Joker that he ended up mailing used condoms to his fellow castmates. I’m almost entirely certain that he could be sued for sexual harassment, and I’m definitely certain that Ben Affleck has already started looking at replacements for him in the untitled Batman solo film he is directing. Hell, I wouldn’t be shocked if we see Leto appear in that movie for one second, only to be killed by the real Joker.

God one can dream.

Aside from that glaring mess, the rest of the movie is, well, okay.

Will Smith playing Deadshot was a match made in heaven, there are very few roles that Smith cannot pull off, and I’m happy to say that this isn’t one of them. He really can pull off Deadshot as this man who has no real option other than killing to make a living, even if it has isolated him from the rest of his family, including his daughter. You really can feel for Smith here, and that is because of his superb acting as this hired killer. The Fresh Prince has come a long way from Bel-air, and I cannot wait to see Deadshot come back in a movie with a better director and less Jared Leto.

Jai Courtney manages to play a character that almost none of us know - Captain Boomerang - rather well. Even if the only tickboxes for the character are: Australian and loves Unicorns. But he still manages to play the character as a charismatic asshole, the kind of person you’d never want to be around unless there are about twenty kegs of beer involved and you know he’s unarmed. Besides, he gives us an excuse to see the Flash’s costume for the DCCU, so that’s good.

Viola Davis was born for the role of Amanda Waller. Waller is a character that can be best described as a Men In Black on secretive steroids. There is nothing but business to this woman, and her business is making sure that anyone who wants to destroy the United States is destroyed with the most extreme prejudice. She’s cold, calculating, emotionless, and badass. You will be more afraid of her than you will be of both the Joker and the antagonist of this movie combined. You could easily picture her turning the nuclear key without remorse, and that is more terrifying than anything else that could be offered in this movie.

In spite of all that, however, the best character in this movie is El Diablo played by Jay Hernandez. Out of all the characters in this movie, his backstory is the most touching and most in-depth - he is, if anything, the only character to actually go through anything similar to an arc. In addition to his powers being the most interesting and deadly in my opinion, he manages to have the most character while also managing to be the most interesting plot wise. I really enjoyed him.

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje has the honor of being the first actor to portray Killer Croc in live action, and he does a fantastic job of it. Even though his speaking lines are few, he still manages to play the part of a man who has been vilified by his appearance so many times that any insult just glances off of him. I honestly cannot wait to see more of him as this character, as he is easily one of the least developed characters that deserves far more of a backstory and the makeup on him looks absolutely spectacular, you will never once believe that there is a regular looking man underneath it all. It’s a true testament that at least one person in the costume department knew what they were doing.

Finally, rounding out the “protagonists” is Margot Robbie playing one of my favorite DC characters of all time, as well as one of the most important in modern history: Harley Quinn. Margot Robbie does her best to portray the character well, and I completely and honestly believe that if she was paired with a better script and a director who didn’t think the most important part of Quinn is her ass and her love for “Mr. J” then she would have been absolutely perfect. In fact, I’m willing to bet on it, especially considering that DC has apparently just greenlit a Harley Quinn movie that will focus on Quinn as well as the Birds of Prey (which includes Quinn’s love interest in the comics Poison Ivy) and other DC heroines, and will feature Robbie as a producer. It’s safe to say that I’m probably looking forward to this movie more than anything DC or Marvel have left on their lineup. I do think that Robbie is absolutely perfect to portray Quinn and there are several moments in this movie where you can see the original Batman: The Animated Series Harley Quinn shine through - brightly. I do fully believe that had this movie been directed by someone more competent in portraying Harley Quinn, then this would be the penultimate role. But, instead, we have Ayer directing a movie that isn’t sure of whether or not Harley and Joker is a toxic relationship.

We all know it is, Robbie knows it is, Leto (even if he is a dick) knows it is (as far as I can tell). But I guess someone needs to pull Ayer’s head from his ass.

Then we have the antagonist to this story, and this is where it all goes to shit.

No, believe it or not, the Joker is not the antagonist - even though he always is in the Suicide Squad’s more popular stories.

Instead, the antagonist is the Enchantress. The spirit of an ancient Mesoamerican deity trapped in a white girl archaeologist. If I sound unenthused, it’s because I’m trying more than the movie tried to make her interesting. Outside of a few good effects, her role in the movie boils down to just the most basic stereotype of evil gods.

“Humanity has forgotten us, so we shall force ourselves into the public consciousness!”

“That’s great, but is it going to be more than just a giant blue light in the sky, because that was the plot of Avengers, Avengers Age of Ultron, similar to Thor 2, Man of Steel, the end of Mass Effect 3…”

“Er, no.”

Well that was a waste of time, then wasn’t it. The Enchantress’s transformations from the archaeologist to her deity form are interesting - when Ayer decides to show them, which is about twice - but aside from that, she’s just a bland villain who could easily be replaced by a block of wood. Cara Delevigne is probably a good actress, but here’s hoping she gets a better role to show it off.

Then there’s the Enchantress’s brother, who does nothing but be the big body guard that every single evil mastermind has and me mentioning him is giving him more screen time and development than the actual movie. Apparently his name is Incubus, but you’d never know from this movie - so I’ll call him Bob.

And then in the middle of all this is the regular guy Cpt. Rick Flag, a soldier specifically selected by Waller to look over the Squad a make sure they don’t turn evil - and the love interest of the Enchantress. He’s alright. Joel Kinnaman plays him, and he is, and this is the best compliment I can give him, good at acting like an asshole secret soldier. Even though he has a massive amount of screentime, he doesn’t do all that much outside of shoot.

Finally, there’s Karen Fukuhara as perhaps the most underused but interesting character in the roster: Katana. Her past, although interesting, is rather poorly explained as she fights crime using the sword that killed her husband. Apparently the sword also contains her husband’s soul, but nobody in the movie manages to go into that, so I’m just going to ignore it. She’s a character that I hope we see more of, but she has so little development so far that I can’t blame anyone who isn’t interested. Not everyone’s going to be interested in the little bit of gold that’s shining through the cover, especially when there’s five other pieces of gold in the same position.

The plot for this movie is simple. Following Batman V. Superman, Waller realizes that in the face of other countries or aliens that want to demolish humanity the United States is pretty much defenseless. So she decides to put a team together of the most deadly metahumans and villains currently incarcerated on the off chance that a villainous metahuman does rear their ugly head. Lo and behold, one of the metahumans betrays her, and she has no other choice than to send the Suicide Squad into defeat her. If they succeed, they get time off their jail sentences - if they fail they get thrown under the bus - if they try to run they are killed. It’s a novel concept that you would think would write itself, but then you realize that Ayer decided that Leto’s Joker needs to be a basic gangster, that Harley Quinn needs booty shorts for “reasons”, and that “Normal is just a setting on a washing machine” is a well written line. I don’t think Ayer’s going to be directing anything DC anytime soon after this.

But then again, they’re letting Snyder direct both Justice Leagues even after Batman V. Superman - so maybe Ayer will be directing soon. He’ll probably end up directing the Harley Quinn spin-off. If there were ever a moment for Red Letter Media’s Mr. Plinkett to come back and make a joke at Ayer or Snyder’s expense, now would be the time.

Well, at the very least, it’s better than Age of Ultron.

I’m not sure if I could recommend this movie to anyone. It’s a mixed bag of good performances, bad performances, null performances - good action, bad action - and a shaky, uneasy plot.

But, hey, at least Wonder Woman is coming soon. I hope.

If you enjoyed this review, please consider reblogging it or following me here on Tumblr if you want to see more reviews like it.

Or if you want to support me in other ways, please consider supporting me on Patreon. Any and all donations are greatly appreciated.

[theraptorreviews]

Suicide Squad (2016) Review

Suicide Squad was perhaps one of my most anticipated movies for 2016.

And, in concept, how could you not be excited for it? Will Smith playing a charismatic lead, Viola Davis taking the role of Amanda Waller - one of the most intimidating DC characters ever to grace the comics, a diverse multi-ethnic cast comprised of both men and women, and the debut of Harley Quinn in the new DCCU.

But then came along Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and people began to worry. If DC could screw up a flawless story like Batman fighting Superman, then what chance do the rest of their properties have?

But, fears began to dissipate as trailers came out for the movie, showing the competent cast playing the biggest and baddest DC has to offer (and Captain Boomerang).

Then along came Jared Leto as one of the most important DC villains: The Joker.

I don’t know who screwed up here - Leto, director David Ayer, or a combination of both - but someone screwed up. Between Leto and Eisenberg I don’t know who played their big debut villain role worse. Between Eisenberg playing coked-out Lex Luthor and Leto throwing recently slaughtered pigs onto table readings I think that it’s safe to say that whoever has the dishonor to play Brainiac or Darkseid have their work cut out for them.

Perhaps the most amazing thing is that Leto spent the majority of his time during and after filming trying his best to hype up his interpretation of the Joker as one of the darkest ever to grace the screen - big or small. However, in doing so, not only did he alienate literally everyone of his major beloved castmates (Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Ben Affleck, etc.), but he portrayed perhaps the blandest form of the Joker ever. This is not the Joker, not by a long shot. This is just some petty gangster fresh off of the WWE 2k16 character creator - if the character creator was being used by somebody with the imagination of a dying turnip.

You know, I honestly wouldn’t be focusing on Leto so much, but he was a majority of the marketing and the biggest pain in the ass to read about. This is the guy that was so confident in nailing the darker approach to the Joker that he ended up mailing used condoms to his fellow castmates. I’m almost entirely certain that he could be sued for sexual harassment, and I’m definitely certain that Ben Affleck has already started looking at replacements for him in the untitled Batman solo film he is directing. Hell, I wouldn’t be shocked if we see Leto appear in that movie for one second, only to be killed by the real Joker.

God one can dream.

Aside from that glaring mess, the rest of the movie is, well, okay.

Will Smith playing Deadshot was a match made in heaven, there are very few roles that Smith cannot pull off, and I’m happy to say that this isn’t one of them. He really can pull off Deadshot as this man who has no real option other than killing to make a living, even if it has isolated him from the rest of his family, including his daughter. You really can feel for Smith here, and that is because of his superb acting as this hired killer. The Fresh Prince has come a long way from Bel-air, and I cannot wait to see Deadshot come back in a movie with a better director and less Jared Leto.

Jai Courtney manages to play a character that almost none of us know - Captain Boomerang - rather well. Even if the only tickboxes for the character are: Australian and loves Unicorns. But he still manages to play the character as a charismatic asshole, the kind of person you’d never want to be around unless there are about twenty kegs of beer involved and you know he’s unarmed. Besides, he gives us an excuse to see the Flash’s costume for the DCCU, so that’s good.

Viola Davis was born for the role of Amanda Waller. Waller is a character that can be best described as a Men In Black on secretive steroids. There is nothing but business to this woman, and her business is making sure that anyone who wants to destroy the United States is destroyed with the most extreme prejudice. She’s cold, calculating, emotionless, and badass. You will be more afraid of her than you will be of both the Joker and the antagonist of this movie combined. You could easily picture her turning the nuclear key without remorse, and that is more terrifying than anything else that could be offered in this movie.

In spite of all that, however, the best character in this movie is El Diablo played by Jay Hernandez. Out of all the characters in this movie, his backstory is the most touching and most in-depth - he is, if anything, the only character to actually go through anything similar to an arc. In addition to his powers being the most interesting and deadly in my opinion, he manages to have the most character while also managing to be the most interesting plot wise. I really enjoyed him.

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje has the honor of being the first actor to portray Killer Croc in live action, and he does a fantastic job of it. Even though his speaking lines are few, he still manages to play the part of a man who has been vilified by his appearance so many times that any insult just glances off of him. I honestly cannot wait to see more of him as this character, as he is easily one of the least developed characters that deserves far more of a backstory and the makeup on him looks absolutely spectacular, you will never once believe that there is a regular looking man underneath it all. It’s a true testament that at least one person in the costume department knew what they were doing.

Finally, rounding out the “protagonists” is Margot Robbie playing one of my favorite DC characters of all time, as well as one of the most important in modern history: Harley Quinn. Margot Robbie does her best to portray the character well, and I completely and honestly believe that if she was paired with a better script and a director who didn’t think the most important part of Quinn is her ass and her love for “Mr. J” then she would have been absolutely perfect. In fact, I’m willing to bet on it, especially considering that DC has apparently just greenlit a Harley Quinn movie that will focus on Quinn as well as the Birds of Prey (which includes Quinn’s love interest in the comics Poison Ivy) and other DC heroines, and will feature Robbie as a producer. It’s safe to say that I’m probably looking forward to this movie more than anything DC or Marvel have left on their lineup. I do think that Robbie is absolutely perfect to portray Quinn and there are several moments in this movie where you can see the original Batman: The Animated Series Harley Quinn shine through - brightly. I do fully believe that had this movie been directed by someone more competent in portraying Harley Quinn, then this would be the penultimate role. But, instead, we have Ayer directing a movie that isn’t sure of whether or not Harley and Joker is a toxic relationship.

We all know it is, Robbie knows it is, Leto (even if he is a dick) knows it is (as far as I can tell). But I guess someone needs to pull Ayer’s head from his ass.

Then we have the antagonist to this story, and this is where it all goes to shit.

No, believe it or not, the Joker is not the antagonist - even though he always is in the Suicide Squad’s more popular stories.

Instead, the antagonist is the Enchantress. The spirit of an ancient Mesoamerican deity trapped in a white girl archaeologist. If I sound unenthused, it’s because I’m trying more than the movie tried to make her interesting. Outside of a few good effects, her role in the movie boils down to just the most basic stereotype of evil gods.

“Humanity has forgotten us, so we shall force ourselves into the public consciousness!”

“That’s great, but is it going to be more than just a giant blue light in the sky, because that was the plot of Avengers, Avengers Age of Ultron, similar to Thor 2, Man of Steel, the end of Mass Effect 3…”

“Er, no.”

Well that was a waste of time, then wasn’t it. The Enchantress’s transformations from the archaeologist to her deity form are interesting - when Ayer decides to show them, which is about twice - but aside from that, she’s just a bland villain who could easily be replaced by a block of wood. Cara Delevigne is probably a good actress, but here’s hoping she gets a better role to show it off.

Then there’s the Enchantress’s brother, who does nothing but be the big body guard that every single evil mastermind has and me mentioning him is giving him more screen time and development than the actual movie. Apparently his name is Incubus, but you’d never know from this movie - so I’ll call him Bob.

And then in the middle of all this is the regular guy Cpt. Rick Flag, a soldier specifically selected by Waller to look over the Squad a make sure they don’t turn evil - and the love interest of the Enchantress. He’s alright. Joel Kinnaman plays him, and he is, and this is the best compliment I can give him, good at acting like an asshole secret soldier. Even though he has a massive amount of screentime, he doesn’t do all that much outside of shoot.

Finally, there’s Karen Fukuhara as perhaps the most underused but interesting character in the roster: Katana. Her past, although interesting, is rather poorly explained as she fights crime using the sword that killed her husband. Apparently the sword also contains her husband’s soul, but nobody in the movie manages to go into that, so I’m just going to ignore it. She’s a character that I hope we see more of, but she has so little development so far that I can’t blame anyone who isn’t interested. Not everyone’s going to be interested in the little bit of gold that’s shining through the cover, especially when there’s five other pieces of gold in the same position.

The plot for this movie is simple. Following Batman V. Superman, Waller realizes that in the face of other countries or aliens that want to demolish humanity the United States is pretty much defenseless. So she decides to put a team together of the most deadly metahumans and villains currently incarcerated on the off chance that a villainous metahuman does rear their ugly head. Lo and behold, one of the metahumans betrays her, and she has no other choice than to send the Suicide Squad into defeat her. If they succeed, they get time off their jail sentences - if they fail they get thrown under the bus - if they try to run they are killed. It’s a novel concept that you would think would write itself, but then you realize that Ayer decided that Leto’s Joker needs to be a basic gangster, that Harley Quinn needs booty shorts for “reasons”, and that “Normal is just a setting on a washing machine” is a well written line. I don’t think Ayer’s going to be directing anything DC anytime soon after this.

But then again, they’re letting Snyder direct both Justice Leagues even after Batman V. Superman - so maybe Ayer will be directing soon. He’ll probably end up directing the Harley Quinn spin-off. If there were ever a moment for Red Letter Media’s Mr. Plinkett to come back and make a joke at Ayer or Snyder’s expense, now would be the time.

Well, at the very least, it’s better than Age of Ultron.

I’m not sure if I could recommend this movie to anyone. It’s a mixed bag of good performances, bad performances, null performances - good action, bad action - and a shaky, uneasy plot.

But, hey, at least Wonder Woman is coming soon. I hope.

If you enjoyed this review, please consider reblogging it or following me here on Tumblr if you want to see more reviews like it.

Or if you want to support me in other ways, please consider supporting me on Patreon. Any and all donations are greatly appreciated.