Suicide Squad's initial trailers left a positive first impression for more than a few.
The movie looked loud, rowdy and most of all, fun. Fun is something sorely missing from the DC Cinematic Universe, and it looked like Suicide Squad would be the film that could at long last deliver it.
So, does it? Reviews for the film are finally in, and while critics do seem to agree that David Ayer's film is at least more enjoyable than the dark and depressing Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad doesn't appear to be the saving grace the DC film universe needed. The movie currently sits at a Rotten Tomatoes score of 38, with an average score of 48 on Metacritic.
Those aren't awful scores, mind you, but they aren't exactly the knock-it-out-of-the-park scores for which many fans were hoping. More than a few themes seem to echo across the film's various negative reviews: a great first 20 minutes, a confusing story, generic bad guys, the lack of Jared Leto's Joker. Then, there's one other, more peculiar reference that keeps popping up: Ghostbusters.
Not the new Ghostbusters reboot, but the original. Multiple reviews compare the ending moments of the original Ghostbusters to that of Suicide Squad, only not in a good way. Seriously, here's the comparison Mike Ryan of Uproxx makes:
"And that becomes the Suicide Squad's first mission: To rescue an unnamed important person from Enchantress, whom most of them never even got a chance to meet even though she was briefly a team member. (Which all sets up an ending that is remarkably similar to 1984's Ghostbusters, but not in a particularly good way.)"
Here's Jamie Graham for GamesRadar:
"But Harley Quinn aside, the bantz is blunt, the arcs predictable (all these "psychotic social freaks" just wanna have happy home lives, dontcha know?) and the Big Bad straight out of Ghostbusters — fine in a ‘normal' summer movie, but lacking any of the real threat posed by the knife crime and terrorism in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight."
Yet another, from Screencrush's Matt Singer:
"Nothing of consequence happens until the movie's climax, and when it does it might steal even more plot points from the original Ghostbusters than Paul Feig's remake."
Here's one more, from the Wrap's Alonso Duralde:
"The film's ubiquitous posters are psychedelic and outrageously designed, but none of that aesthetic makes it into the final product, which offers your standard rainy nighttime urban center under attack with a swirling-clouds finale reminiscent of the climax of the original Ghostbusters."
Judging from the various trailers and posters, having the film's finale compared with Ghostbusters time and time again definitely seems counter to what many fans would have expected. Suicide Squad looked fresh, fun and original, but it seems like none of that may be the case in the finished product. If nothing else, fans don't have to wait too much longer to make the Ghostbusters comparison for themselves, as Suicide Squad arrives in theaters Aug. 5.
