If awards were handed out for the loudest movie of the year, "Suicide Squad" would be "Schindler's List."
The DC comic-book series come to cinematic life, in which a group of imprisoned bad guys in the Batman universe are forced to band together to take on an extinction-level event, is a cacophony of explosions, crashes and seemingly every popular song _ from Black Sabbath to White Stripes _ ever recorded.
But volume is not vision, and "Suicide Squad," while containing some intriguing touches and entertaining performances, turns out to be just another generic superhero action movie with a dull villain and a numbing, anticlimactic climax.
The premise is actually fun. In this world, the government _ symbolized by no-nonsense agency head Amanda Waller (a terrific Viola Davis) _ is worried that superheroes, or metahumans as they're called, may not always have the best interests of humans at heart.
Several are already locked up in a secret black-ops facility in Louisiana, including: Deadshot (Will Smith), a killer for hire who can shoot any target with 100 percent accuracy; psycho Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), who also happens to be the girlfriend of the unimprisoned Joker (Jared Leto); Boomerang (Jai Courtney), an Aussie who's deadly with a boomerang; El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), who has the ability to start fires with just his mind; and Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), a reptilian man-creature with super strength.
On the outside is Enchantress (Cara Delevingne), an ancient witch who has taken over the body of a mild-mannered anthropologist named June Moone. However, Enchantress is under the control of Waller, and this sense of control is what allows Waller to think that she can use these supervillains as a force for good.
Little does she know that Enchantress is tired of taking orders and has hatched a nefarious and convoluted plan to, as in the old Pinky and the Brain cartoons, take over the world. Enter the Suicide Squad to take her down.
The cast is the best thing about "Suicide Squad." Leto brings a slinky menace to his incarnation of the Joker, Robbie seems to be having a lot of fun, Smith is solid as a hit man with a heart, and Davis proves her mettle as a hard-edged woman in control who can kill without mercy if the situation requires it. And, yes, Ben Affleck makes a brief appearance as Batman.
Yet it's all in the service of a tired, predictable story in which nothing is really at stake. How many times must the world be threatened by uninspired villains and their armies of disposable, easily vanquished foot soldiers?
Usually reliable director/writer David Ayer ("Fury," "End of Watch," "Sabotage") paints a colorful vision and he tries to inject a sense of humor, but many of the lines fall flat. And, yes, stay through at least the first part of the credits if you're interested in seeing a teaser to what's coming.
"Suicide Squad" has been the subject of much internet debate, as it seems to be yet another case of a missed opportunity for a DC property. It follows in the wake of the mixed to poor receptions for DC's "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" from earlier this year and "Man of Steel" in 2013.
Some DC partisans have suggested that there's a pro-Marvel media bias/conspiracy afoot designed to keep DC movies down.
There's even a change.org petition to shut down the Rotten Tomatoes site, which aggregates movie reviews, because of the number of negative notices for "Suicide Squad." (Of course, this overlooks the fact that "The Dark Knight Rises" from 2012 was generally well-received.)
But if future DC-based movies _ like the heavily anticipated "Wonder Woman" and "Justice League" coming next year _ are as uninteresting as "Suicide Squad," even the diehards might decide to stick with the comic books instead.
At least they're not as noisy.
