By Andrew Levins

I’ve spent a lot of 2016 heaping piles of shit on DC movies. Namely Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, which I complained about on my podcast for a solid two hours after watching it in the cinema, then recorded a full commentary for the three hour long ‘Ultimate Edition’, 90 minutes of which I spent suggesting that director Zack Snyder likes to fill envelopes with his own jizz. It’s a very professional and intelligent pop culture podcast.

Anyway, after recording about 6 hours of unintelligible hate rambles and tweeting off a handful of very subtle criticisms, I decided that I’d given DC enough shit for a year. It was time for a break. Unfortunately for my bold new life decision, DC released another movie this week: Suicide Squad, a head scratching-ly terrible attempt at a crowd pleasing romp that crams an obscene amount of bad movie decisions into a can of Monster Energy, scrawls a tattoo on its forehead and sprays it over the audience.

But like my grandmother always used to say, when life gives you a millionaire rapper husband who cheats on you, make an album/short film and call it Lemonade. I’ve called DC every obscenity I can think of already this year – it’s time to focus on the positives. For the love of clickbait (which is surprisingly not the name of a member in Suicide Squad), I tried to come up with 10 reasons why you should go see DC’s latest cinematic masterpiece.

Viola Davis is really good

Finally, an actor absolutely nails the spirit of a comic book character in a DC movie! Viola Davis plays Amanda Waller, a government hardass who’s responsible for bringing together the various villains who make up the Suicide Squad. In comics Amanda Waller constantly walks the line between ally and supervillain, and Davis plays the character with the perfect amount of headstrong conviction – she believes that all of her potentially dangerous ideas are for the benefit of the entire world, and she’ll stop at nothing to see her plans through to the end. Unfortunately her plans involve spraying a Monster Energy can all over the audience, but Davis’s Amanda Waller is one of the few characters that I’d like to see continue into further movies after Suicide Squad.

Will Smith is in it

Will Smith made the brave decision to just play himself in his portrayal of DC superassassin Deadshot instead of actually bothering to learn anything about the character at all, but it was cool to see Will Smith on the big screen! I haven’t seen him in a movie since Hancock! Remember Hancock? I thought it was pretty lame in 2008 but I bet it’s aged well next to this piece of shit!

It’s a movie with Batman in it that doesn’t have a scene in which his parents are shot

Amazingly the filmmakers realised that the audience don’t need to see Thomas and Martha Wayne die horribly in a sea of bullets and pearls to understand why Batman chose a life of fighting crime. We don’t even see one pearl fall from a necklace onto the ground!

Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn is pretty good, I guess

Margot does a great job and clearly has a love for the character. It’s just a shame everyone else involved with the movie treats Harley Quinn like shit, when the camera isn’t grossly perving on her from every angle, the script is forcing her into an abusive relationship with Jared Leto, who chose to base his portrayal of the Joker on a 44 year old creep who used to be in a shitty rock band and now thinks that being a method actor means sending anal beads to his co-stars. None of this is Robbie’s fault, and the only real criticism I had of her acting was during the times her accent sounded like I was watching The Nanny in hot pants.

There’s a perfect recreation of Alex Ross’s ‘Tango With Evil’ painting of the Joker and Harley

Are you someone who likes to yell “that’s just like the comics!” at the screen? Get ready to blow your load in the split second that we see Jared Leto and Margot Robbie share a dance, in a pixel perfect homage to Alex Ross’s famous Joker and Harley portrait, the cover to Harley Quinn’s comics debut in 1999.

Jai Courtney is actually pretty good for once

Like many others, I hated him in Terminator Genisys and couldn’t stand him in A Good Day to Die Hard, but Jai Courtney is actually really funny as the useless Australian villain Captain Boomerang, who does little more than drink tinnies and make shit jokes throughout this action movie in which he barely contributes to the action. In spite of this, he could be the breakout star of Suicide Squad.

John Ostrander’s name is on a building

I’m clutching at straws here. I’m a proud owner of every issue of John Ostrander’s Suicide Squad run, which debuted the character of Amanda Waller (after the Legends miniseries) and was published by DC from 1987 until 1992. It’s a really good run, funny in parts, sombre in others, and really laid the fascinating foundations for Deadshot’s character that Will Smith completely ignored when he was filming his scenes. Anyway, John Ostrander’s name is written on the side of a building in Suicide Squad and I bet he hates this movie more than anyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-59jGD4WrmE

You’ve already heard every song on the soundtrack a million times

Don’t you hate it when you’re watching a movie and your concentration is broken by an awesome song you haven’t heard before and you gotta Shazam it? Don’t worry fam, Suicide Squad exclusively features the most played out soundtrack since Just Dance 3. These aren’t just songs you’ve heard a million times on the radio, these are songs you’ve heard a million times in fucking movies. Remember when all the jocks at your school stopped listening to classic rock and suddenly only listened to rap? This soundtrack perfectly encapsulates that transition, kicking things off with House of the Rising Sun and getting to the most annoying Eminem song of all time within half an hour.

It’s weirdly racist AND sexist

Wait, this isn’t a good thing at all. How do you edit fuck delete delete

At this point you’ve committed yourself to pissing your money away on every comic book movie anyway, regardless of whether it’s good or bad

There are literally 4000 reasons you shouldn’t watch this movie but you’re still gonna see it. I’ll spend the next 6 months ranting about DC fucking cooking it this time and having no idea how to make a halfway decent film but I’ll still buy a ticket for their next one. In the Justice League movie Superman is played by a truck and The Flash fucks a penguin?! Take my money DC! I don’t even care if Zack Snyder personally punches me in the back of the head for two hours, I’m still gonna keep forking out money for this abuse and so are you. Just start making monthly withdrawals from my bank account until there’s a bearable DC Cinematic Universe or until I die alone on the street, whichever comes first. Fuck my life up fam. See you at the opening night of Wonder Woman!

Andrew Levins is a Dad, DJ, Writer and host of the podcasts Hey Fam!, The Mitchen and Serious Issues: A Comic Book Podcast.