Suicide squad

Title - Suicide Squad
Language - English
Genre - Super hero, Comic

Spoiler warning

Suicide Squad is the third film in the new D.C. comics universe after 'Man of Steel & Superman vs Batman, Dawn of Justice .  The film is set in the wake of the second film, mentioning how the world has changed since the appearance of Superman.  It is felt that a team is needed to combat any future meta human threat and so a group of villains are 'recruited' to 'Task force X', also know as the Suicide Squad.  When there is an attack by a super power the Squad are called into action but, of corse when you are dealing with a group of villains and misfits things never run to plan.

Like all films that deal with a group of characters some get more screen time than others and the two main players in suicide squad are Deadshot and Harley Quinn.  A lot of the characters seem to be there for one little plot piece each, using there unique skills to help with there mission and some characters are fleshed out more than others, most have some backstory but some, such as Slipknot don't get much screen time which does make it a bit obvious what his part is if you have seen/read any other Suicide Squad first story's.

Deadshot Is well fleshed out and is used as the non official leader of Task Force X and is one of the more emotional parts.  Harley Quinn is there partly for the comic relief and to drive a sub plot which could be continued in a future film other than that  (and acting as a bit of eye candy) her part in Task force X is a bit of a puzzle, If you have scene the animated film 'Arkham Assault', Harley's purpose is made clear but in Suicide Squad  her reason for being in the team  until near the end of the film.  It was nice to see that Harley Quinn was portrayed as being intelligent and not just a crazy, she was a psychiatrist at Arkham  and does user her training a couple of times.

There were times when I was reminded of the original 'Ghostbusters' mainly by the character of the Enchantress who switches for a someone who would be well at home in a Japanese ghost film to Goza the Gozerian from Ghostbusters, the building she is in has a stream of light surrounded by swirling mass which I though was reminiscent of where the ghost storage system is broken.

There have been a few complainants about the Joker, some who do not like the way the character was portrayed and some who think he needed more screen time.  I know that Joker is a fan favorite but this was not a Joker or even a Batman film and Joker was not the villain of the main story.  Also Suicide Squad is a different type of film to the two previous superman films, they both spent a lot of time on the story and world building which has done some of the work for the set up of Suicide Squad which allowed it to be more of an action film, this and the number of characters involved  who needed to be introduced  leaves less time for subplots.  A similar thing happened with the X-Men film days of future past.  In that there were a number of scenes shot involving the character of Rouge but it was later cut as it was not thought to add the film and just added extra plots and this would probably have been the same with the Joker in Suicide Squad, his role in the film had some point in the film, adding to the emotional of the film  and  helping build up to Harley Quinn's actions.

As for the portrayal of the character.  There have been many different versions of the Joker over the comics, TV and Film and in computer games and this version of the character had to fit into the existing universe and distance it's self from the last cinematic version.  If it was to close to the last version then people would be comparing the two for longer and it would make it harder to separate the two sets of films which are not really

connected and this may cause confusion in this and later films.  This Joker had to fit into the new universe and there was a more 'Gangster' feel to some of the characters that were in Suicide Squad. It had also been established that Batman had been dealing with gangs in Batman vs Superman so this version did fit into the film.

As with the other D.C. films Suicide Squad is dark in parts, darker than the X-men films and there were people who thought  that it should have been a higher rating but I think that that would have been unnecessary, it would have just made it to violent and, unlike films like Deadpool that would have been unnecessary and would have made harder to fit into the existing universe.

Suicide Squad is a good film with more action that the previous two in the series, it takes on an emotional journey through the pasts of some of the characters and has a couple of humerus moments.  It has a good soundtrack  and is well worth  a watch.

Superman vs Batman, Dawn of Justice

First off this will contain spoilers so if you haven't seen it yet be warned.

Title - Superman vs Batman, Dawn of Justice

Language - English

Genre - Superhero 

Superman vs Batman, Dawn of Justice is D.C. comics second film in their 'joint cinematic universe', the first film being Man of Steel.  After a short montage showing the batman origin the film moves to the final battle of 'Man of Steel' but from the perspective of Bruce Wayne as he travels through he devastation being caused, trying to get to one of the Wayne Enterprise  offices and we see scenes the are reminiscent of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that happens in America.  After this we are shown both Superman and Batman in action and are also shown how the public reacts to both hero's and are also shown what Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne think of their opposite.  Alexander Luthor and Diane Prince are then introduced although I think Diane is only named once by anyone.  The main plot then starts to fall into place with Batman going after a peace of Kryptonite that Alexander Luthor has.  Both characters want the Kryptonite to make anti Superman weapons.  After losing the Kryptonite to Batman Alexander manipulates Superman into fighting Batman and, when Superman fails to kill Batman Alexander releases a new weapon against him, Doomsday.  Superman and Batman team up and, with the help of Wonder Woman defeat Doomsday.

Superman vs Batman is a long film, it takes a lot of time to build up the characters and the situation and doesn't just rely on the action scenes (although there are plenty of these).

Superman vs Batman has had some bad reviews (as did Man of Steel) but I don't feel that they are deserved, some of what I've read seem to be nit picking and others seem to be people missing  or not understanding something, obviously  some people just didn't like the film (or it wasn't what they were expecting) and that's OK,  you can't please every one.

One of the main points people have a problem with is that Luther has hair.  It is a big part of the Superman comic myths that one of the reasons that Lex Luther hates Superman is that he caused Lex to lose his hair.  Now it is possible that D.C. thought that hair loss is pretty silly idea for a rivalry the size of Superman s with Lex Luther but they have used in other recent Superman shows like Smallville so it is unlikely to be that.  The one thing that you do notice is that Luthor is only called Lex once, every other time he is called Alexander and this could be that the character may not be Lex Luther.  In the comics there have been a few a characters who were called Alexander Luthor who were not necessarily Lex Luthor.  Most of these were Lex from other reality's but there was one Alexander who could be the character in the film.  For a time Lex Luthor was dead and Lex corps was run by his son, Alexander.  This might also be backed up in the film by the way Alexander  keeps referring to his dad.  In the comics Alexander eventually turns out to be Lex's mind in a clone of his old body which could be represented by Alexander  getting his head shaved in the prison.

Another explication for Luthor having hair could be his.  Alexander doesn't yet hate Superman, if he was sincere in what he said then the Kryptonite was going to be used as a precaution against Superman,  which is the same reason Batman wanted it.  Alexander also says that he set up the fight between Superman and Batman to prove a point, that Superman was not some infallible god and that he would do whatever he needed to to save the people he loved, even if the ad to kill. This would also explain why he released Doomsday, he knew that if anything went wrong with his plan the Superman would have come after him so Doomsday was a defense against this.  Otherwise releasing Doomsday would have been of no benefit to Alexander, and it had has been shown that Alexander only does things that benefit him, even his choice of appointment for Superman,  Batman was because he had taken the Kryptonite  from him.

The other complaint about Superman vs Batman  that l've heard is about the way the title fight ends.  Batman has Superman down and has he opportunity to finish him off with a Kryptonite tipped  spear when Superman says that 'Martha' would be killed, Martha being Clark Kent's adopted mother but also the name of Bruce Wayne 's dead mother.  A lot of people have said that stopping the fight just because the two character's parents  have the same name is a stupid reason and, if any other character had stopped the fight then I may have agreed  but part of the driving motivation behind Batman is his obsession with his parents so any mention of his mother's name, especially if her life is threatened would at least make him pause.

As I said at the beginning Superman  vs Batman  is the second film in D.C.'s shared universe which will combine the characters from their comics in the same way that Marvel comics are currently doing.  To this end there are some parts in Superman vs Batman that are setting up things for future films.  As well as Superman and Batman we are introduced to Wonder Woman.  We are also shown clips of Aquaman, Flash and Cyborg.  There is also Alexander 's parting warning that "The bell has already been rang and they are already on their way" hinting that there is a threat on it's way.  There is also a scene which may or may not be a dream of Bruce Wayne, if it is not a dream the a time traveler comes to give him a warning of something that is going to happen in the future.  Knowing the comics, the way I do I can see that there is also way for at least one new character to be introduced, that would be Superboy.

The One reservation I had before watching this was the character of Superman.  I find that, if he is used right then he can be a good character but sometimes he can be a bland goodie goodie who tends to be over powered.  The plot line of Alexander trying to prove that Superman wasn't some kind of a god, combined with the normal people's reactions to him and he possible conspiracy to use him in the dessert made him a good character.

The one scene that didn't sit quite right with me was the scene at Alexander 's party where Bruce Wayne  plants the USB drive on television computer and the reason is this, we know that Bruce is Batman and therefore is used to sneaking around and is aware of his surrounding and yet he misses the fact that he is spotted by at least two people and is followed by one of them.

D.C. do seem to be aiming their films more towards people with some knowledge  of their comics than Marvel are.  I'm spoken to a couple of people who don't know who some of the characters are, such as cyborg and although it doesn't matter in this film I think that it my have had more impact if people knew more about the characters  when they appeared.

The only other thing to say about Superman vs Batman  is the it is quite long at just over 2 half hours and there is a lot less action then people may be expected and because of this I'm not sure how well it would have worked in the cinema, it would have been easy to miss something.

With all that said I found Superman vs Batman  enjoyable and have high hopes for the next few films.