I kind of really liked Suicide Squad. I’ve seen many of the negative reviews, and I can see what people are complaining about, but their reasons for disliking the film weren’t reasons for me to complain. For me, the film’s weaknesses were kind of ordinary, like a grass allergy, rather than epic, like Zod’s allergy to kryptonite¹.

It’s a dark film, which seems pretty appropriate given the tragic (and trigger-level disturbing) origin stories of characters like Harley Quinn and Diablo. While the audience is left with little room to question whether or not the mission is a righteous one, we’re given plenty of space to wind up as we cast aspersions at the folks making the decisions.
And I’m fine with that. The real world is full of damaged people, the walking wounded outnumbering the blissfully unscathed by a large margin. In Suicide Squad we are given archetypes who show us our damaged selves, and who reach past at least some of their pain to do what little good remains within their reach. And in case that’s a little too deep an analysis, the film is also pretty cool to watch.

My biggest complaint is that the trailers for Suicide Squad pitched me a cross between Leverage and Guardians of the Galaxy. The film falls short of that by quite a bit. I liked the film, but it’s not really the one they advertised.  

There’s a nice teaser halfway through the credits. And when I say “nice,” it has some of the most memorable dialog of the entire film.

¹I tweeted most of that paragraph before putting it in the blog.

I watched Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, Ultimate Edition two weeks ago, and must now make a confession: I rather liked it.

For those keeping score at home, this runs counter to my reaction to the theatrical release. The Blu-Ray felt like a completely different movie. Instead of being a gritty eyesore smeared brownly by disappointing portrayals of beloved characters, it was a compelling vision inviting me to distrust the shining, iconic gods of the DC Comics mythos, and then to hold out hope that these paragons of power might earn my trust again in future films.

Not everyone will have the reaction I did, and the stronger people feel about their Bats and Supes, the less likely it will be for them to join me over here. I tried to explain my thoughts to Jim Zub at GenCon, but the conversation did not go well. He punished me by forcing me to riff on “Deadpool” rhymes¹ all weekend.

I believe that the biggest reason the Ultimate Edition works is that key scenes are just a few seconds longer, allowing them to play all the way to their emotional payoff. Consider: the plot of a film can be communicated, start to finish, with trailer-sized snippets. The result will have zero heart because none of the characters will be on-screen long enough to earn the right to resonate with the viewer. As the snippets are lengthened enough to become scenes, and as the scenes are further fleshed out and allowed to become complete, the skeletal plot of the film becomes a story, and the story grows in power until it crosses some threshold and actually works.

In the theatrical release there is a scene where Clark steps, fully-dressed, into the bathtub with Lois. In the Ultimate edition he undresses, and Lois responds to this, to him, with passion. It’s not a full-on “naked-time” scene, but it succeeds where the theatrical release failed: it convinces me not just that they are in love, but that their love is deep, abiding, and above all important.

The Ultimate Edition also adds lots of completely new scenes, and I think the folks laying it out may have punched the colors up just a bit from the sepia-shifted pallor I suffered through in the theater. For all their work on the principal film, my favorite part of the Blu-Ray was the featurette on the history of Wonder Woman. I watched that and for the first time felt just how important a character she is, and how critical it is to our culture that her next big-screen portrayal be done well.

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Ultimate Edition accomplished what I did not think was possible: it got me excited about what’s coming from the DC Comics movies in the next couple of years.

¹ JIM: “He’s an assassin, and he loves his oatmeal”
ME: “Wait, what?”
JIM: “Deadgruel.”

If you love Star Trek, I’m reasonably confident you’ll love Star Trek Beyond.

For reasons whose explanations would require spoilers¹, I did not quite love the movie, but I certainly liked it a lot. Sandra loved it unconditionally. It’s certainly worth the price of the movie ticket and the popcorn, and if friends were intent upon dragging me out to see it with them, I wouldn’t play dead-weight and force them to work for it. I’d walk along quite happily.

Star Trek Beyond enters my list just below the Threshold of Awesome, and I’m sure I’ll be seeing it again on Blu-Ray, and it’s quite possible that I’ll consider it completely awesome at that point.

¹I’ll hide the spoilers over here.