Review Of Suicide Squad: Extended Cut
Our review of Suicide Squad: Extended Cut, which is out today and adds 13 minutes of footage to the theatrical cut
Suicide Squad was a hit at the box office, but not so much with critics. And now it’s out on Blu-Ray and DVD with an extended cut that adds an additional 13 minutes. Is that extra minutes enough to fix the problems with the movie?
If you want to read my full review of the Suicide Squad movie, you can check that out here. But I’ll reiterate that I thought the movie was perfectly ok. Some big structural problems, but I thought several strong performances (Smith, Robbie, Davis) save it from being a terrible movie. It’s perfectly ok. Which frankly was a huge step up from Batman v Superman in my opinion.
So what does the extra 13 minutes of Suicide Squad: The Extended Cut add to the movie? Some scenes get extended, and there’s like two extra minutes of Jared Leto’s Joker. And that is about it. So anybody thinking that 13 minutes wouldn’t add up to much is correct. No unresolved subplots are picked up, no extra character development is given. All that reported extra footage Jared Leto shot as the Joker? Very little of that is in here. So the extra footage doesn’t add anything, but it doesn’t seriously detract either. It’s not like it makes the movie worse or feel like a slog, it just really makes the movie a little longer. It certainly won’t change your opinion of the film.
Warner Bros.
Sadly, there is no commentary for the Extended Cut of Suicide Squad. But that doesn’t mean it’s lacking in special features. There are several features that go into the history of Task Force X, how the cast bonded over filming, Joker & Harley Quinn’s relationship and even the numerous tattoos the cast was sporting for the film as well as a gag reel. If you want to do a deep dive into Suicide Squad, the special features give you a pretty good opportunity.
Warner Bros
So to bottom line this review, While the Extended Cut adds a little extra to Suicide Squad, it’s nothing that matters. This is still basically the same movie you saw in the theaters. Does that mean someday there might be “Joker’s Cut” that adds back in all that reported extra footage filmed of Jared Leto as Joker and maybe more? Possibly. Will that make it a better movie? Who knows. In the meantime, I still think this is a perfectly serviceable comic book movie with a decent amount of extras. But that’s not necessarily enough when we are getting some pretty superb comic book movies on a regular basis these days.