Average watch at best, might watch again, and can't recommend.
There are several ways to look at this movie:
- From a sequel stand point.
- From a comics stand point.
- From a stand alone movie stand point.
Sequel stand point THERE IS AN ENTIRE MOVIE MISSING! This is the 3rd part of the "Harley Quinn Trilogy". We're missing an entire transformation of a character from one thing to another for this movie to even be able to happen. And if you're picking at that thread, then there is probably 2 or 3 movies before "Suicide Squad".
From a comics standpoint OMG, they pooed all over almost every concept they borrowed from the comics.
-Harley leaving the Joker- This was a huge Gotham event, not from a Gotham standpoint, but in the revolution and rebirth of a character that literally is left out of the story here. -Birds of Prey- Never mentioned in the movie, they come together our of necessity, like the Avengers, when the original concept was orchestrated by Oracle who hand picked women in the vigilante field to help her, but at least they included the originals, Huntress and Black Canary -Huntress- I've never loved Mary Elizabeth Winstead more, but they turned the "Crossbow Killer" vs Huntress thing into a really poor joke, making her seem sad instead of powerful, when should be saying, "I am the Huntress" to install the fear of the name into criminals as she was a killing vigilante, the only reason Batman wouldn't work with her, and a main contention with Oracle. -Black Canary- I understand that there are WAY too many white characters, but the solution is not to "wash" characters, just create new characters that help balance out the whole pool. Jurnee Smollett is awesome, and she does a great job, but she's not the same Black Canary that I know, that was an international spy / mercenary (basically an American Black Widow). The gritty reboot is good, I'd just rather it be her own character and have it stand on her own awesome footing. -Cassandra Cain- What a creative way to ruin a future Batgirl movie. And that has to be what it is. They some contention with someone else wanting the rights (or they're elapsing) and we're seeing what happened to Spiderman and Venom, they're using the name so someone else can't. She was supposed to be the assassin turned vigilante, the daughter of Deathstroke, raised in the League of Shadows, but sure 2 bit pickpocket works. -Harley Quinn- They are all over the place with her, from helpless girl to badass to bad fighter to lucky only to clueless to amazing intellect, to violent psychopath to emotional friend. Pick a lane. And the "word on face" thing didn't go over well with Joker, not sure why the kept such a distraction when her face is already the symbol with which she garners the desired attention.
- Stand alone movie I hate the stupid way they jump around with the story: I didn't like in in "Pulp Fiction" where it had purpose, I doubt I'll ever like it anywhere else.
That aside, this is actually pretty great, they spent a lot of money to get the production value where it needs to be, the cast is awesome, the story (when understandable) is pretty good, and the characters are entertaining as hell, even if Harley Quinn now seems to be a lot more Deadpool than I want.
Most of its problems are just that it is trying to be a Gotham Knights, DC movie when it absolutely doesn't have to be. Using names that people don't recognize and giving them a different experience only turns your great movie into a good movie.
I miss the days when people just made a thing they thought was good and saw if they were right. All this spreadsheet analysis of world wide information is definitely skewing movies, and we haven't even been doing it long enough to see if it's really effective measurement.
Long-short: it's a good enough movie to be potentially great if you just pretend you know nothing about anything else.