'Suicide Squad' Trailer Breakdown: Batman, A Creepy Origin Story, And More Batman
When the first Suicide Squad trailer arrived, we went through the whole thing frame-by-frame to squeeze as many secrets and tidbits out of it as humanly possible. Did you think we weren't going to do the same thing for the brand new trailer that just arrived? Of course not. There's a lot to dig into here and no time to waste. Let's get started.
The trailer opens in a White House briefing room with a government big shot pondering a hypothetical scenario where Superman decides to kidnap the president. It's a moment that serves a few purposes. First, it instantly establishes that Suicide Squad exists in the same universe as the new Batman and Superman. Second, it explains the kind of thinking that would lead people who should know better to create a black ops team consisting entirely of super villains. Bonus: it gives us a new look at Viola Davis' Amanda Waller, who could be the DC movie landscape's secret weapon if she's utilized well.
The trailer then runs through the basic cast, showing how each of them are spending their time in prison. I've grabbed this shot of Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje's Killer Croc because I think he still looks absolutely amazing...
...and I've grabbed this shot of Jay Hernandez as El Diablo because he actually gets some cool stuff to do in this trailer, which suddenly makes him look at lot less expendable.
I'm a total sucker for when studios modify their logos to fit the tone of movie, so this grotesque-but-colorful take on the Warner Bros. shield totally does it for me. It also offers a long listen at Jared Leto's Joker laugh, which sounds more mocking and inherently sinister than the more gleeful cackling of past iterations.
Highlights from the "military rounds up our anti-heroes from prison" montage: Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn putting on quite a show for the men as they enter...
...Will Smith's Deadshot, strapped to a chair and seemingly amused by all of the chaos and commotion going on around him...
...and Adam Beach's Slipknot, who remains one of the biggest enigmas in this movie. A prediction: he dies early and quickly to raise the stakes for everyone else.
And now, highlights from the "everyone gets their equipment and costumes back" montage: Here is a close-up of Deadshot's arsenal, which we see him using to great effect throughout the entire trailer against targets both stationary and moving. You'll note that the "I am the light" is written on the barrel, which suggest a righteous/religious connotation that is completely new to this character, who has been traditionally been portrayed as a hardened assassin who works strictly for cash.
And, of course, we get a gratuitous shot of Robbie dressing in her skimpy outfit. Whether the movie presents her choice of clothing as a cunning choice from a psychopath who wants her enemies to underestimate her, or if this just about a very attractive actress showing a lot of leg, remains unknown.
"This is the deal. You disobey me, you die. You try to escape, you die. You irritate or vex me..." Joel Kinnaman's Rick Flagg certainly looks like a straight-arrow, by-the-book military man, which hopefully means he'll be the kind of foil this movie needs. The normal guy standing next to the psychos is just as important as the psychos in a movie like this.
This trailer does offer us one shot of Slipknot in action, using a grappling cannon to scale a building. In the comics, this character is a master with ropes...which is not the most exciting ability in the world. That's just more fuel to him not seeing the third act of the movie.
Well, would you look at that? Jai Coutney's Captain Boomerang is actually wielding a boomerang! The movie hasn't really showed off his skills yet (although the trailers have showcased Courtney's bonkers reaction shots) and we don't blame anyone. Like having a mastery of ropes, being really good at boomerangs sounds awfully lame on paper.
In a movie where so many iconic characters are given drastic makeovers, Katana's (Karen Fukuhara) very traditional costume should provide some grounding for diehard comic book fans. She looks amazing.
"I'm known to be quite vexing." Hey, the camera really, really loves Margot Robbie.
Like with the past trailer, the actual threat the team is fighting remains undefined. However, there is this shot of massive urban devastation, making it very clear that the threat is capable of Superman-level destruction. Maybe it is Superman? I kid.
Yeah, the camera still loves Margot Robbie. And this version of Harley, with smeared make-up and clothing you can buy at your local mall, seems destined to be a cosplay favorite. It's certainly cheaper and easier than a one-piece harlequin suit.
Look at this! Another brief glimpse of whatever our heroes are fighting! Like with the last trailer, this brief shot reveals something black and grimy, possibly covered with some kind of fungus. But we're only given these tiny glimpses. It's hard to make out–
Oh. Well, there they are. They certainly look like soldiers who have been transformed into monsters of some kind and we saw in the previous trailer, their icky fungus look certainly resembles the black cloud of magical debris that's circling the Enchantress (Cara Delevingne) in her few quick shots. In other words, the Suicide Squad certainly seems to be battling a magical infestation that has created fungus zombies.
Speaking of which, here is Captain Boomerang taking the top off of a fungus zombie's head using a razor sharp boomerang. These villains are going to allow director David Ayer a chance to indulge his violent whims while keeping things nice and PG-13. After all, fungus zombies don't seem to bleed.
If you need more fungus zombie action, here's Harley grappling with one of them...
...and here's her getting up close and personal with on of them. They certainly look disgusting and inhuman and will surely die by the hundreds in the final film.
Here's this trailer's first look at Cara Delevingne, the witch who seems to be stirring up some pretty serious trouble for our anti-heroes. As noted above, that black cloud around her certainly matches the movie's choice of cannon-fodder.
This is where we can start talking about the movie's timeline. The Joker obviously isn't a member of the team and the team itself seems to be directly battling the Enchantress in the A-plot of the film, so how does the Joker fit into the narrative? Other parts of the trailer offer some pretty huge clues about how this movie is structured, so in the meantime, here's a look at the Joker wearing a purple leather coat and a bunch of gold chains. I'm getting used to this look and have a hard time being annoyed by it any more, but I know some of you really, really hate it. That's why they invented comments sections.
How do you make Deadshot look like Deadshot while still justifying the millions of dollars you spent on Will Smith's famous face? By finding the sweet halfway point between comic book iconography and letting the face of the most famous actor in the world show.
We've seen Harley armed with a baseball bat in all of the trailers and images so far, but it looks she will, at some point, at least hold her comic book weapon of choice: a giant mallet. Naturally, there's a smiley face drawn on the end, which the kind of touch you'd want from this character.
Not much to say here beyond noting that the Joker is talking to someone who is reflected in the mirror behind him. I can't make it out who it is or if it's someone of importance from the main cast, but if you want to lean in real close and squint and let me know what you think, I'd appreciate the effort.
Here's the first piece in a very interesting puzzle. Yep, that is Ben Affleck's Batman (or at lest someone standing in for Affleck) carrying the unconscious body of Harley Quinn to the Batmobile. As we've suspected, Suicide Squad will, at some point, flashback to the early days before she was a prisoner. And now we know that Batman is the one who captures her.
Speaking of Batman, here's the Caped Crusader clinging to the roof of a car driven by Joker. Harley is in the passenger seat, as we've seen in other pieces of footage. This is important if you want to complete the puzzle of Batman's role in the movie. Stick with me here.
And now, here's Batman, wearing some kind of breathing apparatus, leaping into the air...
...and into the water. But what is he leaping after? That's actually revealed later in the trailer. We'll get there momentarily.
This shot was actually in the previous trailer, but it looks far better now than it did then. The smog effect around the Enchantress simply looks more complete and less like a first pass. And as we noted before, it looks like our villainous finds her way into a very valuable location – note the presidential seal on the wall next to her.
With his mask on, movie Deadshot really does look like the spitting image of his comic book counterpart. It remains to be seen how often he'll actually wear it in the final film, but it looks fantastic. Unlike the Joker and his tattoos, I can't imagine anyone having a serious problem with this design.
Speaking of the Joker and his tattoos, remember when a large swath of fandom convinced themselves that the first image of the Jared Leto as the character was a "tribute" and that the tattoos weren't actually real? Yeah.
This is where the trailer gets a little cheeky. Here's a shot of Harley (prior to becoming the Joker's girlfriend and accomplice) plummeting into a massive vat of chemicals, which was showcased in surprising detail in the first trailer. But we cut straight from this shot of her falling...
...to this shot of Batman landing in the water. Remember when we saw him take that leap a littler earlier? Well, this trailer could be telling us that he's jumping after Harley.
How does the perfectly ordinary June Moon transform into the magical super villain known as the Enchantress? It certainly looks like she goes spelunking in the wrong cave and breathes in the wrong...magic gas? Demon? Something is happening here and it certainly looks like the start of a very unfortunate origin story.
This shot of the Joker, mangled and pulling the pin from a grenade using his capped teeth, is a good one. After all, the Joker isn't really the Joker unless he's been recently battered in some capacity by Batman.
Hey, El Diablo actually gets to do stuff in this movie! In fact, the final moments of this trailer give him lots of time to shine as he conjures up a gigantic fireball following a spat with Deadshot.
"I was just trying to get you there. No hard feelings right? We good." Well, Deadshot certainly sounds like another riff on Will Smith's standard persona, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. That line sounds like the kind of dialogue that is written after you know you have Smith in the role.
This image of the Joker's car flying off the side of the road and into water below completes our little Batman puzzle. It seems to go like this: Batman chases Joker and Harley, landing on the roof of their car. Joker crashes the car (maybe deliberately?) and lands in the water. Batman leaps in after them, retrieves Harley's body, puts her in the Batmobile, and drives her to prison. Now that could be completely wrong, but I think we just pieced together a big flashback sequence from the film. Which brings up another question: how much of the Joker's screen time will take play entirely in flashback? Is he involved in the main plot at all? So far, we haven't seen him share the screen with anyone other than Harley, so that's a definite possibility.
This shot of Harley putting on a show for someone who has her in their crosshairs is just a nice shot. Nothing to add to that.
The trailer ends with core cast (minus the probably dead Slipknot and the probably abandoned-by-his-crew Rick Flagg) enjoying a drink in an empty bar. It looks like a nice character moment, a scene where everyone just takes a moment to share a scene and shoot the breeze. Could this be from the recent round of reshoots, which were supposedly implemented to add more scenes like this? Perhaps.