I’m fortunate that I get to be a young adult in an era where the cartoons that I watched and comics (the few of them) that I read are being turned into movies and for the most part they’ve been enjoyable over the past 15 years. One of the reasons for the enjoyment is because of the backstories that I’ve been introduced to for familiar characters, but they’ve been brought to light with a human factor that takes them away from their superhuman abilities. A first impression is key when it comes to these Marvel & DC Cinematic Universe movies, and there’s a lot of evidence of that (the first Iron Man is a great example of setting the tone). The way Marvel & DC operate are on two different wavelengths, and you have the respective fans battling it out like Crips & Bloods over the internet and at various Conventions – it’s fascinating. For the people (like myself) who just watch from the sidelines and just want to enjoy the movies without the elitists telling me what I’m supposed to know when I have no interest doing more homework, it can be a burden to be caught up in what to like or dislike.

The main reason why I was excited about this movie was the sheer fact that a lot of it was filmed in Toronto. There were nights where people would be lined up on the sides of Yonge Street between Dundas & Queen for a car chase or nonchalantly walking past a destroyed Helicopter on Bay & Wellington. Downtown was showcased a lot, and for that very reason, that’s where my personal excitement brewed. I didn’t know much of the characters outside of The Joker & Harley Quinn, but because I’ve trusted these movies to give me some good introductions, I didn’t think it was a big deal to have prior knowledge of them.

That being said, seeing all the familiar places downtown (Eaton Centre, BMO building, Union Station, etc.) I can’t admit that it saved my movie experience, because for the most part I felt very ‘meh’ about it, and that’s not even due to the constant harsh criticism of the movie. I felt like there was a direction going and then all of a sudden other characters appear with references to other movies, and it’s not like they were subtle, but really direct. It made me question if this was a standalone movie, or if it was part of something bigger, which I didn’t know ahead of time. Most people would say that it’s not fair to pit DC & Marvel movies together for comparison, but I think that’s bullshit. They both do the same thing for different movies, and it’s about who can do it better. DC isn’t looking so hot in their Post-Dark Knight realm on film, but on TV they’re killing it. Outside of Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and Will Smith (Deadshot), the other characters are really just there as backup and I wasn’t even a big fan of the way it was presented at times. I felt like the movie was trying its hardest to make me like it, and it didn’t feel authentic. Maybe if it was Rated R there wouldn’t have been so much resistance in the story they wanted to tell, but it certainly didn’t give me a jolt of excitement to look forward to another movie unless key characters are by themselves (Harley, Joker, Deadshot – specifically).

I know that trailers don’t tell the full story of a film (which they shouldn’t), but the hype I had for it died, and it’s disappointing because I wanted to like the movie a lot. It had the potential to really stick it to Marvel, but the only way it’ll do that is in the box office, which is the equivalent of going platinum off streaming numbers – everybody can do numbers these days. It’ll always be quality over quantity, and regardless of how much it makes, the lasting impression of this movie is that it’ll be forgettable. You don’t have to rush to see it, and don’t pay any ridiculous prices for 3D or DBOX or IMAX. If you want some entertainment, there’s that. There’s some humour (when word got out that they had to reshoot for some, I knew there was trouble), but overall you might be disappointed if you have high expectations for it. But for now, this is my opinion, this is my review

That’s My Word & It STiXX