Matchup of the Day: Rogue One VS Suicide Squad
Today we have the first film in the Star Wars Anthology series and the third installment in the DC Extended Universe – Rogue One VS Suicide Squad. Both motion pictures involve a band of misfits on a desperate mission to thwart the forces of evil. Rogue One is the prequel to A New Hope, in which the heroes must retrieve the schematics for the Death Star so the Rebel Alliance can successfully blow up the planet killing battle station in the “next” film. Suicide Squad follows the template of The Dirty Dozen, assembling a ragtag group of criminals to risk life and limb to defeat a witch who is also building a powerful weapon. Rogue One was the second-highest-grossing film of 2016, while Squad came in tenth.
Rogue One fared better with critics than Suicide Squad, though neither film escaped negative reactions. The most common issues reviewers had with One involved the overly serious tone and lack of interesting lead characters. The reprogrammed Imperial Droid, K-2SO, with his sarcastic retorts, tended to get more praise than either Jyn Erso or Cassian Andor. Jyn was a strong heroine, like Rey in The Force Awakens, but not being a Jedi or having any connection to the Force lessened her appeal. Chirrut Îmwe, the blind temple guardian, came closest to offering a Jedi presence. Still, the critiques didn’t really detract from One‘s fan reception to the same extent that Squad‘s deficiencies did. Director David Ayer apologized on Twitter in January of this year over how the film turned out. Recently, an angry fan posted to Ayer “You suck,” hoping that he wouldn’t direct anymore DC movies.
One thing to Squad‘s credit is that it has more of a sense of humor than Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which was also ill received by fans and critics. Margot Robbie’s performance as Harley Quinn is the generally agreed-upon highlight, but even that was tainted by criticism over how the character was handled. This Vanity Fair article gives a history of the character and questions whether the film moves Harley away from her current feminist incarnation in the comics. Another article points out that “she’s been shaped into an intensely sexualized mascot for a film that yearns for edginess, but can’t get over the rounded curves of its female lead.”
In various articles Jyn has been compared to Ellen Ripley from the Alien series, praised for being the first Star Wars heroine who is not a “chosen one” type, and for not being sexualized. Like Ripley, Jyn’s sex doesn’t particularly matter. She may not ever be as memorable as Ripley, or even as Harley Quinn, but in some ways that may be a positive thing.
Flickchart Stats
Rogue One
- Global ranking: 640
- Wins 60% of matchups
- 19 users have it at #1
- 292 users have it in their top 20
Suicide Squad
- Global ranking: 9100
- Wins 36% of matchups
- 1 user has it at #1
- 64 users have it in their top 20
Suicide Squad easy.
They’re both kinda bad but Rogue One is slightly better
I really enjoyed Rogue One and was incredibly disappointed with SS. Yes, Rogue One suffered from a lack of character development but other than that, its still a ton of fun. Not to mention finally seeing what made Darth Vader such a badass in the first place. SS just benefited from Will Smith. As great Margo was as Harley Quinn, i had a hard time believing her purpose for the team considering she didnt have any superpower or any real battle skills other than swinging a bat. So yeah, sex appeal. I’ll choose Rogue One.
Rogue One easy
Rogue One – I liked it alot.
Suicide Squad starts out with promise, energetically paced, formulaic but stylish. But then it starts to sag in the middle, and lags into dullness by the end. I think possibly the mistake was to set up an ensemble, that DC was to trying to match the success of Guardians of the Galaxy, i.e., the use of a lesser known property for an “off-beat” and comedic adventure. But Guardians only had to worry about four main characters, and that is about all this film can sustain primary interest in either: The Joker, Harley Quinn, Deadshot, and then everyone else in a revolving door. They should have made a film about Joker and Harley Quinn instead using these these actor’s interpretations.
Rogue One had a similar problem, the lack of a compelling ensemble, arbitrary characters put together to fit a template and requirements for multiculturalism and foreign markets. And despite its realism, there is still the clash of the modern and the classic. For example, Leia’s hairbun hairdo is still in sight in one scene, but it feels like that is from a whole different era than the natural looking hair sported by Jen Eryso. That could be a class difference, or projected as such, but I see it as the gap between a film made in the 70’s inspired by the 40’s and a film made in the teens of the new century inspired by the original trilogy of the last century, and it is a glaring gap. I didn’t like Gareth Edward’s Godzilla, and I’m not too fond of this film of his either. He uses modern language for the film, replete with handheld camerawork, for which I could slap him, a slapdash use of widescreen composition, low-energy editing. Felicity Jones doesn’t have enough presence for the role to carry the film. She needn’t have been more plucky (as that would have been lame) she just needed to be different. They cast a Dane as her father, they couldn’t have cast an actress of partially Danish descent to match – maybe a blonde for once in a Star Wars film? They could have cast, say, Blake Lively, Emile de Ravin, or Imogen Poots. Even if Blake Lively was pregnant. I can’t think of a more horrible and properly transgressive ending to a “bold, new” Star Wars film than having Vader kill the blonde pregnant heroine. And there is still too much CGI. Some kind of multiple limbed creature that can read minds early in the film – CGI crap. Some of the explosions looked fake too. And then there is a digital Peter Cushing there, looking dropped in from Zemeckis’ Christmas Carol. They couldn’t have recast with a real person, maybe Terence Stamp?