Suicide Squad [Extended Cut] (2016)

2016 was a curious year for superhero films and their afterlives. Marvel and DC released two each, but only DC took its home video releases as opportunities for longer versions of its film slate. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice got an Ultimate Edition, half an hour longer and a little clearer in its execution. Suicide Squad, meanwhile, found itself the heir of an “Extended Cut,” gaining only ten minutes in the offing.

In a way, the nomenclature says it all. Suicide Squad isn’t a movie that was intended to be seen in a longer version like BvS, cut down by studio heads balking at three hours of Bat-sturm und Super-drang. Instead, director David Ayer presents an “extended cut,” more of the same that doesn’t shed much new light on the film, doesn’t clarify it in any meaningful way, but does provide more opportunity for the film to showcase its greatest strength – quirky personalities, well-casted, bouncing off of other strange rangers of whom I do hope we see much, much more.

Comparing an extended version naturally requires me to throw up a SPOILER WARNING, although it’s not exclusively the sort of spoiler that gives away the ending. (I do, however, discuss the film’s final scene at the end of this paragraph.) This is just an “extended” take on the story we’ve already seen, and it’s not substantially different from the film we got back in August. But discussing the differences naturally involves spoiling what they are, and the first (and perhaps most recognizable) difference is probably the film’s most appealing. We have a whole new flashback in which Dr. Harleen Quinzel (Margot Robbie, still the film’s shining star) chases down The Joker (Jared Leto) and demands that he make her his clown queen. It’s a smart move that adds agency to Dr. Quinzel’s fall into the identity of Harley Quinn, and it helps distance the film from the abusive relationship from the source material. Subsequently, it sheds more light on Harley’s dive into the vat of acids at Axis Chemicals; we have more context, and we know she’s chosen to go down this path. (Remember, in the theatrical cut, we move from Joker’s electroshock treatment right to Axis.) Harley’s less of a victim here, even if she’s still a dangerous psychopath, and it makes the film’s final frames – in which The Joker rescues Harley from prison – a little more palatable, a little more – dare I say it? – darkly romantic.

In the wake of Suicide Squad, a lot of buzz was devoted to Jared Leto’s Joker, and in this version he’s changed not at all. Even his modified involvement in Harley’s origin remains of a piece with his characterization in this film; he’s exasperated by her desire to join his criminal empire, but he goes along with it, because... well, why not? But while news emerged that much of Leto’s performance had been cut from the film (reported both by Leto and by eagle-eyed trailer viewers who detected something missing), rumors swirled that we’d see it all back in the Extended Cut. Not so, true believers, and so Joker exists unchanged in the Extended Cut. I’m still of the philosophical opinion that this is #NotMyJoker though he serves this film as well as he’s expected to be.

Margot Robbie continues to benefit most from the Extended Cut in two fun extended group scenes, which deepen the character dynamics while giving the performers a chance to get more comfortable in their clown paint, yakuza mysticism, and reptilian skin. It’s apparent why these scenes we’re cut – they’re far from cinematic, with long takes of characters walking and talking on their way to the next big special effects bonanza – but it’s a real loss for those who wanted Suicide Squad to be more of a character piece than it was. In one scene, Harley puts her psychotherapist skills (emphasis on the “psycho”) to work in diagnosing Killer Croc and Katana. The off-beat dynamic among these Gotham-centric characters in particular makes me hope that we’ll see them all together again in Ayer’s follow-up Gotham City Sirens (which nominally ought to include Catwoman and Poison Ivy alongside Harley Quinn).

In another scene, which ends up comprising an entire deleted subplot, we see that the Squad is plotting against Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), a plan later abandoned when they realize how dangerous Midway City has become. It’s this kind of fun scheming that restores a sense of danger to these characters, a kind of inevitable unpredictability that reminds us that “Task Force X” is actually kind of a bad idea, and it’s something only a royal badass like Amanda Waller (Viola Davis, in pure “hell hath no fury” mode) could pull off.

I don’t know that I’ve heard anyone compare Suicide Squad to Watchmen, the seminal mid-1980s comic that redefined (and/or reminded) what the medium could accomplish using its own bag of tricks. So allow me to be the first in saying that Suicide Squad’s extended cut reminds me a great deal of Watchmen – but Zack Snyder’s Watchmen and the way its visual tricks aped the comic’s scene transitions. It’s not a major change at all, and it might even be that I’m misremembering the theatrical version, but it did jump out at me in this cut. For example, Harley Quinn looks down a flight of stairs, reminding her of the long fall at Axis Chemicals, or she sees a motorcycle that takes her mind back to chasing The Joker. It’s a small touch, but it aligns the film a little closer with the Snyder aesthetic by way of a non-DCEU comic book film, a little insider information much appreciated for those of us in the know, and it makes the film just a little bit more of a comic-book.

There’s a very funny Photoshop going around in which the only difference between two Suicide Squad posters is that a wound on Harley Quinn’s forehead is only slightly longer – hence, an extended cut. And it’s quite an apt metaphor in this case: the Extended Cut features Harley Quinn front and center, but the differences are more or less otherwise cosmetic. A little deeper and a little bit more fun, the Suicide Squad Extended Cut is more of the same for fans but less substantial than the much-improved Batman v Superman Ultimate Edition.

Suicide Squad is still rated PG-13 for “sequences of violence and action throughout, disturbing behavior, suggestive content and language.” Written and directed by David Ayer. Starring Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, and Cara Delavingne.