To say Suicide Squad was a disappointment--well, not really. It was actually really good. But it would have been even better if there were more scenes of Joker and Harley Quinn together--and not those flashback scenes.
Before I saw the first Suicide Squad trailer a year ago, I've never read any Batman comics before. I've vaguely heard of Harley Quinn and kind of knew she was a comic character but that was all I knew about her. Then I saw the trailer, and what intrigued me the most on Suicide Squad compared to other comic movies was the concept of a bunch of bad guys getting together and forced to save the world. Then I saw Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn and damn she looked so cool. And one night I was just Youtube-ing all the Suicide Squad trailers and I came across a video from the Batman the Animated Series of how the Joker seduced Dr Harleen Quinzel, and as we all know, from the highly acclaimed episode "Mad Love".
And since then, I became obsessed with Harley Quinn. I watched every episode of Batman the Animated Series with her in it and started reading every comic that mentioned her including the whole Gotham City Sirens series, Batman: Mad Love, Batman: Harley Quinn, Joker's Asylum II: Harley Quinn, Harley Quinn and the Suicide Squad Special Edition, and now I have just started on Suicide Squad (2011)--the edition with Harley Quinn in it, of course.
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| Image courtesy of dc.wikia.com |
I don't know what it was, but the twisted obsession Harley has for the Joker and how he mentally and physically abuses her and even tries to kill her, but every single damn time she still runs back to him, really got to me and made me want to see more of the crazy couple.
And the fact that she was a psychiatrist before she became mad just made me want to understand her even more. I always thought intelligent people are actually mad deep down inside. It's just that without triggering it, it will stay buried. The Joker was Harley Quinn's trigger.
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| Image courtesy of www.ign.com |
So I was super excited to watch Suicide Squad--mainly to see Harley and the Joker, but was disappointed to see that the Joker was just a supporting character rather than on of the main characters. In fact, with or without the Joker wouldn't have affected the storyline at all. That's how much of a sideline he was.
To be fair, the movie is Suicide Squad, and not The Joker and Harley Quinn, but in the trailers they made if off as if the Joker was the main character. They highly publicized Jared Letto in interviews and stuff and Jared kept on talking how much he was into the character and the time and energy he spent to pull off the perfect Joker and heck, the whole music video "Purple Lamborghini" was practically about the Joker.
You could tell Jared Letto was quite pissed off in interviews at how many scenes of the Joker were cut. If people never read the comics or seen any of the Batman Animated Series before, they would never know how unhealthy the relationship between Harley and Joker really is just by watching Suicide Squad.
The good news is, I heard that they're making a Harley Quinn and Joker movie soon. Fingers crossed and hope against all hope it's not just a rumor but actually a dream come true!
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| Image courtesy of comicsalliance.com |
Okay, back to reading Suicide Squad. I'm on Issue #4 now wohooooo.
Ps the Suicide Squad OST is totally sick.
