“Suicide Squad” should have been great. I mean it had so much going for it. With an amazing cast, visionary director, and one of the most creative premises for a superhero movie in years, it seemed set to be an oasis in the middle of a summer of lackluster releases. Unfortunately “Suicide Squad” did not achieve that nor does it achieve much anything and ends up being yet another disappointing film for 2016.

The plot of “Suicide Squad” revolves around the government recruiting supervillians to go on dangerous, even suicidal, missions in exchange for a reduced prison sentence. It is directed by David Ayer and stars Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto and a plethora of other A-list actors. I’m going to get the best thing about this movie out of the way: the actors. They all give really convincing and fun performances. The standouts being Will Smith’s Deadshot, Adam Beach’s Slipknot, and Jared Leto’s criminally underused Joker. Unfortunately the acting is almost ruined by the film’s poor writing. Characters have no real development and the dialogue ranges from acceptable to absolutely cringeworthy and is filled to the brim with forced jokes. The characters barely act like villains, just really edgy heroes who constantly talk about how bad they are. Additionally the plot of the film is clichéd and unengaging with a boring villain who provides no real motivation or stakes.

One of the most glaring issues with “Suicide Squad” is the editing. Scenes are seemingly thrown together with no flow, characters are introduced twice, and the whole thing has a general rushed feeling to it. The music choices in the movie were questionable, with many of them not fitting the scenes and feeling very forced. There were also too many songs to the point where I think there were roughly 7 songs in the first 15 minutes of the movie.

Despite all this “Suicide Squad” still functions as a mediocre action flick; it’s not offensively terrible nor is it particularly good. The action is entertaining and there are some fun moments and a few really funny jokes. But it fails to reach the heights that many people were expecting and can be chalked up to a forgettable movie with so much wasted potential. 6.5/10