Before I do anything else, I want to introduce myself.

I am dedicated DC fan.

Although I'm not the wisest nor the best-versed, I do know that there are four people who have donned the Robin costume and understand most of the Flash polluted timestream storyline. For all my two decades on this earth, I grew up on worshipping DC cartoons on television, renting old DC comics from the library, and begrudging sitting through DC films. So yeah. You could say I have anger issues.

I am a disgruntled DC fan who is sick and tired. Sick and tired of watching flat Marvel characters coming alive and killing it the big screen while beautifully complex DC characters are being DRAGGED in garbage produced film adaptations.

But the 'Suicide Squad' trailer reinvigorated a small piece of hope. A piece of hope I thought had long been decimated after ‘Green Lantern.’ But there it was--that strong quiet little hope that not even Ben Affleck’s portrayal of Batman could squash.

As I write these lines, I am immersed in the ‘Suicide Squad’ movie soundtrack, and, no, I am not largely disappointed by the movie. Despite all the negative reviews, I walked into theatre 8 Sunday night, confident that this time DC would do something right for its live actions other than Christian Bale.

And it did. It was beautifully cast, featured lit action shots, and made audiences empathize with notorious villains—as only a DC character can do. But I am not satisfied. In fact, oddly enough, tonight has left me more disgruntled with a DC live action than even Halle Berry’s ‘Catwoman.’ (I refused to watch 'The Killing Joke', but that one will get get me hella livid.)

I have a mad bone to pick with the writers of ‘Suicide Squad.’ There were so many problems, and I just couldn’t ignore it no matter how hard I tried to. But surprisingly, Harley Quinn was not one of them.

Margot Robbie was perfectly cast and brought a beloved dynamic character to life in a way I couldn’t imagine. I’ve seen all the posts about her sexualized portrayal in the film. The “You Didn’t Know Me Before I Took Off My Clothes” memes. I've seen the well-written feminist arguments, but for once, I don’t agree.

I suppose this is the part where I warn you for spoilers.

Yes, she was overly-sexualized. Her outfit was purposed for the male gaze. Most of the initial commentary from those who met her in the film was on her looks. Put by Captain Boomerang, “You look good on the outside. But inside, you’re ugly.” The lingering shots on her legs, the salacious looks.

She’s so pretty you forget that she was the only one didn’t have to be heavily armed to take down two nearly invulnerable zombies BY HERSELF. She’s so girly you don’t remember that she killed eight guards at a maximum security prison. She’s so vain that you overlook the fact that her cunning actually got the job done by cutting that witch’s heart out.

But that was the point.

You’re supposed to underestimate her. Her character arch was that despite her intelligence, her fearlessness, her bravado—no one sees her worth beyond the Joker’s sidechick. And those that are so focused on Harley’s clothing and sexuality and her hair are doing the same thing to her as the men in her life do—objectify her.

Her history is a funny one (for once, pun unintended.) Unlike most of the iconic villains, anti heroes and heroes that have reached legendary fame, Harley did not originate from the comic books. Her feature emerged in Batman: The Animated Series in 1992 (still my favorite Batman portrayal to this day) as the Joker’s “love” interest. But the fan love for her character not only allowed to character to be fleshed out to its current glory, but adapted her in comics. Seeing Margot Robbie’s portrayal of her, I would have never guessed that her inception began as Mr. J’s sidechick.

I love DC characters because of their amazing complexity. The writing urges you to dig deeper beneath the façade of frivolity and red lipstick. It allows you to see the doctorate intelligence that was the best sought to treat the worst psychopath known to Gotham. It allows you to see the deeply pervasive and abusive nature of Harley’s adoration of the Joker. It was all there. All you had to do was look beyond the fishnet stockings, and if you couldn’t do that during the film, then you still need grow your feminist roots.

Instead of slut shaming her character, I would like people to actually see her. That’s all she wants. She wants to be seen.

But… uh. Don’t exactly put down the feminist philosophy book and turn to intersectionality feminism section. Dust it off, I know we don’t read it too often.

You want to talk antifeminist problems with Suicide Squad? Well, I’ve got you and we’re going to begin with Katana.

Yes, the martial arts badass with the soul-stealing sword hell-bent of vengeance for her slaughtered husband. Katana is one of the most insane characters whose dedication to revenge actually parallels her arch very similarly to the Batman himself… In fact, a lot of her specialized deductive training was from good old Bruce. Only… you wouldn’t have guess that from the movie. Possibly due to the fact, that a PIVOTAL character had about 30 seconds of dialogue in the entire film—all in Japanese when she’s largely an ENGLISH speaking character and only largely whispers in Japanese to her sword when she’s talking to her dead husband (whose soul is trapped in the soul.)

Asian representation is films is a long-standing problem in the industry to the point where it is actually ridiculous. Perhaps it’s been on my mind a little too much, but when I saw a trailer in the theatre for a story revolving around the Great Wall and saw starring white ass MATT DAMON I nearly lost my mind. There has been an unceasing trend of whitewashing Asian characters that, I admit, I was very excited to see an actual minority women as a main character to a DC film. Only… jokes on me… she was not. Not only did she show up late to the party, she was unnecessary to the plot. Yes, I know there isn’t always time to develop characters as much you’d like—but I was livid. She was such a strong member of the suicide squad—who didn’t have to be threatened into the mission—that it was a grave disservice to silence a female Japanese character, a demographic that has been systematically silenced enough, but I digress.

This was only saved by Viola Davis’ characterization of Amanda Waller. And hell yeah, it was accurate as hell. She brought me to my knees as only an insanely powerful black woman in politics could do. Only the entire plot was rooted in a mistake she made.

The Suicide Squad’s mission was to contain a problem that Amanda ultimately made by having Enchantress in the group itself and showcasing her power to give the cause legitimacy.

Now that was a plot that disappointed everyone—the members of the Suicide Squad and the audience members.

Now I’m not saying Amanda Waller never inadvertently had to cleanup a mutant mistake she made. (In fact a huge plot in the Justice League narrative is when her efforts to have a force to defend against above-the-law heroes blew up in her face until she actually need to the Justice League to save the world. But that was years in building, and made much more sense.) The main narrative of the Suicide Squad and Cadmus (the government branch Amanda’s in charge of) is to take down the Justice League and its members from the inside. So it was my optimistic assumption that the plot would revolve around a back-door way to take compromise the Justice League in small but amounting ways—featuring our heroes as ironic obstacles to the our protagonist. Which would lead to the super through provoking question of: who are you rooting for? WHICH IS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE SUICIDE SQUAD NARRATIVE.

But “saving the world” from a problem the government created by created the Suicide Squad while somehow not drawing the attention of ANY SUPER HEROES? Like the world is blowing up, but Batman and Flash are tied up all of a sudden after their initial cameo? Was there a watchtower meeting? AT LEAST have the decency to give the audience a villain/hero teamup to make up for the piece of shit plot.

It was not worth the buildup. What was the point of the bringing Team X together in the first place? Like why were they put back into jail after all that shit? Amanda is cold, but she’s not ungrateful nor stupid. So disappointed.

Perhaps, I’m getting picky, but let’s talk about Colonel Flag and his dumbass romance being the reason for his involvement. Now, I’m not against a little magical romance, but it undermined his character entirely. Unlike everyone else—including Katana whose reasons for the joining revolve around finding more information about her husband’s murder from Amanda BUT OF COURSE THAT WASN’T MENTIONED IN ENGLISH NOR JAPANESE—Flag does it out of this unnerving sense of patriotism. This shows the complexity of American heroism (that is totally relevant to today’s times). He’s great sense of patriotism—dying for his country—is so important he loses his empathy for others. He is willing to let anyone die if it will help his country. He operates on a high level of intelligence, but almost blindly follows orders from the government (especially Amanda) without question. He is the ultimate soldier whose loyalty t country has made him unable to love the people who live in it. Like if you’re going to force a romance on that kind of man at least make it less stupid.

That, on top Killer Crocs’ lack of proper backstory (they could have at least done a little bit more with his want to be humanized but whatever I guess) and Captain Boomerang’s weird casting (sure, he’s an Aussie, but he’s supposed to be kind of cleancut and pretentious. Like he’s a CAPTAIN, goodness gracious) compromised the dignity of the work this film was based on.

Now, I know the critique is harsh, but it’s not out of hatred. It’s out of all the love in my heart. I wanted this film to fulfill its potential. Deadshot's character development was SO breathtaking. Diablo explaining how he killed his whole family was pivotal. Jared Leto was SURPRISINGLY good as the Joker. (I doubt he do anything comparable to Heath Ledger, but it was formidable.) Panic! At The Disco's Queen cover was unbelievably LIT.

All the tools were there, but you build a tree house instead of a mansion, screenplay writers. Yeah, the tree house and cute—people love it, but after a while gets a little uncomfortable and we’d rather have that multi million dollar house to come home too.

It was a good movie, but it could have been great.