I saw the first trailer for “Suicide Squad” in February of this year — a short one, with “I Started a Joke” playing in the background. I watched it several times. I was excited. Several subsequent trailers full of flash and bang later, I had managed my expectations. But when I read “The New Yorker” review in which film critic Anthony Lane scathingly deems Jared Leto’s portrayal of the Joker as “roughly as frightening as ‘Goodnight Moon,’” I couldn’t help expecting more than that. Not high art, but something gritty and absorbing in the vein of 2009 “Watchmen” — darkly escapist. Instead, I found the movie an exercise in wasted potential.

First of all, “Suicide Squad” introduces too many characters and leaves them to orbit around a void instead of a center. For instance, when the team of villains enters Midway City to fight the endless supply of minions created by Enchantress, all I wanted to see was the motley crew walk down an urban street not overcast with apocalyptic darkness, but teeming with everyday life. I wanted to see Harley Quinn pick up a machine gun like her male counterparts instead of settling for bared flesh and stolen jewelry as the extent of her evil. I wanted to see the psychoses and antisocial tendencies tear the team apart — is it just me or does the Suicide Squad have far fewer internal issues than the Avengers? I wanted to see Killer Croc try to eat someone’s face at least once. Creating anti-heroes who do not just become heroes by default but also do not completely alienate the audience presents its challenges. But neutering the characters so they have no real venom beyond mouthiness strikes me as less of a solution and more of a cop-out.

The trailer excited me in February because “Suicide Squad” functions best as a trailer. Or a string of related music videos. I have universally heard the soundtrack described as “on-point,” and I have to agree. Anything that prompts a new song by “schizoid pop” duo Twenty One Pilots has already curried favor with me. But long before “Heathens” flickers over the end credits, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” strumming over the scene of Killer Croc’s subterranean holding cell and “Spirit In the Sky” jaunting as the team descends into the wreckage of Midway City prove unexpected but genius choices. In fact, new songs blared or insinuated over the screen with such energy and frequency that the movie bouncy-balls along like a frenetic musical. Perhaps it would have worked better as a musical — the cinematic equivalent of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” another hit packaged in the hijinks, freed from the constraints of reality.

Ultimately, “Suicide Squad” proves a notch above similar superpower-augmented, special effects-laden fare. But it is all the more tragic for squandering the complex character of Harley Quinn, the Mephistophelean Joker, the imposing Amanda Waller. Too much energy that should have gone into the content was diverted into the high-gloss packaging. Too many characters who each deserved fleshing out were forced to occupy close quarters and reduced to quips that lack the sting to even properly be termed “barbs.” And don’t get me started on the culminating fight scene. Still, it might be worth a watch for the spectacle.