Suicide Squad opened in US theaters on August 5, 2016, ten years ago this week, putting DC's incarcerated supervillains to work as deniable government assets and kicking off one of the more contentious chapters of the DC Extended Universe.
David Ayer wrote and directed the film, with Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn at the front of the team and Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, the ruthless government handler who runs the operation and keeps the squad in line with the threat of a remote detonator.
The theatrical cut is tonally scattered, a grim origin story spliced with a jukebox of pop needle drops, and it sits at 26% on Rotten Tomatoes. Robbie's Harley Quinn is the one element that stuck, launching a character who went on to headline her own franchise.
A decade on, Suicide Squad reads less as a finished film than as a case study in a studio changing direction while the film was already shooting. Watch it now to trace how much clearer DC's handling of these characters became afterward.
