Where superhero movies are concerned, you should never trust a critic. When David Ayer¡¯s ¡°Suicide Squad¡± opened to a barrage of negative press in the U.S. earlier this month, some fans responded by lashing out at film journalists online. One even launched a petition against the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, for what he claimed was a bias against films featuring characters from the DC Comics stable.
For a brief moment, too, it looked like the critics had landed on the wrong side of the debate. While ¡°Suicide Squad¡± is currently averaging 27 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, the film¡¯s strong U.S. box-office performance during its first week on release suggested that it may prove the haters wrong. However, a 67 percent drop during its second weekend has put it back in line with the trajectory of Zack Snyder¡¯s ¡°Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,¡± its immediate predecessor in the so-called DC Extended Universe.
Snyder¡¯s film was supposed to help jump-start the Warner Bros.-owned DC franchise, making the company a viable contender to Disney¡¯s Marvel Studios, which produces the ¡°Avengers¡± and ¡°Captain America¡± movies. Its lackluster reception earlier this year prompted a shake-up at Warner, which created a separate DC Films division to ensure a more unified approach in its superhero properties from now on.
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