Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Suicide Squad director David Ayer responds to scathing reviews with Emiliano Zapata quote

'I love the movie and believe in it'

Christopher Hooton
Wednesday 03 August 2016 07:49 BST
Comments

Hopes were high for Suicide Squad following promising trailers, but its bubble was burst by a series of devastating reviews from critics yesterday, the DC superhero film being labelled “crushingly puerile comic-book pornography” and “even worse than Fantastic Four”.

The reviews were so bad that director David Ayer couldn’t really stay quiet about it, defending his movie on Twitter.

“Prefiero morir de pie que vivir de rodillas” he wrote, a quote from Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata which roughly translates to: ‘I’d prefer to die standing, than to live always on my knees.’

He could have left it there, but Ayer went on to clarify: “Zapata quote is my way of saying I love the movie and believe in it. Made it for the fans. Best experience of my life. <3”.

Suicide Squad will no doubt still be a hit at the box office, but the negative response will sting for Warner Bros, which had a dud on its hand with previous DC film, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and could have another one lined up in Justice League.

We found Suicide Squad to be ‘unsatisfactory and riven with contradictions’ - you can read our review here.

The films centres on a team of imprisoned supervillains who are granted release by a secret government agency to save the world. It stars Will Smith (Deadshot), Jared Leto (The Joker) and Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn), with Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Ike Barinholtz, Scott Eastwood and Cara Delevingne also among the cast.

Suicide Squad opens in cinemas on Friday.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in