'Suicide Squad' Star Cara Delevingne Thinks Critics Hate Superhero Films — But They Don't

Culture

Critics hate it. Fans, as a result, want to shut down a review aggregation website. Suffice it to say, DC Comics' antihero venture Suicide Squad is having a poetically chaotic opening week. But one of the film's stars, Cara Delevingne, believes she knows why the film is being panned by critics, which currently has a 27% "rotten" rating on the aforementioned website Rotten Tomatoes: superhero films just aren't their thing. 

"The critics have been absolutely horrific," Delevingne, who plays the villain Enchantress, told Reuters. "They're really, really horrible. You know, I just don't think they like superhero movies."

While film critics have recently been harsh toward DC Comics' superhero offerings, such as Batman v. Superman, Green Lantern and Man of Steel, Delevingne's claims don't actually hold water. In fact, lots of superhero films have received outstanding reviews. 

There's been several Marvel films that have received widespread praise, such as The Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America: Civil War, The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy — all with "fresh" ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. Moreover, DC Comics' older ventures also received critical acclaim — particularly Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. The most widely praised movie of the trilogy, The Dark Knight, even claimed eight Oscar nominations, winning two awards. 

Perhaps most indicting, however, is that we've seen superhero movies with an edgy, crass tone like the one Suicide Squad hoped to embody succeed with the critics — just this year. Marvel's Deadpool took that concept, with an R-rating to boot, and made it a mainstream financial and critical success. 

Superhero films aren't the problem; what's more important is the execution. DC Comics needs to figure that out soon — and blaming critics isn't going to make that problem go away.

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