3 Things That Still Don’t Make Sense About Suicide Squad

David Ayer’s Suicide Squad crash-landed into theaters in 2016 with colorful marketing, an unforgettable soundtrack, and the promise of bringing DC’s villains together for a high-stakes mission. With its vibrant aesthetic and star-studded cast, including Will Smith as Deadshot, Jared Leto as the Joker, and Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag, Suicide Squad introduced audiences to Task Force X and expanded the DCEU beyond its main Justice League heroes. Despite mixed critical reception, the film became a commercial success, grossing over $746 million worldwide and cementing Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn as an iconic character in modern pop culture. However, upon reexamination, several logical inconsistencies undermine the internal logic that the film itself establishes, creating contradictions that can’t be easily explained away by the presence of metahumans or magic.

From questionable security protocols to convenient power limitations, here are three things that still don’t make sense in 2016’s Suicide Squad.

Amanda Waller’s Baffling Mishandling of Enchantress’s Heart

Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) is consistently portrayed as the DCEU’s most ruthlessly competent strategist, a woman ten steps ahead of everyone else with contingency plans for her contingency plans. This characterization makes her catastrophic mishandling of Enchantress’s (Cara Delevingne) heart all the more perplexing. The film establishes that Waller controls the ancient entity by possessing her physical heart, which can be threatened or harmed to cause Enchantress pain and force compliance. Despite recognizing Enchantress as an immensely powerful magical being capable of teleportation and world-ending destruction, Waller keeps this crucial control mechanism relatively close to the threat she’s trying to contain.

[RELATED: David Ayer Defends Push for Suicide Squad Director’s Cut: “I Hope My Real Film Can Be Shared One Day”]

A genuinely pragmatic Waller would have secured Enchantress’ heart in the most remote, heavily fortified location possible — perhaps even off-planet, given the Justice League connections — rather than carrying it personally or storing it where Enchantress could access it. This fundamental miscalculation directly enables the film’s apocalyptic threat and contradicts Waller’s established character. When Enchantress inevitably breaks free and reclaims her heart, it doesn’t feel like a clever villain outsmarting the system, but rather the result of laughably poor planning by someone the movie insists is a master strategist.

The Neck Bombs’ Inconsistent Rules of Operation

The explosive devices implanted in Task Force X members’ necks serve as the primary control mechanism throughout Suicide Squad, with their lethal effectiveness dramatically demonstrated when Slipknot (Adam Beach) attempts to escape. However, the film can’t seem to decide how these bombs actually function or who controls them. When the Joker orchestrates Harley Quinn’s escape, his scientist associate disables her neck bomb almost instantaneously using a handheld device. This convenient development raises numerous questions: How did the Joker’s team acquire the technical specifications for A.R.G.U.S.’s presumably classified military technology? Why would such dangerous explosives have such an easily exploitable vulnerability? 

The contradictions continue during the bar scene when Rick Flag dramatically crushes the phone controlling the bombs, seemingly freeing the Squad from Waller’s control. Yet later, Waller contacts them with the threat, “You disobey me, you die,” implying she still maintains control despite the destroyed device. The film never clarifies whether the phone was the sole controller, if Waller has backup systems, or how the control mechanism actually works. These shifting rules undermine the entire premise of the forced team dynamic, as the threat of keeping the villains in line appears to be arbitrarily enforced based on narrative convenience rather than consistent internal logic.

Enchantress’s Conveniently Fluctuating Power Levels

Enchantress represents one of the DCEU’s most formidable magical threats, with powers that should make her nearly unstoppable. Throughout most of Suicide Squad, she demonstrates godlike abilities, including instantaneous teleportation, creating powerful illusions, transforming humans into monstrous servants, manipulating energy, and constructing massive mystical machinery. These established powers mysteriously diminish during the climactic confrontation when the plot requires her defeat. 

Despite previously teleporting at will, she inexplicably remains stationary when Harley Quinn approaches with Katana’s (Karen Fukuhara) sword. The ancient deity who easily overpowered the entire Squad earlier fails to use her telekinetic abilities to disarm Harley or teleport her heart to safety when threatened. The film establishes Enchantress as an ancient being of immense power and intelligence, yet in the final battle, she behaves with baffling incompetence that contradicts everything previously established about the character. Rather than feeling like a hard-won victory against impossible odds, the Squad’s ultimate triumph comes across as successful only because the script required the villain to forget her own powers.

What other logical inconsistencies did you notice in Suicide Squad? Let us know in the comments below!