‘The Suicide Squad’ Review

While 2016’s Suicide Squad did well at the box office, it isn’t exactly a beloved movie. There are elements from it that people liked such as Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, but it’s mostly regarded as a bad movie. Over the years, information has been revealed that the film is drastically different than what the director had in mind due to studio interference. With the newest film, The Suicide Squad, that doesn’t appear to be the case and it’s all the better for it. 

Premise

Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) is recruiting another ragtag team of criminals to embark on an incredibly dangerous mission. This time, she recruits Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Peacemaker (John Cena), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), King Shark (voiced by Sylvester Stallone), and many others for the mission. They are sent to the country of Corto Maltese to destroy a dangerous operation that could have catastrophic consequences. 

Review

For The Suicide Squad, James Gunn steps into the director’s chair and you feel every aspect of his style all over this. It’s incredibly violent and filled with moments of dark humor. The action’s highly stylized with lots of creative camera work and set pieces that’ll be remembered after the movie is over. Even amidst the mean-spirited nature of this film, it manages to have a lot of heart. That’s due to how Gunn treats his characters. 

Similar to Guardians of the Galaxy, these are a group of obscure comic book characters that Gunn manages to make shine. Elba and Robbie are great per usual and Elba isn’t just a replacement for Will Smith even though their characters have similar attributes. Cena surprised me as he brought a lot of emotional depth to Peacemaker, who ends up being a psychopathic version of Captain America. Robbie has plenty of moments to shine, including an awesome action sequence.

The two highlights for me were King Shark and Ratcatcher II (Daniela Melchior). Melchior makes this character incredibly likable as she has a large heart despite being a member of this team. Her constant optimism is infectious. King Shark has a childlike demeanor that gets a lot of laughs, even though this character is incredibly violent. He has some of the most brutal kills. Also, Stallone’s voice fits him perfectly.

Joel Kinnaman is back as Colonel Rick Flag and he has vastly improved from the first. I remember not caring about him much in the first, but he’s much more heroic in this one. David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man manages to convey a lot of depth for this character without saying much.

All these characters are likable, despite killing hordes of people in this movie, some of who are innocent. Gunn manages to illustrate these characters as complex instead of just straight villainous. Honestly, the evilest character may actually be Waller. Davis gets mean at many points in this movie. However, her deadpan delivery brings a few laughs. 

Gunn doesn’t hesitate at killing off characters as he immediately lets you know that no one is safe. The entire cast for this movie is huge but it may not be worth going through all of them because some don’t make it past the first five minutes. 

The soundtrack in The Suicide Squad is great as each song manages to add to the scene instead of distracting from it. One of the biggest problems from the 2016 Suicide Squad is that the constant use of popular music made the film seem more like a music video. Here, the action is elevated by the music and it makes the movie even more stylized and unique. It’s not quite as memorable as the Guardians soundtrack, but it has a lot of highlights. 

The humor works for the most part. There are moments when it can fall flat, but it doesn’t last long. It’s often shocking humor, coming in the form of dark jokes or in unexpected ways. It’s an R-rated film and it certainly doesn’t hold back. 

Final Verdict

The Suicide Squad is the best DC film since The Dark Knight. It’s violent and completely unapologetic from the beginning. While this may not be everyone’s cup of tea, it worked for me in spades. I had an amazing time watching this bizarre, creative movie and I hope Marvel and DC let Gunn direct everything from now on. 

Final score: 5/5