2021 Reviews – The Suicide Squad

I remember when Suicide Squad was going to be an absolutely epic movie; a simpler time. Now The Suicide Squad is in the hands of former Guardians of the Galaxy director, and now current Guardians of the Galaxy director again, James Gunn. The first Guardians’ movie was an undeniable hit, with a similar concept of a well-balanced group of edgy nobodys-turn-heroes. But Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was too jokey for mine, taking nearly all potential seriousness within the story and turning it in on itself. So, with The Suicide Squad, I’m weary; but I know the source material is strong, and should make for a kick-ass movie if it captures the right tone. Bottoms-up!

The Suicide Squad – a secret team of low-level supervillains are put together by US Government operative Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) to infiltrate the island country of Corto Maltese, and disable ‘Project Starfish’ before it can wreak havoc on America. Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) and Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) return for this second mission, along with a slew of new faces; too many to describe honestly, but the best has got to be T.D.K (Nathan Fillion) who can detach his limbs and send them in to fight for him – WTF! There’s also a girl who summons rats, Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), and a giant shark-man, King Shark (voiced by Sylvester Stallone), who just is with no rhyme or reason. As is custom with the Suicide Squad, each member of the team is fitted with a small explosive device in their neck, and if they abandon the tasked impending peril without Waller’s say-so, she will blow them up at will. It’s really not a position you want to be in…

Thankfully, this movie gets to the essence of what the Suicide Squad is all about, and it’s worth its mass in echinoderms. Especially scenes where like Milton died, and Harley doesn’t even remember who he was, highlights how these guys work together but they aren’t really a ‘team’; they’re self-interested supervillains and it’s always one-out-one-in as they bend to Waller’s ultimatums. It’s just me, but I always want to know how these characters fit into the DC universe prior to them finding themselves on Waller’s team – it’s not a knock on the movie, it’s just me being curious for the whole picture. Like Weasel; what’s his deal? Which superheroes has he come up against throughout his fictional history and in what context is he a villain? I guess I’ve been conditioned, by major comic titles and movies, that it’s the hero’s journey that matters most, as we usually follow their stories, and the villains, at least initially, only exist as an adversary for the hero to fight. I also want to know which far-reaching potentially coked-up comic book artist thought up some of these characters and deemed them ‘good enough’ to first put on paper, and I guess that’s what DC archives and Wikipedia is for afterwards. I was definitely thankful when the movie filled in some backstories along the way, like how Ratcatcher 2 came to be, and how the Polka-Dot Man hates his Mum. I knew of the Polka-Dot Man, mostly as a DC joke poked at in The Lego Batman Movie, but with this movie, The Suicide Squad sees a way to redeem the Polka-Dot Man and it fucking pulls it off! Bravo! But that’s what’s great about the Suicide Squad as a concept; it gives new life (albeit often short) to DC villains that never took off in the comic book zeitgeist, and would have a snowball’s chance in hell of making a multimillion-dollar franchise otherwise, opposing our gigantic heroes.

Watching this movie, I’m still a little disappointed that the first incarnation of the Suicide Squad couldn’t get off the ground. More than the team dynamic of the Guardians of the Galaxy, which I was worried about, these relationships between the newest characters in this movie still seem exactly like I remember from my limited ventures amongst other Suicide Squad content – Batman: Assault on Arkham and The New 52. Bloodsport (Idris Elba) and Peacemaker (John Cena) bicker like Deadshot and Captain Boomerang could have – Peacemaker/Captain Boomerang is a little more antagonistic and self-righteous than he needs to be, whilst Bloodsport/Deadshot is just trying to keep his nose clean for the benefit of his family. Harley Quinn is the most optimistic one, keeping them all together, just like Ratcatcher 2 is here. And I guess the Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian) aligns with Diablo, with his own inner demons to fight, and King Shark is clearly the scary muscle akin to Killer Croc in the last movie. It’s a shame that Will Smith didn’t return for this one, because his performance and characterisation as Deadshot was one of the best elements of the last movie and Deadshot and Bloodsport are basically the same character, let’s be honest. Yet, I guess that old Biblical proverb rings true right here again; ‘if you can’t have Will Smith, Idris Elba will do just fine’… I think that’s in the Bible.

Suicide Squad (the 2016 movie) was a huge disappointment; clunky and overreaching. But with a movie like this, The Suicide Squad, that isn’t afraid to conquer its own vision, I think it further illustrates how the first attempt at the franchise wanted to pander to the masses and resulted in something pretty lame. And it’s more than being able to say ‘fuck’ in your movie; even though when you’re solely dealing with villains, who are forced to do things against their will and could die at any moment, it’s fair to extrapolate that they may get a little surly; they may even cuss 😮 And it’s better to be edgy than fake being edgy, with tattoos. The Suicide Squad under James Gunn is clearly free to do whatever it wants and that freedom extends to creating some very cool scenes – watching Peacemaker fight in the reflection of his shiny helmet is one of them, and then seeing Peacemaker upset at himself for having to take down a hero like Rick Flag is an example of some emotional weight that is a further credit to this movie. I also love how this movie plays up on Harley Quinn’s scattered ruthlessness, particularly in the scene where the Dictator of Corto Maltese (Juan Diego Botto) goes from fiancé to fiasco in a matter of seconds. The other movies have played up the duped damsel side of Harley Quinn, which is equally relevant, but as the Queen to the Joker’s King, it’s terrific to be reminded that she’s pretty dangerous. Now, I really liked Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey, but I really like this incarnation of Harley Quinn as well. This Harley Quinn is menacingly chaotic, and certainly the deadliest she’s ever been.

Having a giant starfish as the enemy is something that may not have flown back when the DCEU was exclusively dark and still trying to justify its sprint to catch up to Marvel. But I like this new attitude – some say it was visible in Shazam!, and I definitely saw it in Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn). Now the DCEU can truly look at its catalogue, and allow its creators to take Harley’s advice from the first Suicide Squad and ‘own that shit’. And The Suicide Squad is better than half the superheroes movies we get these days, absolutely. Whilst it’s not the prettiest movie, and Idris Elba’s chemistry with John Cena is lacking at times, there’s better things to mention, like how Peter Capaldi as The Thinker just seems to be having oodles of fun. I’ll give it 4.0 for now.

4.0