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Sometimes, a property just needs a different vision in order to be successful.
Enter “The Suicide Squad.”
James Gunn embraced his Troma Entertainment schlock background and cherrypicked the best elements of his “Guardians of the Galaxy” films to craft the most entertaining DC comics film since “Man of Steel.” That may be faint praise on the surface, but this is an entertaining 130 minutes featuring some of the most creative action and characterization in a modern comic book film.
“The Suicide Squad” serves as a sequel to David Ayer’s “Suicide Squad,” which was panned in 2016. The name is a bit unfortunate and could leave to people benign confused as to whether this is a sequel or a remake or something else entirely. A handful of characters — including Joel Kinnaman’s Col. Flagg and Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn — return, but the previous movie is not required watching. The story is completely standalone.
Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad” embraces the director’s schlock theater history. It treats violence and gore with childlike glee. The lunacy of a band of colorful supervillains equipped with explosive devices in their heads performing clandestine operations is embraced, rather than shied away from, as in the 2016 film. There’s a certain underlying irony of relying on the worst of the worst to save the world, and the movie revels in it.
Will Smith’s Deadshot is replaced as leader of Task Force X. In his place is Idris Elba’s Bloodsport. It’s hard not to draw parallels between the two characters and their characterization in the film — though, Bloodsport has many more memorable action sequences, thanks to Gunn’s creative vision.
Elba — and his character — is almost shown up by John Cena and his Peacemaker persona. The colorful character looks like he stepped straight out of the pages of a Silver Age comic book — a far cry from the bland, colorless “heroes” of the original flick. Dressed in red, blue and yellow with a bright polished silver helmet on his head, Peacemaker looks like a joke, but is far from it. Cena’s channels a mix of extreme intensity and earnestness in his performance of a hero that desires peace so much, he’s willing to kill men, women and children gruesomely in order to achieve it.
A movie about supervillains could easily reveal in its nihilism, but the one-two punch of Daniela Melchior’s Ratcatcher 2 and David Dastmalchian’s Polka-Dot Man provide the heart of the film, despite being ridiculous villains. One controls rats, the other channels an interdimensional virus that creates polka-dots that can destroy anything they touch. Again, these are some of the most ridiculous and stupid villains in DC Comics lore, but Gunn commits to the characters as real people and it works.
Gunn forsakes the save-the-world tropes for a more intimate story that delves into uncomfortable political history. Some of the story beats are surprisingly biting in their political commentary and might initially seem out of place for a superhero film, but work here — even if the third act devolves into a CG battle against an alien starfish. But as a DC Comics fan, it’s amazing to see Starro’s uncompromised vision on screen.
For a movie marketed on the expendability of every on-screen character, it’s still slightly disheartening to see the core cast enjoy some heavy plot armor. There are some surprising deaths, but after one key sequence, that idea of “everyone can die” is thrown out the window faster than the last few seasons of “Game of Thrones.”
“The Suicide Squad” movie balances its over-the-top violence and carnage with a story with a surprising amount of heart. It pulls some of the same heart strings as the “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies about a group of unlikable rogues trying to do the right thing. But that same tone and approach works for “The Suicide Squad.”
“The Suicide Squad” is in theaters now and available at no extra charge for HBO Max subscribers.
Josh Rouse lives in Lawton and writes a weekly column.
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