The Suicide Squad review: a DC movie tied to a Marvel implosion

In July 2018, one year after the success of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, James Gunn lost his job at Marvel. The former shock-horror provocateur, who adapted his lessons from the transgressor Troma Entertainment for mainstream endeavors such as Slide Y Super, became the target of right-wing trolls from which old offensive jokes came to light, some of which date back a decade. Disney, bowing to outrage in bad faith, severed ties with him. Then a year later, after his colleagues joined in and clarity settled in, he got the job back. But in the meantime, he began to work on what would become Suicide squad.

I like 2016 without articles Suicide squad movie, Suicide squad is a film about imprisoned DC Comics supervillains forced by the government to join Task Force X, a secret division that sends its recruits on dangerous black ops missions that are mostly expected to fail. Members of Task Force X are lured into service through blackmail or the promise of a reduced sentence, and are kept in line with explosives implanted in their necks. The best version of a Suicide Squad story is often a meditation on what it means to be completely expendable, and perhaps irredeemable in the eyes of society. In the world of Hollywood blockbusters, where just about anything is allowed as long as profits and acclaim follow, James Gunn is a rare case: a high-profile man who, when confronted in bad faith for past indiscretions, it still expresses regret for that past. , Y had a track record that seemed to demonstrate a sincere desire to change. To do this, the filmmaker has returned to making studio poles largely uncontroversial.

This makes Gunn’s interpretation of Suicide squad, which he wrote and directed, doubly interesting. The real-world resonance between the story being told and the person guiding its narration adds another layer of potential richness. Gunn, for a time, was especially aware of how expendable he was. Y Suicide squad it focuses entirely on the notions of expendability. It’s also violent, wickedly comical, and despite pacing issues, an impressive, effects-driven show.

The film centers on a single mission set in the fictional island nation of Corto Maltese. A military coup on the island has led to the installation of an anti-American government, which now has control of a still-active Nazi-era research facility that is home to something called Project Starfish. The US government, concerned about what the facility may contain, authorizes Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) to send Task Force X to blow it up.

This iteration of Task Force X is, frankly, huge, mostly to accommodate the high death toll. Suicide squadIt demands the premise. Without suggesting who survives and for how long, Gunn has assembled a hilarious array of decently known villains including Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), King Shark / Nanaue (played by Steve Agee, voiced by Sylvester Stallone) and Captain Boomerang (Jai ). Courtney), along with dark selections like Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian) and Weasel (Sean Gunn). They all cleverly unfold, whether for purely comic reasons (an abrupt death), emotional reasons (a surprisingly moving scene), or both (a surprisingly moving scene immediately followed by an abrupt death).

It’s hardly worth mentioning how the new movie compares to the first. Suicide squad movie. Director David Ayer’s 2016 effort, while profitable, was reportedly also very compromised by studio interference, and that was shown on screen. Suicide squad maintains a blatant sense of plausible denial when it comes to continuity. It does not confirm or deny the events of the first film, from which several cast members are returning, and it does not address their status in the wider DC Extended Universe of cinema. Refreshing, like most post-League of Justice DC Movies is designed as a standalone movie that is tonally unique from its siblings.

Gunn’s Suicide squad It features R-rated comic violence, but it also comes with an occasional visual flair: A fight scene is rendered through the reflection on a character’s helmet, the camera rotating around them to follow the fighters around the room. There are some particularly dazzling images, like the eventual reveal of what’s behind the curtain in Project Starfish. But at 132 minutes, Suicide squad it has too much space between impressive settings, character beats and comedic moments, considering the ostensible focus of a plot that is effectively summed up as “Get in, get out, fuck off.” The movie crawls, even if what’s out there is fun as hell.

Very similar Guardians of the Galaxy, Suicide squad he’s exceptionally good at mismatching and gelling them thanks to his script strength and well-calibrated performances. (And as a second chance for the same set of DC characters, it’s a miracle.) Idris Elba’s Bloodsport is likable but also impressively mean, a remarkably sharp improvement on Will Smith’s almost noble version of Deadshot from the first film. John Cena’s Peacemaker is one of the best box office performances yet from the wrestler-turned-actor, with a hilariously steely charisma that makes his F9 even more disappointing role in hindsight. Returning players like Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn continue to deliver, and Joel Kinnaman’s Colonel Rick Flag has been remarkably tweaked to be much sportier than he was in the first round.

There are too many characters in Suicide squad to give them everything they deserve here, but perhaps the best collective praise the set gets is also simple: it’s a movie in which most of the characters involved can be credibly someone’s favorites. It’s not all thanks to the jokes and discussions, either: the action sets are large and evenly distributed among squadmates, and while there are plenty of visual effects involved, an impressive amount of them seem to be built around real people doing real stuff. doing Suicide squad a rare action blockbuster. Along with Gunn’s fondness for cheeky needle drops on his nose (the film’s opening prison scene is set in Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues”), a haunting cartoon monster design, and a soundtrack from the composer John Murphy. , When Suicide squad he gets into motion, the only thing that matters is we’re about to see some guys wrecked.

Comparing Suicide squad to Guardians of the Galaxy It’s a bit hard to avoid, especially since Gunn has such a well-defined sensibility that he has now been applied to make public pleasures unlikely in two mega-franchises in competing studios. In general, as stated above, the comparison is favorable, but other times it is not. Suicide squad he’s at his best when he’s doing things Marvel Studios won’t: R-rated action comedy, settings that prioritize artists over computer effects, and a story that’s not afraid to gesture in real-world geopolitical conflict. . It’s at its weakest when it embraces a Marvel-style ending, filing down its rough edges to offer a sentimental finish that leaves the status quo more or less intact for potential future projects.

Given the sheer number of superhero adaptations in film and television, it may seem creatively ruined to give a franchise another shot where the last film, while profitable, was pretty universally vilified. All movies must present a plot to get the viewer’s attention, and a franchise revamp isn’t terribly compelling. However, as Suicide squad Going into his final act, Gunn gives his violent antics surprising weight as his film recognizes the charged images he’s playing with. Suicide squad contemplate the horror of treating lives, however irredeemable, as expendable. It extends that horror to the real-world parallels of its plot, which treats a people, a nation, as expendable, recalling decades of secret and not-so-secret US meddling in the affairs of Latin American nations. It builds on the ugliness of Task Force X, where the prison system makes the very premise of the movie happen even without much justification in the first place.

Later Suicide squad Turn up the volume and let the credits roll without saying much more, choosing to center her climax on a character who feels good about irredeemable outcasts learning her worth rather than questioning the more structural ideas she raises throughout. It’s satisfying enough, but it also feels like an escape, one that leaves enough room for a sequel to do it all again, for the same purposes. It’s the unique catch of a franchise like Suicide Squad: just like other superhero movies requiring audiences to agree to dress up as a vigilante bat is an acceptable response to trauma, Suicide Squad will always be about immoral people caught in immoral game, using villains. . to mock the villainy of the institutional powers that arm them.

In the open and endless realm of comics, going back to this well again and again is the nature of the beast, repetition and reinvention are the value and trade of a serial medium. In the movies, however, where closure is expected, it’s just another reminder that in 2021, the one thing that can’t be done without is intellectual property. Suicide squad possibly it would have happened without James Gunn. The film he was able to write and direct feels like the satisfying product of a man grateful for doing it, and not like a bold and potentially alienating vision from someone aware that they may not have another chance.