The Suicide Squad

I was one of the few that didn’t mind the original Suicide Squad, but I concede it has a multitude of problems.  Namely, the fact that the studio got gun shy and decided to re-edit the movie with a trailer company to make it more like Guardians of the Galaxy.  As a result, you got a movie that was not the sum of its parts; it felt more like an assortment of music videos than an actual movie.  Its only saving grace to me was the charismatic performances of Will Smith and Margot Robbie. Fortunately, this soft reboot of The Suicide Squad is leaps and bounds better than its predecessor. For starters, it’s not afraid to make these characters criminals.  

Sure, they have flashes of humanity here and there, but these guys are a bunch of criminals and mercenaries. The most human character is Rat-catcher 2, who throughout the movie has a bond of sorts with Bloodsport.  It’s not a romantic relationship per se, it’s more of a surrogate father-daughter relationship which I thought was nice.  It gave the movie much-needed humanity in my book. Rat-catcher also gets a nice moment during the culmination of the big battle with Starro.  I also like how unpredictable this movie is. You never know who’s going to die from one moment to the next. 

For example, Harley Quinn has a certain dalliance with a Corto Maltese President that plays not the way you think it would.  It’s not a perfect movie by any means. It suffers from maybe too many characters and subplots, and there’s some spotty CGI here and there, but it has a certain irreverent charm that I like in a blockbuster.  This is Troma James Gunn, not Disney James Gunn, so be prepared for a lot of gore and sci-fi weirdness that you wouldn’t expect from a mainstream movie.  I got the sense that Warner Media left James Gunn alone and allowed him to make a 185 million big-budget Grindhouse movie.  If it were not for the success of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, I don’t think that would have happened.  So count your lucky stars that a movie as audacious as this got made.  

For example, Harley Quinn has a certain dalliance with a Corto Maltese President that plays not the way you think it would.  It’s not a perfect movie by any means.  It suffers from too many characters and subplots, and there’s some spotty CGI here and there, but it has a certain irreverent charm that I like in a blockbuster.  This Troma James Gunn not Disney James Gunn, so be prepared for a lot of gore and sci-fi weirdness that you wouldn’t expect from a mainstream movie.  I got the sense that Warner Media left James Gunn alone and allowed him to make a 185 million big-budget Grindhouse movie.  If it were not for the success of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, I don’t think that would have happened.  So count your lucky stars that a movie as audacious as this got made.