“The Suicide Squad” (2021) Review
Written by Victor DeBonis
I have the utmost respect for filmmakers who want to bring or do something different with mainstream movies and excel in so many ways. Enter the gifted and delightfully chaotic talent and vision of writer/director James Gunn and his sequel to 2016’s “Suicide Squad.” This movie breaks so far beyond what one usually comes to find from a comic-book movie, and it runs full-force and with great fury without hesitation. It’s ferociously violent, it’s wickedly funny, and it’s still loaded with plenty of hints of charm and some surprisingly emotional nuance that allow the audience to care for its fiends, regardless of the devious acts that they commit in the movie.
Make no mistake when I tell you how brutally violent this movie is. It might be the bloodiest comic-book movie that I’ve seen in a very long time, and, while I found this movie to be great, I wouldn’t advise anyone who’s squeamish to view it. Targets are taken out in manners that are equally cartoonish and shocking (almost similar to something that one would find from a Tarantino film but taken to a bloodier and almost exploitative way), and I was legitimately slapping my hand across my mouth in my astonishment when one of them was eradicated, sometimes muffling a mix of laughter and shock. Yet, through all of the madness, almost every action scene is presented with tight editing and great timing that allows the audience to absorb the equally furious and hilarious ways in which the supervillains take out their opponents. James Gunn is always a filmmaker who knows the importance of allowing a great action scene to sink in, and that especially shows in this movie.
It should also be mentioned that the amount of death in this movie, as well as who dies, is rather surprising, too. Without spoiling anything, many of us have seen the advertisements, and we’re familiar with certain names that we may expect to survive. So, just brace yourself for having certain expectations for hopeful survivals slashed as the movie goes on. Yet, I digress…
What also helps the action and momentum in this movie is the fierce soundtrack that blares in the background. A solid mix of ‘60’s and 70’s rock tunes roars that matches well with the chaos, and it blends well with the completely care-free demeanor of the characters and the movie itself. And, it never feels as thought it’s trying to draw attention itself or try to be cool. It fits perfectly with the rawness of everything from the dark humor to the unsettling vibe of whether one of these super-villains will try to take out the other.
In fact, the sheer appearance of the movie has an uncompromising feel to it as well. Plenty of light-yellow and light-blue colors streak across hidden nightclubs and shadowy, tropical areas that cloak the film in a gritty environment from head to toe. Between the grim, dark appearance and the number of deaths that stack up fast through the movie, “The Suicide Squad” contains the feel of a gritty war film from the 70’s (ie: “The Dirty Dozen”), and, as a result, it has a harsher and more daring presence than one would come to expect from a more mainstream comic book movie. This movie excels even further as a result.
On top of that, the actors work phenomenally in this movie, too, and have some great interactions with each other. Despite doing a number of obscene acts in this movie, Idris Elba still brings the humanity and seriousness that makes me happy to see him in any project that he’s involved in. In a way that’s similar to how Vin Diesel voices an amusing creature who’s not good at English in the “Guardians” movies, Sylvester Stallone excels at voicing the often unaware yet still amusing King Shark. Stallone evokes a playful, almost child-like enthusiasm with each word that his character struggles to learn, and it brought more heart to this charmingly dimwitted concoction.
Margot Robbie once again knocks it out of the park as Harley Quinn, and, similar to “Birds of Prey” she brings a grin with how much she loses herself to her own delightfully demented world while still delivering brutal blows wherever she may go. In fact, during one of my favorite scenes in the movie, Robbie expresses a sense of raw brokenness that goes to show that, even through her villainous nature, she’s not a heartless creature, and she has that hint of complexity that makes her all the more fascinating to watch in every scene involving her.
After being involved in a string of less-than-stellar movies, John Cena finally gets a chance to shine with some hilarious writing as Peacemaker. His confident stupidity and straightforward I-could-care-less attitude provided some of the biggest laughs. It amazes me how boldly dumb he is when he makes his kills and delivers the lines that he does, and it was rather amusing. Daniela Melchior plays someone who is probably my favorite character in the movie, Cleo Cazo or Ratcatcher 2, and her ability to control all of these rats and her own vulnerability and attempt to show kindness within a group of misfit villains helped establish her as the “heart” of the movie in ways that stood with me. There’s something to be said with her character and how animals or certain parts about one’s past can play a big reason into how some people turn out as they do, and, without saying anything else, there are scenes with her that tap into that belief, and it plays a part in further establishing her as one of my favorite new characters that I’ve seen in a movie this year.
Their interactions with each other are fantastic, and they have some incredibly funny insults as well as some bleakly comedic remarks that stand well with their character and heighten the dark humor of this movie to a great level. I wasn’t a fan of the previous “Suicide Squad” movie for many reasons (The editing was terrible, and it had the unpleasant look and feel of a studio trying too hard to salvage something after the disaster of “Batman V. Superman.”), and one of the main reasons that I couldn’t get into it was that I felt that these supervillains didn’t have very unique or interesting interactions with each other.
In Gunn’s movie, these supervillains have plenty of humorous lines and even some humane moments that are traded with each other and illustrate how interesting they are as they work off of each other or even try to take the other down. These characters can be pathetic and dumb and even downright awful in some of the acts that they do, but you never end up hating them to the point that it hurts the movie. Each one is either darkly amusing or vulnerable or charming enough to make you want to see more what will happen with them.
And, once more, Gunn proves why he is one of my personal favorite filmmakers working with blockbuster movies, right now. Similar to Tim Burton (particularly, his work in the 80’s and early 90’s), he knows how to tell a good outcast story. He has a strong sense of the lost feelings and battle of finding connection or better peace that many outcasts often face and the aching heart that fights from many who have either felt alone or are searching for better meaning to their uncertain lives.
And, for all of the violent and awful acts that these supervillains commit, for all of the stupidity and self-centered demeanor that they can display, many of them are still presented as lost oddballs that the world rejects. They’re rejected for obviously understandable reasons, and this is not to say that we agree with most of what they do, but there are moments in this movie that dive into some of their dark pasts and how they ended up as messed up as they are. These villains aren’t just mustache-twirling fiends with one goal to satisfy them and nothing else. Many of them have motivations and fears. They have meaningful ties that mean everything to them, and it shows in both emotionally considerate and sometimes even hilarious ways.
And, that’s another reason that I heavily admire Gunn as a filmmaker. He knows how to make you care about his characters and bring some humanity to them. On the surface, that might seem like an obvious observation, but think about it for a moment. The “Guardians” movies are a few of my favorite entries in the MCU, but, when you stop to ponder it some more, those characters can be pretty selfish and dumb in several moments. If you were to take away much of the charm and reasons for why they feel and act as lost as they do, it’d be harder to see how you could root for them. Yet, Gunn still wrote them with difficult pasts and moments in which they’re willing to stop and share what they went through and what their dreams are and why they have the connections that they do.
This is especially hard to do with villains who are doing something to mainly lessen their imprisonment time. So, the fact that Gunn is still able to make you interested and even care for villains through an outcast perspective speaks volumes about how much he understands why vulnerability and motivation plays so prominently in making you care about his characters and story, crazy and ultra-violent as it may be.
Even the flaws in the movie don’t necessarily cause it to stumble that hard. Peter Capaldi as the main opponent of the movie is barely mentioned much, and one could argue that a little more time spent with him could’ve added more welcome craziness to this group of big-bad oddballs. Yet, he’s not given that much screen time to make that too big of an issue. Also, there’s a subplot that involves a small group that is trying to take down a corrupt government that doesn’t have too much focus to catch all of my attention or give great commentary, but, again, it doesn’t have too much focus for me to get that wound up about.
It’s been said in interviews that the studio granted James Gunn a large amount of creative freedom when making this movie. As we’ve seen in previous times, such as with the preceding DC film, “Wonder Woman 1984” that can result in backfiring to a shocking level. However, “The Suicide Squad” proves itself as an example of how that freedom can work to the story’s benefit. There is a huge sense that, as a whole, Gunn got to make the movie that he really wanted, and, having not only seen the “Guardians” movies but his horror films as well, I feel that all of the insanity, violence, humor, and heart that made his other works resonate as well as they did is on full-display here, and I’m quite satisfied with it all.
The action is delightfully chaotic and aggressive and makes no apologies for it. Both the great actors and the writing turn these villains into characters that you are interested in finding out what happens next with them but also connect to the outcast nature of them and gives you an understanding of what makes them vulnerable or human as they are. It has the right amount of violence, humor, and heart to help it resonate and bring a raw grittiness and unique voice that is right at home with its insane characters.
What a time!
Grade: A-