This recently dropped onto streaming services, so I thought I’d share a review I wrote when it was first released. I’m an Everyman snob, by the way, I only go to the cinema nowadays if I can sit on a sofa, drink beer and eat pizza. Worth every damn penny.
Disclaimer: I’m not a comics book guy. I used to read old war comics and 2000AD in the 70s and 80s, and like your average pop culture nerd I’ve read the Batman ‘Dark Knight’ graphic novels (I know the term graphic novel brings some people out in hives, but it troubles me not) and ‘Watchmen’, but that’s about it. Oh, and Tank Girl. I love Tank Girl. A punkish young woman has wacky adventures in a post-apocalyptic Australia with her Sherman tank and a randy kangaroo. What’s not to love?
My point being, I’m not bothered about the canonical purity of cinema adaptations of superhero stories. Dammit, my favourite superhero franchise is ‘The Boys’. Therefore I experience superhero movies purely on their own merits as entertainment. Bear that in mind when reading my review - I genuinely don’t care about Marvel-versus-DC or any of that folderol. I am, however, interested in the business of entertainment. If you are too, you probably already know about ‘The Suicide Squad’ – being the adventures of a team of Z-list supervillains coerced into a secret black ops outfit. David Ayer directed more or less the same movie in 2016.
That movie was meh. It wasn’t bad per se, but it wasn’t great. A shame, because David Ayer, right?
So they remade it with ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ director James Gunn. Gunn was on a forced sabbatical from Marvel due to an internet cancelling / spat about some ancient online joke (are you as tired of this shit as I am?) so did a Bosman across to DC. Yes, we’re at the point where major Hollywood studios like Warner Bros can take a movie that didn’t work and say… fuck it, just make another one.
Not a sequel. Not a prequel. Not even a ‘re-imagining.’
Nope, an entirely new movie, with exactly the same ingredients. It’s like a Jamie Oliver recipe versus a Gordon Ramsay recipe of the same dish. This isn’t a criticism – ‘The Suicide Squad’ is tremendous fun – but it’s interesting. I look forward to other movies that could-have-done-better to get similar treatment. I’m sure you can think of dozens of movies that could have been great… if only.
Anyhow, onto the new and improved Suicide Squad, which has the advantage of not featuring Cara Delevingne or Jared Leto. And it pains me to say it, Will Smith, of whom I’m usually a fan (award ceremony violence notwithstanding). Smith took himself terribly seriously as super-assassin Deadshot, allegedly getting too involved behind the scenes during the first movie.
And seriousness, or a complete lack of it, is where James Gunn nails ‘The Suicide Squad’. Riding on the coattails of ‘Deadpool’ and ‘The Boys’, franchises that celebrate the intrinsic silliness of superheroes, Gunn reimagines Suicide Squad as a hyperviolent, gonzo, action-comedy. For starters, the supervillains aren’t super. In fact, most of them are crap. TDK, (The Detachable Kid), has the ability to make his arms fly off like a broken action figure. The Javelin has, er, a javelin (possibly a riff on William H. Macy’s ‘Shoveller’ from 1999’s ‘Mystery Men’, another superhero comedy). And ‘Weasel’ is just a creepy-looking weasel with googly Steve Buscemi eyes. Sent on a suicide mission, they’re fed into a meatgrinder beach assault that plays like a spoof of ‘Saving Private Ryan’ with spandex.
Talking of war movies, Gunn says he was inspired by ‘The Dirty Dozen’, ‘Kelly’s Heroes’ and ‘Where Eagles Dare’. He’s of my generation and these movies are part of our shared cultural source code… yet I don’t really see it. Apart from, of course, The Dirty Dozen where convicts are sent on a behind-the-lines suicide mission. But the Dirty Dozen is relentlessly nihilistic, not goofy, so I’d say The Suicide Squad has more of a Kelly’s Heroes vibe. Sadly, there are no tanks. Maybe in the sequel.
The core supervillains of the team, however, aren’t crap. There’s Bloodsport (Idris Elba, the 21st Century’s Michael Caine, playing the part like Idris Elba with a hangover), Peacemaker (John Cena, playing the part for ‘Team America’ style laughs), Polka Dot man (David Dastmalchian, who you want to hug) and Rat Catcher 2 (Daniela Melchior - ditto). Oh, and King Shark, a hulking bipedal shark monster (voiced by Sylvester Stallone – at any moment you expect him to cry ‘Adrienne!’). Inevitably, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) appears, as does Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), the army guy meant to be in charge. Meanwhile, back at headquarters, the ruthless Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) tries to keep her wayward operatives on track, despite her goofy ops room team. The childish backroom staff’s antics are a nod to Joss Weedon’s douchebag crew in ‘Cabin in the Woods’, which I won’t spoil here – but the vibe is similar.
The plot is pretty much irrelevant; the team go to a central American island to destroy a top secret weapons program. Harley Quinn gets romantically involved with a despotic General, leading to an ingenious Disney-esque action sequence showing what’s going on inside the psychotic supervillain’s head. And, in a loving nod to ‘Predator,’ Peacemaker and Bloodsport silently assassinate rebels in a jungle camp, competing to see who can be most deadly. And Polka Dot man – who suffers from serious Mummy Issues – kills people by firing a multicoloured spray of what look like M&Ms… until they turn into plasma. King Shark simply rips people to shreds for ‘nom-noms’ (he’s always hungry) and Rat Catcher 2 has the power to summon hordes of hungry rodents. The team bond as they rampage across the island, finally intercepting an evil genius known ‘The Thinker’ (played by Peter Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker, but with a shitload of sparkplugs sticking out of his head).
Oh, and there’s a giant intergalactic starfish called ‘Starro the Conqueror’. Starro is more or less the Marshmallow Man from ‘Ghostbusters’ but gorier, with Gunn going to town by giving us a breathtakingly fun final battle / action sequence that’s every bit as satisfying - if not more - as something you might find in one of the better ‘Avengers’ movies.
All in all? A solid 8/10 for me. If you’re a comics geek, maybe not. Still, in a world of genuinely crappy superhero movies, The Suicide Squad sticks out as one that isn’t. And in todays homogenised, social-justice obsessed Hollywood, maybe that’s the best we can hope for until the wheel turns again.
Personally? I’m a Gen X man at heart. I want to see a Tarantino superhero movie.