Movie Review : The Suicide Squad (2021)
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Warner Brothers has a history of being Disney’s edgy, envious little brother when it comes to superhero movies. They obviously target an older, savvier audience than their competitors but also target similar revenue, which makes for a string of unfortunate and unhealthy decisions. One of them being David Ayer’s 2016 Suicide Squad, a film so hacked up by reshoots and general studio intervention, it looked like halves f different movies taped together.
The upside of making bad superhero movies is that no one wants to remember them. That’s why Warner Brothers decided to… kind of reboot Suicide Squad merely five years after the first one *. The Suicide Squad is technically a sequel, but it has little to do with the first one. Oh and it’s directed by James Gunn. JAMES GUNN! The Guardians of the Galaxy guy. That can’t fail, right? I’m here to tell you it kind of did. But it’s a better failure than the last one.
The Suicide Squad picks up in the middle of a mission. We’re ushered through a quick recruitment scene that begins while the credits still roll and sent directly to the fiction island of Corto Maltese. After the government was overthrown by an anti-American regime, ruthless government operative Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), death wish pixie girl Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and the squad are tasked with destroying a Nazi-era laboratory that harbors (not so) secret experiments.
It’s James Gunn alright, but it’s not a movie
I didn’t like The Suicide Squad, but I didn’t hate it either. It’s very technically proficient at hitting all the expected beats at the right time and delivering the witty, banter-y character interaction Warner Brothers thinks we desperately crave, but it’s barely a movie. The Suicide Squad is more like a string of well-crafted, expansive action scenes that Harley Quinn and a bunch people she barely knows happen to banter to banter their merry way through.
It’s high on quips, guns and explosions, but low on decent reasons why you should care about these characters and before you tell me these are unnecessary, they’re not. I can’t even tell you the name of Idris Elba and John Cena’s characters without researching them first. They’re basically the same guy too. I know it’s supposed to be part of the joke and that Elba’s Bloodsport was chosen for his leadership skills, but its too subtle of a joke for sure an unsubtle movie.
Don’t get me started about Harley Quinn too. I know you’re supposed to root for her because she’s this badass don’t-give-a-fuck feminist icon, but she’s basically the female empowerment version of your Monster-chugging cousin Kyle in this movie. The whole point of her character in DCEU is to leave her abusive relationship to Joker and she doesn’t have that to fall on. She just Leroy Jenkins her way through scenes suffering barely from a bloody nose.
Cinema is supposed to be a narrative and immersive art form. It is supposed to make you inhabit different worlds and, to a certain extent, different selves. The great majority of big budget movies succeed at that. Even when it’s going through the motions, the worst Marvel movie gives you proper narrative and emotional context for their character. James Gunn is usually quite good at this, but he obviously didn’t give a fuck for The Suicide Squad.
The character you end up caring the most about is shell shocked Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian) and his mommy issues even if he’s supposed to be a joke. Don’t get me started on that mutant shark guy who’s obviously an attempt to cash-in on residual sympathy for Drax and Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy.
Ben, do you hate fun?
No, I don’t and this movie isn’t technically bad. It’s just cheap and unmemorable. It has no lasting power and gives you little to no reasons to see it again. In six months, you’re only going to remember is at the movie where Margot Robbie and John Cena fought a giant Starfish. Even the baddies are cheap. They wouldn’t be as nearly as dislikable if they didn’t borrow historical dislikability from the Nazis by operating one of their old laboratories.
Is this actually worse than the first Suicide Squad? Probably not, but it’s also a lot less ambitious and creatively unambitious movies are boring the shit out of me. Especially when they have insane financial ambition. The Suicide Squad operates on perceived value. It makes you feel like you SHOULD like it because it’s from a director that you know is witty and creative, but it’s not. Don’t be fooled. Don’t buy the Kool-Aid and don’t pay theater money for it.
5.9/10
* In case you’re wondering, it’s the second quickest reboot in superhero history. The first belong to Marvel’s second Spider-Man reboot, from Andrew Garfield to Tom Holland: three years.
