The Suicide Squad
Written by Cameron Geiser
It’s not often that a film as poorly received as the first Suicide Squad movie gets the sequel treatment with a follow-up film that’s as infinitely superior as this effort. This film was written and directed by James Gunn, the resident family-of-oddities filmmaker from Marvel Studios that made Guardians of The Galaxy a household name. If you’re at all familiar with Gunn’s work, it’s clear he was given carte blanche to do with these characters as he pleased. The result is a highly entertaining, down and dirty, hyper violent, and weird character piece that somehow maintains moments of childlike wonder, nihilistic carnage, and a pinch of heart. I couldn’t do justice to every character that appears in the film: there’s simply too many of them. However, as an ever-changing ensemble, the film uses each character enough to layer out the themes as well as the humor; though, let’s be honest, some of these people have to die- and die they do. Fret not seekers of bloody mayhem, the film relishes in these moments and utilizes death in a myriad of ways.
I have to say for a film about a bunch of mean and crass super-villain prisoners being sent off to do the government’s dirty work- I never expected a scene in the third act to have it’s own weird version of a “Disney” moment, but it does. The heart of the film rests mostly on the shoulders of Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior) and Bloodsport (Idris Elba). Each has their own end of a father-daughter relationship that informs some of the strongest emotional work in the film. Though hardly a stand-in for Will Smith’s Deadshot from the first film, Idris Elba’s Bloodsport is more believably villainous, and he’s meaner. In fact all of the major characters do feel as though each has more to say and do in this film. Peacemaker (John Cena) is a bit of a scene stealer. He’s got good lines, he’s obviously ridiculous, and utilized extremely well when pitted with and against Elba’s Bloodsport. Both members of the squad have the same set of skills and are therefore competitive throughout the film, constantly mean-mugging each other while showing off. In fact that’s one of the smartest parts of this film, the characters of the squad are paired with, and against, each other in more substantial ways that build the narrative.
Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), for example, was an inspired choice to include. They took a strange character and leaned into the weirdness of a man that can expel Polka Dots at his adversaries. What would that do to a man’s mind? There’s also a lumbering CGI character called King Shark voiced by Sylvester Stallone who has a Groot-like persona. He’s got a bigger vocabulary and far more violent than Groot, but he works well to balance out the field. There are several returning characters from the first film, Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), and the true villain of the series- Amanda Waller (Viola Davis). The only character that feels oddly out of place in a few moments is Harley Quinn. Some of her scenes are pitch perfect and feel like the best representation of the character in live-action to date- and others feel a bit at odds with the rest of the story. Perhaps it’s just me, but the tonal shift and pacing felt off with a few beats, nothing wrong with Robbie’s performance, it almost felt as if the film didn’t know what to do with Quinn. It’s a small and ultimately trivial nitpick, but here we are.
For the most part, The Suicide Squad is a vastly superior film to its predecessor.
On the filmmaking side of things, the movie has a great look about it. Gunn re-teams with his Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 cinematographer Henry Braham, and it’s immediately noticeable. The lighting and framing isn’t groundbreaking, but it’s well done and it looks great. There’s some really clever camera-work sprinkled throughout the film as well. There’s one beat where a fight scene is shown only in the reflection of Peacemaker’s chrome helmet as it lay discarded on the ground while the camera swivels around it, that’s good stuff. All of the title cards used over the course of the runtime were also notably inventive and clever. Some were practically hand made, others more digitally rendered, but with the same core of creative flair. The film looks and sounds quite good, but the special effects used to bring some characters to life, such as King Shark or Weasel (Sean Gunn), are excellently rendered and add to the visual smorgasbord that is this film.
As far as the actual story elements at hand, The Suicide Squad does have a rebellious nature when reflecting on the nature of their mission. Being sent to a tropical island Nation at the behest of the US government to cover up some dastardly mad-science from the cold war era comes with the territory, but the film does have something to say about how society treats it’s lowliest members. It’s nothing truly profound, but it was nice that the film had something to say at all. I can’t say the same for the first one.
Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.