The Suicide Squad Review
Credit to: Warner Bros. Entertainment and DC EntertainmentFinally, A good Suicide Squad Movie
Hey, y’all! Welcome back to The Wolf Den! Today, we’re gonna be doing a good old fashioned movie review for DC’s latest live action film, The Suicide Squad, directed by James Gunn, probably one of the most talented film directors of all time in my opinion. Just like always with these types of reviews, we’ll have a section dedicated to pros, a section dedicated to cons, and then we’ll wrap it all up with a final thoughts section and my overall rating for the movie. Remember, if you haven’t watched this movie, try not to get too attached with all of the characters, because some will die. That’s even in the marketing for this movie, so be careful before you like a character too much. I’m super excited to talk about this one, so let’s not waste any more time. Let’s just jump right into it.
Pros
Everything. The end. Just kidding. But seriously? This movie was absolutely phenomenal. The first pro for me, is definitely the dynamic between all of the characters. We see James Gunn work his magic very well here, implementing characters who are very much so considered to be the lesser known characters of DC, and he pairs them with more recognizable names like Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, and King Shark. I have plenty to say on King Shark, my favorite character in this movie, but I’ll give that a moment. All of these unique characters have really funny moments where they exchange dialogue between each other, but it doesn’t exactly overwhelm the film. The characters who dislike each other, dislike each other in a way that enhances the comedy of this movie, and the humor for this movie is another pro, but I’ll talk about that in the next part. We see characters here who we know and don’t know too well, interact with each other in a manner that feels so natural. Some characters either dislike each other or are grossed out by another character’s abilities, which in this movie’s case, is extremely natural, because there’s certain characters who absolutely make you want to vomit with their weird abilities. Over the course of this movie, we see bonds develop even under the circumstances, which is to complete a suicidal mission or have your head blown off with an implanted bomb. These bonds and eventual friendships make you forget about the fact that each character is forced to be there, which is really cool, because in the previous Suicide Squad film, that movie had a major issue with constantly reminding the audience that these characters have bombs. Here, the bombs are only mentioned when necessary, and it doesn’t overwhelm this movie. I feel that over the course of time in this film, even the characters themselves forgot about the bombs, because they all were so focused on keeping each other alive and safe from the environment around them. That, or they were too busy disliking each other. Lovely dynamic with these lovely characters, and I hope we see them return some time.
Now, the humor. James Gunn takes the R rating of this movie, and uses it to perfection. It’s violent, it’s raunchy, but mostly, it’s got a bunch of dark humor. It does have plenty of lighthearted humor too of course, but man, this movie was hilarious in times that these characters shouldn’t be cracking jokes. That definitely isn’t a con, because as I said before, the level of funny doesn’t overwhelm this movie. Actually, the comedy flows very naturally, and almost all of the jokes were very well scripted. King Shark specifically is a perfect example of this. We don’t get a whole lot of him, but when we do, it’s absolutely amazing. He’s such an adorable character, but he’s also very scary when he wants to be. He’s the perfect example of this movie’s humor, since he’s used as a character that’s full of lighthearted and dark humor. He’s not exactly all there, and he doesn’t really understand certain things, but that doesn’t stop characters like Ratcatcher 2 from befriending him and loving him. He’s dangerous, he’s cute, he’s scary, he’s cuddly. He really was one of the top highlights of this movie. I also have to admit, Harley Quinn was used very well in this film. Margot Robbie is an amazing actress, but in my opinion, the previous Suicide Squad movie and her Birds of Prey movie tried way too hard to make her funny. She is still a little too annoying here, but I’ll get into that later. This film definitely did her justice for the most part, and I was so glad to see this character do this good. I was infatuated with basically every character because they’re all so unique and funny in their own way, and I really loved them all for as long as they were here.
Next and final pro for me is the story itself. The plot is so weird, but in a really good way. They bring an age old DC comics character back, an intergalactic starfish alien named Starro, or Starro the Conqueror, or Patrick Star- just kidding, bad joke. Anyways, this movie manages to bring in such an odd villain for the Suicide Squad to have to deal with, and I love it. With that good old R rating, Starro is used to literal perfection. The amount of gore and bloodshed the moment this character is unleashed is absolutely wild, and I feared for King Shark’s- I mean the team’s lives. I loved the way they combined the Starro plot with another plot, which is to help freedom fighters take down their villainous leaders on the fictional island of Corto Maltese. The story is played out very well, and the plot is super easy for anyone to follow. This is gonna be a short section, because all I can say without spoiling much is that his movie is honestly amazing. Actually, it might be one of my top favorite DC films in the DCEU. I love the story, I love the characters involved in it, and I loved this movie.
Cons
Honestly, I really don’t have an issue with this film. The only thing that I can really think of, is that Harley at times got a little too annoying, and when the movie had a few kinda bland jokes or humor, it was from her. Her character was great here, don’t get me wrong, but she sliiightly suffers in the comedy aspect. They did also kind of give her a bit too much plot armor, which is very apparent with a certain fight scene of hers where she absolutely should’ve gotten killed, but I do understand that it’s because she’s a fan favorite character. I love this character also, but that scene was a bit cringe-worthy when it comes to realism. Idris Elba’s character Bloodsport was fantastic, but there was also a moment where even he was also a bit too protected with plot armor. This really is the only con, which is the very slight plot armor issue, but other than that, this movie really doesn’t suffer at all with anything else. Is it not being a longer movie considered a con? Probably not, but I was so sad when it ended. Now here’s my final thoughts!
Final thoughts
James Gunn really knocked it out of the park with this film. It was just so good, and I found myself invested in it the entire time. Not once was I bored, and not once did I feel that it was too slow or too fast. This was a well-paced, well-written movie, with well-developed characters. There were moments that made me happy, moments that upset me (in a good way), moments that made me fear for a character’s well-being, moments that made me sad, and moments that were super sweet. If this movie gets a sequel, I will be a VERY happy man. This was genuinely an amazing film that really did so much better than the previous iteration. I really hope we get King Shark and Bloodsport again somehow. Would love to see Flash and the shark man interact, because I'm sure that would be hilarious. But what did you all think? Did you watch it? If so, did you like it or dislike it? Let me know on my Twitter and Instagram! This has been The Wolf Den!
