The Suicide Squad review: A gory, glorious and deranged DC delight – CNET [CNET]

HBO Max Aug. 5, The Suicide Squad of 2021 springs from the twisted taste of James Gunn. His Guardians of the Galaxy movies injected weirdo sci-fi and a hefty dose of humor into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but when old tweets got him into hot water at Marvel, rival comic conglomerate DC snapped him up to revitalize another oddball ensemble: the neon-drenched, face-tattooed 2016 Suicide Squad movie misfire.

And DC’s Dirty Dozen suits Gunn even better than the MCU’s Guardians. Freed of Marvel’s family-friendly fetters, the man who began his career at B-movie trash palace Troma has found the perfect home for his gloriously bad-taste blend of gore and classic rock; ’80s action flicks and forgotten comics; and the most scurrilous of humor and foulest of language. This is a movie where the US government hires a shark that talks like Sylvester Stallone to tear people in half, and it is sick. It is sick as hell.

Like the first movie, the plot involves a bunch of comic book convicts with questionable superpowers being pressed into the service of black ops puppetmaster Amanda Waller, played with dead-eyed steel by Viola Davis. This time they’re infiltrating a South American island to take out a newly installed military junta and wipe out a mysterious superweapon. Curse-filled complications and insanely violent hi-jinx ensue.

One of the first movie’s biggest strengths was the casting, and the same is true here. Alongside Davis, Joel Kinnaman, Jai Courtney and Margot Robbie also return from the first film. After the anemic Birds of Prey, Robbie gets to deliver her most full-blooded turn as DC’s breakout star Harley Quinn, falling in love and machine-gunning henchmen in a torn frock and combat boots.

The newcomers include Idris Elba as exasperated hitman Bloodsport, combining natural leadership qualities with a foul-mouthed antiheroic streak. He’s locked in a pissing contest with John Cena’s patriotic psychotic Peacemaker, the pair clashing hilariously as they try and one-up each other in homicidal creativity. Cena is so good and so funny as the uptight Peacemaker (earning a spin-off series on HBO Max next year) he seems like an entirely different actor to the block of wood who fell off the screen with a dull thunk in this year’s Fast and Furious 9.

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In this nihilistic world, Gunn finds sympathy for the devils, inviting viewers to feel compassion and empathy for even the biggest rampaging monsters and goofiest comic book characters. The silliest and scariest are still just people (or walking sharks) with problems. 

So rat-chatting millennial Ratcatcher (touchingly played by Daniela Melchior) is invested with genuine hope and heartbreak. And Polka Dot Man’s very silly powers are reimagined as genuinely creepy body horror. David Dastmalchian brilliantly channels a tortured psychological torment that lends weight to the absurd character — while also setting up a truly nonsensical non-sequitur of a visual gag, of course.

Gunn is also wonderfully interested in the little people in the background. Even the most anonymous extras get little details sketched in to make them feel like a person, even if that detail is swiftly followed by a gory and horrifying death. The squad’s backroom staff of button-pushers are entertainingly fleshed out (for reasons that become clear by the credits) and even enjoy a spot of karmic revenge for their bosses’ rather harsh treatment of the support staff in the first film.

While it’s clearly a cut above the muddled mess of the original 2016 film directed by David Ayer, the sequel is far from a riposte or rejection. Version 2.0 highlights the weaknesses of the first film (which incidentally won an Oscar), but also makes it makes sense. 

Watching Gunn’s version you find yourself looking back on the original and thinking, ohhhh, so this is what they were trying to do. Ayer took heat for his shamelessly obvious wedding DJ needle drops, for example, but Gunn opens the film’s prison scenes with Johnny Cash singing Folsom Prison Blues. The film’s playlist isn’t as showy as Guardians of the Galaxy’s much-loved soundtracks, but provide yet another pleasure in this tour de force of trash.

The Suicide Squad is demented and delicious, heartfelt and horribly hilarious.