While Marvel’s cinematic universe has really changed the way big budget movies are made and released, their Distinguished Competition at Warner Brothers have struggled to do the same thing. By tying their iconic characters to the nihilistic vision of Zack Snyder, they slowly alienated larger swaths of their audience. It’s notable that their biggest superhero successes, “Wonder Woman” and “Aquaman,” shared little stylistic similarities to Snyder’s films. The third film in the DC Extended Universe, David Ayer’s “Suicide Squad,” awkwardly attempted to fuse Snyder’s grim-and-gritty style with a more light-hearted course correction. When combined with a jumbled screenplay and an obvious deluge of reshoots and re-edits, the result was a film that made 746 million dollars but was actually liked by few people. So it's unsurprising that Ayers' replacement, James Gunn – during his brief departure from the Marvel Universe – would disregard many of the first film's elements for his sequel. The result is "The Suicide Squad," an example of a tonally distinct film that both is and isn't a sequel.
Gunn maintains the general premise of the first film: Ruthless director Amanda Waller sends incarcerated supervillains on secret missions, promising them clemency if they survive. If. This time, Harley Quinn and supervising soldier Rick Flagg lead a team to Corto Maltese, an island nation whose dictatorship government has recently been overthrown by an anti-American military coup. The new government is in possession of a powerful secret weapon, which the Suicide Squad is tasked with destroying. Harley and Flagg's team is quickly massacred and meet up with a second team, led by assassin Bloodsport and hyper-nationalistic super-soldier Peacemaker. The quirky team of misfits soon discover the weapon is extraterrestrial in nature and their objective is not exactly what they've been told.
Though he's most well-known for his smart-assed but heartfelt "Guardians of the Galaxy" films, long time James Gunn fans know he got his start with Troma, those notorious New Jersey purveyors of gleefully trashy indie horror. "The Suicide Squad" harkens back to Gunn's roots. This big budget studio movie features many of the Troma trademarks. Such as over-the-top but distinctly mean-spirited violence, crude humor, and subversive if fuzzy social satire. Before the opening credits play, "The Suicide Squad" features two graphically exploding heads and a litany of explicit dismemberments. The movie relishes in its R-rated mayhem, with more splattering innards than you usually see in a corporate-owned superhero movie. The dialogue is often colorfully vulgar and there's some random full-frontal nudity. As in Troma, the messy execution of human life and the juvenile humor go hand-in-hand.
Combining such mean-spirited violence with a gooey moral about camaraderie probably shouldn't work. Yet Gunn finds an unexpected sincerity among all the death and sarcastic one-liners. As in the "Guardians'" films, many of the supervillains here are linked by parental issues. Bloodsport's dad was an abusive psychopath, training him to be a killer from the minute he was born. He's so screwed-up that he decides the best thing he can do for his own daughter is stay out of her life. Polka-Dot Man's powers are the direct result of his abusive scientist mother. The youngest member of the team, the rodent-controlling Ratcatcher 2, had a good relationship with her dad but he died of a drug overdose some time ago. The members of the team who don't have daddy issues are still longing for companionship. Harley Quinn is still trying to define herself beyond her abusive relationship with the Joker while King Shark, who is strangely child-like despite being a man-eating shark monster, has never had any friends before in his life. The film is smart enough to pause the carnage long enough to establish it actually cares about these characters and the loneliness that binds them.
Weirdly, I found the film's R-rated excess to be a detriment to it at times. As in multiple Troma productions and the Gunn-scripted "Belko Experiment," there's a real ugliness to the gore here. Unlike Gunn's "Super," which found meaning and catharsis in its bloodshed, too often the death here seems unnecessarily cruel. Meanwhile, the film's potty-mouthed dialogue isn't quite as funny as it should be. In a post-"Deadpool" world, there's not much novelty in seeing superheroes tell dick jokes and say "fuck." Honestly, I found myself wondering if the leash Gunn's family-friendly Disney masters strap on him isn't good for the director.
No matter how different Gunn's "Suicide Squad" is from David Ayer's, both films run into a similar problem: It's hard to build a smooth narrative around so many different characters. For a long stretch of the story, Harley Quinn is separated from the rest of the cast. She functions off in her own subplot, involving the president of Corto Maltese attempting to seduce her, that doesn't really connect with the rest of the movie for a long time. Supposedly, this subplot was even more extensive in earlier cuts of the movie, before the movie was trimmed down to a more reasonable runtime. Which seems to suggest “The Suicide Squad” was in the awkward position of functioning as both a team movie and as another one of WB's Harley Quinn spin-offs. Even after this subplot wraps up, Harley never quite feels like a member of the rest of the team.
Whether you're a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe or not, you can probably agree that the superhero franchise's political campus is indecisive at best. Even when it's criticizing the military industrial complex, it's still operating as propaganda for it. “The Suicide Squad” clearly takes a more decisive viewpoint on this subject... Up to a certain point. Peacemaker's status as a super-nationalistic American soldier, who would do absolutely anything for his country, criticizes the idea of American exceptionalism. As the story progresses, the Suicide Squad discovers their actual mission is to cover up evidence of American atrocities abroad. That's a pretty subversive perspective for a big budget superhero flick to take, admitting action heroes like this are just tools of American imperialism... Yet the film still kind of chickens out in the end, the protagonists' amoral nature allowing the script to stop just short of having the U.S. face actual consequences for its crimes.
Mostly, I found “The Suicide Squad” delightful because of the way it embraces the goofier corners of the DC Universe. Here's the truth: I love King Shark. The humanoid shark monster is an irresistible image. Across the comics and various adaptations, King Shark has been characterized as everything from a mindless killing machine, a tragic monster, a devious schemer, and a nerdy computer expert. In “The Suicide Squad,” King Shark becomes a lovable oaf with a murderous streak. He still gobbles people whole or tears mooks in two. Yet his largely monosyllabic dialogue reveals a child-like personality that mostly just longs for friendship. This idea is aided by the fantastic CGI, which emphasizes the shark monster's pudgy body and big, puppy-like eyes.
If King Shark is the M.V.P. of “The Suicide Squad,” its secret final boss proves to be an even more welcomed introduction. Starro is a seminal character in DC Comics history, being the first supervillain the Justice League would come together to fight. Yet I always assumed he was an unlikely candidate for a major motion picture appearance. Strictly because a giant starfish is kind of a silly visual. “The Suicide Squad” doesn't care about that though. Starro isn't just in the movie, he's actually goofier looking here than on the comic book page. The starfish/cosmic abomination is given a bright pink coloration and a huge, highly expressive eye. Despite his cartoonish appearance, the star conqueror is still suitably intimidating. A real sense of scale is granted to the monster, making him seem enormous. The distressing fleshiness of the creature is emphasized, making Starro a disquieting threat.
Somewhat inevitably, the newcomers come to dominate the film. Idris Elba's Bloodsport was a replacement for Will Smith's Deadshot, which is very obvious. The minor Superman villain gains several qualities associated with Deadshot, such as a daughter and his ability to turn any projectile into a deadly weapon. Yet Elba is still appealing in the part, showing a kind of gravelly vulnerability that I can't imagine Will Smith pulling off. John Cena can't quite make Peacemaker's sarcastic dialogue distinct but, as a single-minded sociopathic patriot, he's effectively chilling. If nothing else, Cena's casting twists his all-American pro-wrestling face image in a clever way. Relative newcomer Daniela Melchior, as the chronically sleepy Ratcatcher 2, is a true stand-out. She's so sincere and sweet in her motivations that it's hard to even consider her a villain. And it doesn't hurt that the film makes her team of hyper-capable rat companions as adorable as possible.
Gunn rounds out the cast with a colorful collection of largely comedic supporting characters. David Dastmalchian plays Polka-Dot Man as a deeply disturbed guy, a type of queasy humor arising from his oddball mannerisms. Yet he adds enough pathetic humanity to make the character genuinely likable despite his weirdness. Steve Agee appears as an increasingly neurotic office worker, while also doing the on-set mocap for King Shark. Sylvester Stallone provides King Shark's voice, providing a hilariously doofy voice for the child-like shark monster. The opening massacre features a number of amusing actors in bit parts. Nathan Fillion, Flula Borg, and Sean Gunn all show up as fantastically ridiculous characters, short-lived though they may be.
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