What's up? It's ya boi, crusty zombie guy who crawled his ass over to the keyboard to talk about some stupid shit. Today, I'm gonna be quickly going over a movie I watched recently, one that I'm sure a few of you have probably seen as well. It's called The Suicide Squad, not to be confused with Suicide Squad. You know, that one super hero movie that was such a shit stain that it burned the very souls of those who watched it. Because it was probably the worst superhero movie to come out in the last 10 years, in my opinion. So, as you can probably surmise, it had a very high bar to overcome if it really wanted to be a stinky shit fest like it's predecessor.
But, to my shock and surprise this movie actually turned out to be pretty fucking good overall.
James Gunn managed to take a franchise that I thought was 6 feet under at this point, and turn it into a super fun, entertaining movie. This isn't my all time favorite superhero flick or anything, but, it's really fun and got some good laughs out of me throughout. They use some super obscure characters that the majority of people will have no idea who the fuck they are, or if they're even real comic book characters. Polka Dot man was one that I especially was shocked to see be a big part of this movie, a character who has the ability to shoot polka dots at people. You could probably find a super hero whose power is he can read peoples emotions when he twists his nipples, and James Gunn would make that shit fire in the next suicide squad movie. Because, he somehow made these characters in the movie not only interesting, but actually made their abilities and powers pretty cool for the big screen.
Pretty much everything in comparison to the first film is a big hit. The writing is heaps better, with way more jokes landing than missing. The chemistry between characters is actually present, and they're fun to watch interact with one another. You actually feel some attachment to them and they're all very likable. It's everything that you pretty much wanted from the first movie, and probably even a little more. The action scenes are pretty brutal and have good amounts of gore, but it's not gratuitous or over done. It's done for effect and the way it's shot is in fast bursts so it doesn't focus or linger on it too much, it's handled perfectly for this kind of movie. I had lots a good amount of laughs from certain kills throughout. It's entertaining and fun, but it doesn't take it seriously and the fighting is often pretty goofy, in a good way.
The narrative of the movie definitely doesn't break the mold of what the normal formula is for these kinds of films. But, Gunn adds enough of his own style into it where it is different enough to be memorable and doesn't just feel like the same old stuff we've been getting with the MCU or the DC Snyderverse. I really enjoyed the big bad for the movie in comparison to most of what we've had in other superhero movies, it was very unique and the design was pretty neat and interesting. Especially in comparison to other DC movies where the big bad is just some mutant looking guy in a suit of armor, or a space warrior and shit like that.
Another thing I liked quite a bit with this movie was the cinematography and editing. Parts of the movie are shot out of order, but, it's done so well and explained perfectly where you never feel lost and you always know what is happening. There is a lot of style with the editing and cinematography as well, and there's tons of shots in this movie that I really loved. There's an epic splash page style moment with King Shark ripping a guy in half that looked beautiful and was cool as fuck. Another one I can name off the top of my head that I loved was the long action sequence with Harley Quinn that got surprisingly colorful and animated in a fun way.
Character performances are very well done in this movie, though not perfect (More on that later). I really enjoyed John Cena's character in this movie a lot, I think that guy has some solid range to him and he does comedy roles really fucking well. Margot Robbie was perfect as Harley Quinn in this movie (The writing for her being good helped a bit, I reckon). Any part with King Shark is usually either cute or funny and enjoyable. Daniela Melchior nailed her role as Ratcatcher II perfectly, and usually had a fair amount of the emotional beats of the movie under her belt. Literally everyone in this movie did an excellent job with what they were given. I do have a few nitpicks though about character stuff as well.
A main issue I had with some of the characters in the movie was it felt like a few of them were just used for a joke and nothing more. And, that's fine for the most part, but, it would have been nice to have a few more scenes with a couple of them for some extra emotional depth and to give them more of a character. It's hard to go into detail there without spoiling, so I won't. But, you'll probably get what I mean. I also felt a little weird about Idris Elba's character, Bloodsport in the movie. I genuinely felt like this character was just a replacement for Will Smith's character from the first movie, so they could utilize him for the 3rd Suicide Squad film should there be one. Idris Elba does a great job in the movie and all, but, Bloodsport and Deadshot literally feel like a 1:1 copy of one another in quite a few ways. Not exactly a huge issue, but, just something that I picked up on.
Overall, I really, really enjoyed this movie. It was some of the most fun I've had watching a movie in quite a few months. I don't normally go back and watch superhero films from DC or Marvel, but, I feel like this is one I may revisit in a few months for fun. There's a lot of good stuff here, it nails the comedy aspect easily, it has lots of fun fights and great characters. Just lots of things to unpack and enjoy here. It's definitely not a perfect movie by any means, but, I would 100 percent recommend this to anyone who is either a fan of comic books or just someone who enjoys good comedy movies.
Well, there's my post for the week done I guess. Feel free to send money to my wallet to bribe me into being more active on the site if you want, I guess. Or, just go watch the fucking movie. You pussy.
Until next time! Later!