{"id":9876,"date":"2024-12-10T23:29:34","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T04:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=9876"},"modified":"2024-12-10T23:29:34","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T04:29:34","slug":"the-suicide-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/12\/10\/the-suicide-squad\/","title":{"rendered":"The Suicide Squad"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Suicide Squad<\/strong> (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Action-Adventure-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 132 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence and gore, language throughout, some sexual references, drug use, brief graphic nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: James Gunn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: James Gunn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Murphy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Henry Braham\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 5, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, Sylvester Stallone, Daniela Melchior, David Dastmalchian, Viola Davis, Peter Capaldi, Alice Braga, Michael Rooker, Jai Courtney, Pete Davidson, Nathan Fillion, Sean Gunn, Flula Borg, Mayling Ng, Juan Diego Botto, Joaquin Cosio, Storm Reid, Julio Ruiz, John Ostrander, Steve Agee, Tinashe Kajese, Jennifer Holland, Taika Waititi, Stephen Blackehart, Fernando Martinez.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $55.8M (US)\/$168.7M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Forget that David Ayer mess from five years ago; James Gunn\u2019s half-sequel\/half-reboot The Suicide Squad<\/strong> is the definitive movie about DC Comics\u2019 team of antiheroes forced to undertake black ops missions on behalf of a government that keeps them locked up until they\u2019re needed. It carries an R rating leaving Gunn free to bring on the bloody violence full tilt boogie. And does he ever! I\u2019d expect nothing less from a filmmaker who got his start at Troma under the tutelage of Lloyd Kaufman (who has a brief cameo). The R also allows Margot Robbie (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) to really cut loose as Harley Quinn, the reigning \u201cQueen of Crime\u201d in the DC Universe. The descriptive term \u201csexy, crazy bitch\u201d comes to mind. \u00a0For these reasons and others, I really like The Suicide Squad<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Gunn, who also directed the two Guardians of the Galaxy movies for Marvel, starts things off just right by pulling a fast one on the audience. He introduces a team of criminal types tasked by their handler Amanda Waller (Davis reprising her role from the first Suicide Squad) with sneaking onto the South American island of Corto Maltese to await further orders. Led by field leader Rick Flag (Kinnaman, another returning cast member), the team includes Savant (Rooker, Guardians of the Galaxy 1 & 2), Captain Boomerang (Courtney, yet another returning cast member), Blackguard (Davidson, SNL), T.D.K. (Fillion, Firefly) and Quinn. Oh yeah, there\u2019s also an anthropomorphic weasel named Weasel (the director\u2019s little brother Sean). It isn\u2019t long before most of them get wiped out by a waiting army. Surely this isn\u2019t the end of the movie already? Keep reading.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It turns out they were just a decoy for a second team, the real team, to sneak onto the island undetected at another location. They\u2019re led by Bloodshot (Elba, Thor 1-3), a mercenary and cold-blooded killer who only agrees to lead the mission in order to help his teenage daughter (Reid, The Invisible Man) stay out of jail. He\u2019s joined by Peacemaker (Cena, F9), an ultra-patriotic sort who kills to keep peace; Ratcatcher II (Portuguese actress Melchior), a young girl with the ability to control rats; Polka-Dot Man (Dastmalchian, Ant-Man), a tragic sort (mother issues) who throws deadly polka dots and shark-human hybrid King Shark (voiced by Stallone).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Their mission, one they have no choice in accepting, entails infiltrating a not-so-secret laboratory in order to destroy a giant alien starfish with mind-control powers. Yes, you read that correctly. Scientists have been conducting illegal human experiments for years and it\u2019s up to the Suicide Squad (aka Task Force X) to put a stop to it. Of course, there\u2019s an ulterior motive for their mission.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It looks like the entire cast had a blast making The Suicide Squad<\/strong>. I certainly enjoyed watching it. It\u2019s a lot of fun. Once again, that naughty minx Harley Quinn proves she\u2019s the life of the party. She\u2019s also quite dexterous. Let\u2019s just say she has some talented toes. Robbie, playing the character a third time, is great in the role. I can\u2019t imagine anybody but her in the role. Elba shows he has what it takes to be an action hero and leading man. Maybe he would be a good James Bond. Cena is as wooden as ever, but it\u2019s the right way to play his character. Melchior is a total find as the girl who inherited her gift from her late father (Jojo Rabbit director Waititi). If The Suicide Squad <\/strong>has an emotional core, she\u2019s it. Stallone is surprisingly good as a CGI character.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Last week, I criticized Jungle Cruise for its ridiculous overuse of CGI. I was afraid The Suicide Squad<\/strong> would suffer from the same malady. DC movies tend to go crazy with the CGI. Their latest movie is no exception; there\u2019s a lot of it. HOWEVER, the big difference is that it\u2019s good CGI, especially in the finale when it turns into a kaiju<\/em> movie. On the downside, it\u2019s becoming redundant to show superheroes in a tall building collapsing around them. Gunn, who also wrote the screenplay, couldn\u2019t come up with something else? Eh, it\u2019s no matter. He makes up for it in a big way. He never once allows his characters to get lost in all the mayhem. It\u2019s always about them, not the FX.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I LOVE how The Suicide Squad<\/strong> puts a subversive spin on the superhero genre. It has a comedic, playful tone in the midst of all the carnage and chaos. It isn\u2019t just violent, it\u2019s INSANELY violent! Heads explode, people get huge holes blown through them, limbs are torn from bodies and people get ripped in half. The Suicide Squad<\/strong> is clever, funny, brazen and unapologetically bloody. Only the writer of the Troma classic Tromeo and Juliet could accomplish such an incredible feat. It is a true stand-out in a field that\u2019s becoming overcrowded. We could use more antiheroes like Harley Quinn and the Suicide Squad. If they\u2019re as good as this one, I welcome them with open arms.<\/p>\n

P.S. Be sure to stick around for an end-credits scene.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Suicide Squad (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Action-Adventure-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 132 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence and gore, language throughout, some sexual references, drug use, brief graphic nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: James Gunn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: James Gunn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Murphy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Henry Braham\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 5, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, Sylvester Stallone, Daniela […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10183,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/The-Suicide-Squad-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9876"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10185,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9876\/revisions\/10185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}