The Suicide Squad
Supervillains Harley Quinn, Bloodsport, Peacemaker and a collection of nutty cons at Belle Reve prison join the super-secret, super-shady Task Force X as they are dropped off at the remote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese.
- Released: 2021-07-28
- Runtime: 132 minutes
- Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
- Stars: Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, Sylvester Stallone, Viola Davis, David Dastmalchian, Daniela Melchior, Peter Capaldi, Michael Rooker, Jai Courtney, Alice Braga, Pete Davidson, Nathan Fillion, Storm Reid, Joaquín Cosío, Juan Diego Botto, Steve Agee, Jennifer Holland, Tinashe Kajese, Sean Gunn, Flula Borg, Mayling Ng, Taika Waititi, Julio Ruiz, Lynne Ashe, Dee Bradley Baker, John Ostrander, Stephen Blackehart, Natalia Safran, Mikaela Hoover, Lloyd Kaufman, Pom Klementieff, Angel Airan Bonilla, Andrew Ayala, James William Ballard, Timothy Carr, Jared Leland Gore, Gerardo Davila, Josh Ventura, Giovannie Cruz, Sergio Carlo, Edgar Zanabria, Jaws, Crisp Ratt, Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, Michael Rooker, Pete Davidson, Jai Courtney, John Ostrander, Nathan Fillion, Flula Borg, Mayling Ng, Sean Gunn, Stephen Blackehart, Steve Agee, Tinashe Kajese, Jennifer Holland, Fernando Martínez, Daniela Melchior, Dee Bradley Baker, Jaws, Crisp Ratt, David Dastmalchian, Sylvester Stallone, Storm Reid, Natalia Safran, Jared Leland Gore, Rey Hernandez, Ray Benitez, Alice Braga, Reinaldo Faberlle, Jonathan Fritschi, Peter Capaldi, Juan Diego Botto, Joaquín Cosío, Josh Ventura, Gerardo Davila, Mikaela Hoover, Lynne Ashe, Julio Cesar Ruiz, J.R. Adduci, Curtis Lyons Jr., Taika Waititi, Maya Le Clark, Elideusa Gomes Almeida, Shanna Kernan, Bridget Taylor, Monica Rivera, Andrea Andrade, Giovanni Rodriguez, Giovannie Cruz, Sergio Carlo, Edgar Zanabria, Grecia Balboa, Kenneth Trujillo, Randy Havens, Michelle Civile, Gabrielle Manning, Michael Aaron Milligan, Diany Rodriguez, Teresita Mans, Terence Rosemore, McDaniel Austin, Andrew Ayala, James William Ballard, Angel Bonilla, Bernard Bradley Jr., Matthew Byrge, Timothy Carr, Zach Catanzareti, Christopher Cocke, Matthew Conway, Marisol Correa, Grace Davidson, Keith D Dooley, Roger Dorsey, Dwayne 'Showtim3' Dyke Jr., Justine Edwards, Brennan Jamaal Francois, John Gettier, Clyde C Harris, Quasheem D. Herring, Maxwell Highsmith, Alexander Christopher Jones, Jeramie Julian, Lloyd Kaufman, Pom Klementieff, Demetri Landell, Jermaine Mctizic, Bradford Norris, Gabriel 'G-Rod' Rodriguez, Robert Sargent, Sage Shirley, Megan Stapleton, D.J. Stavropoulos, Quandae Stewart, Ulrike Stewart, Freddie Stroma, Bennett Tarr, Shawn Weston Thacker, Ronald Joe Vasquez, Victoria Paige Watkins, Alzie Williams
- Director: James Gunn
Comments
- jimbo-53-186511 - 28 December 2022
"That's your mum!!!!"
The Suicide Squad are back (though not as we knew them). This is a mostly new team whom are offered the same conditions as the last team, and as before they reluctantly agree. Here they are tasked with infiltrating the Johanheim (no idea if that's spelt right) and destroy every trace of Johanheim. As Task Force X/Suicide Squad investigate further they quickly learn that all is not quite as it seems...
Wow!! Just wow!! As well as a mostly new crew of anti-heroes we also seemly have a mostly new crew of directors and writers (and boy does it show!!!)
The original Suicide Squad was bad, just plain bad with messy characters, a plodding place and a messy storyline and for the most part poor character chemistry. Whilst not all of these things have been corrected in this sequel, it's fair to say that a lot of them have and this sequel definitely gets more right than wrong.
To begin with there's the character chemistry which was a big failure in the first film. Despite this film having a bizarre opener.... where most of the original Suicide Squad are despatched with (in spite of some of them showing promise). Thankfully, the team that replaces them is equally up to the task... This time we have Idris Elba, John Cena, a bizarrely cast Sylvester Stallone (as a CGI shark character) Daniela Melchor as a ratcatcher and David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man. Whilst some characters are weaker than others (King Shark, Ratcatcher 2 and Polka Dot Man) the ones that excel are really good (Bloodsport, Peacemaker and Colonel Flag). I got the impression that Elba was employed here to replace Will Smith and if that's the case then he did it with ease. Elba seemed to achieve what Smith should have done without breaking a sweat creating a compelling character with a reasonably interesting backstory. I'm familiar with Cena as a wrestler, but not as an actor and had my doubts about his appearance in this film, but he really surprised me and came across as being one of the funniest and interesting characters. Likewise, Joel Kinnaman (whom I wasn't a fan of in the Robocop reboot) really brought his character to life, and for me, was arguably the best character in the film.
Aside from the characters, director and writer James Gunn has concocted a faster paced more coherent film that seems to remember that comic book type films are meant to be fun. Whilst Harley Quinn was the best character in the original film....by a mile... she has some competition here. She still fares the best, but it isn't quite as noticeable this time due to how good some of the supporting characters are...
OK... this film is a masterpiece compared to the first film and if you hated the first film (like me) then I implore you to watch this sequel. However, it does have a lot of plot holes that are quite difficult to ignore; for starters, it's almost impossible to believe that the hard drive would still work after all the abuse it went through between being taken and played to Waller, Peacemaker's helmet doesn't suffer a scratch to it, not even any dust residue after a ceiling collapses on it. The Ratcatcher 2 is able to summon up what seems to be millions and millions of rats whom happen to be hiding in neighbouring buildings; considering some of them are housed on upper floors; how do these floors hold the weight of all these rats? Thousands or hundreds of thousands of them would weigh an awful lot? For example 1 rat weighs roughly 6kgs so 1000 rats would weigh 6000 kg (which is 6 tonnes) which I'm pretty sure would not be strong enough to hold the weight of an average upper floor dwelling. Secondly how did these millions and millions of rats arrive in this specific location without anyone noticing. Also Starfish can flick a 1000kg car with one leg with ease, but can't flick a few hundred rats from either of his legs moments later.
It's illogical when you scrutinise it and has more holes in it than the Clothes show after a moth infestation, but it is fun and enjoyable and Gunn remembers what is important to audiences; a sense of fun and a coherent storyline. Don't get me wrong I really enjoyed this film (particularly compared to the awful original), but I hate holes and inconsistencies in stories so can't rate it any higher than a 6 out of 10 (though it's deffo at the upper end of a 6 out of 10).
