The Suicide Squad review: Fun, f***ed up, and fantastic

“Peacemaker. What a joke.” Minor Spoilers for The Suicide Squad follow.

The latest film in the DC Extended Universe, The Suicide Squad follows the eponymous team as they head into the country of Corto Maltese in order to destroy a weapon of alien origin.

Where the team goes, death and destruction follow as they are quickly out of their depth while personalities clash, the mission changes, and true motives are revealed.

The new team

While this new incarnation of the Suicide Squad might share a similar name to its (terrible) 2016 predecessor (along with a couple of returning characters), most of the focus is on the new team that is created within this film. Said team consists of Bloodsport, Ratcatcher II, Peacemaker, King Shark, and Polka-Dot Man and this is such a wonderful team full of life, heart, and humor. Everyone watching the film will come away with their own favorite character (my personal favorite was Ratcatcher II and Sebastian, who needs to protected at all costs) from this bunch because they all bring something unique to the story. No two of these characters are alike (except where it serves the plot and/or a joke) which helps create a lively dynamic that keeps you engaged for the entirety of the runtime.

Of course, there are a couple of returning characters here as well, namely Harley Quinn and Rick Flag. Harley is, well, Harley in this film. Margot Robbie is fantastic as the character and absolutely nothing changes here regarding that. Plus, she gets some better writing this time around (about on par as the writing for her in Birds of Prey) which allows her to shine at several points throughout the film.

The greatest improvement comes in the form of Rick Flag. The character gets some great moments that really allow the character to grow beyond the lovesick military guy caricature that he was in the first film. He’s charismatic when he needs to be and the way that Joel Kinnaman delivers one line toward the end of the film is absolutely chilling and arguably results in the best line in the whole film.

The Suicide Squad is a violent delight

Beyond the excellent characters and great performances though, there’s one thing that truly makes The Suicide Squad standout from most superhero movies. It is epically, gloriously violent throughout. Truly, if you’re squeamish even in the slightest regarding blood and gore, this film is almost definitely not for you.

From the opening scene, the film makes it clear regarding what type of film it was going to be. A brutal, tonal-shifting, violent experience that revels in its excesses while never feeling like these excesses are out of place. Seriously, you can go from laughing at the insane violence to laughing at a joke within five seconds, which shouldn’t work and yet, James Gunn makes it work wonderfully almost every time here.

There are a couple of things regarding the violence that I personally don’t really care for, but those are all spoilers so won’t be fully touched on in this review. The only thing that will really be said about it is that it adapts something from the comics basically 1:1 except for making a certain aspect more violent than it is in the comics. It fits the film so it’s hard to rail against it completely, but it wasn’t really a change that was necessary.

Tonal shifting

Another thing that The Suicide Squad does incredibly well is shifting tones with seeming ease. It can go from gruesome kill to a joke to another gruesome kill that is played as a joke in the blink of an eye. How Gunn and his crew managed to pull this off is incredible because it’s really hard to think of another film that can do something like this as, when most try, they just fall flat on their face. There’s maybe one time throughout were one of these tonal switches falls flat, which really isn’t that big of deal.

By the time we get to end though, the film takes on a decidedly darker turn for much of the third act, but even that starts with maybe one of the best Harley Quinn sequences in her three appearances so far, which also shifts tones incredibly well and organically.

On top of all this, the heart that had been slowly building underneath the surface throughout the entire runtime, it really comes to the forefront in the final fifteen minutes or so. It’s heartfelt, brutal, and completely earned by the characters and their actions throughout the film.

All in all, The Suicide Squad is everything that a Suicide Squad story should be, fun and violent, then it manages to go beyond that, creating an incredibly heartfelt experience as well.

Grade: A

Are you looking forward to The Suicide Squad? Have you seen it yet? What did you think? Let us know in the comments below!