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The Suicide Squad Review

By Matthew Passantino

"The Suicide Squad" continues a trend, particularly with comic book movies, where if it didn't work out the first time, try again. 2016's "Suicide Squad" dropped a fantastic trailer - set to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" - but the film itself failed to deliver on that promise. The movie was financially successful (it made $747 million worldwide) and won an Oscar for its makeup, but it sits at a 26 percent rating on RottenTomatoes and reaped scorn among viewers who typically gravitate towards comic book movies. But the potential was there, and it led to writer and director James Gunn's new iteration, now titled "The Suicide Squad." Gunn's take proves that sometimes a second try is better, but still not necessarily good.

One of the most common reactions to the 2016 film had fans wondering what an R-rated version of the story would look like. Gunn answers that question with a relentlessly - and sometimes cartoonishly - gory version of these characters. Through all the mayhem, "The Suicide Squad" feels like it's trying too hard to prove that it's better than the previous film, which grows tiresome after a while.

Don't you dare call "The Suicide Squad" a reboot, and don't even consider calling it a sequel. A reimaging? Forget about it. Despite Gunn exchanging supportive pleasantries with the 2016 film's director David Ayer on Twitter, "The Suicide Squad" makes it clear from the beginning that it wants to be seen as a completely different entity. The movie reintroduces us to characters from the first movie, including Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn and Jai Courtney's Boomerang, while bringing in a whole new group of maniacs: Idris Elba's Bloodsport, John Cena as The Peacemaker, David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man, and King Shark, played by Steve Agee and voiced by Sylvester Stallone. This crew is sent on a mission with Colonel Rick Flagg (Joel Kinnaman), while Amanda Waller (Viola Davis, as commanding as ever) conducts every move behind the scenes.

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The specifics of the mission aren't important to discuss, because they're barely important to the movie. As with his "Guardians of the Galaxy" movies, Gunn is just happy to be playing in these big budget sandboxes, and "The Suicide Squad" is filled to the brim with chaos. Some of the action scenes and ramped-up violence are undoubtedly creative, but when that's all you have to offer, a movie is bound to feel repetitive. At 132 minutes, that's exactly what happens here.

One of the main problems with the 2016 movie was that it leaned heavily on exposition, which doesn't make for an exciting movie. In that sense, "The Suicide Squad" spends more time on the action of the mission at hand, but we, once again, must also go through the roster of characters and meet the new ones and become acquainted with their maniacal sets of skills.

Tentpole movies, based on comic books or any existing properties, are often put together by committee. A director has to know this bit of information when they sign on to steer the ship to completion, because sometimes having too many hands on a product means that no single, clear vision will be realized on screen. This is Ayer's claim for the mixed results of the 2016 movie, but Gunn's film seems to have his fingerprints on it. That might work for some, and prove to be the movie they hoped to have gotten five years ago, but a little more distance between the two movies could have made it feel a bit more welcome.

"The Suicide Squad" is now in theaters and on HBO Max.

What did you think?

Movie title The Suicide Squad
Release year 2021
MPAA Rating R
Our rating
Summary Writer/Director James Gunn takes a crack at this band of misfits with improved but still mixed results.
View all articles by Matthew Passantino
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