MOVIE REVIEW: The Suicide Squad (2021)

 (Falling - The Sherlocks)

Hollywood simply isn't capable of leaving well enough alone. 

...Really, I could stop this review right here.

When 'Suicide Squad' came out in 2016 -- henceforth referred to as Skwad to avoid confusion -- it was generally torn apart for being a bad movie.  Make no mistake, it wasn't a really compelling yarn but there was more than enough going on in it to keep me entertained.  It was dumb -- sometimes VERY dumb -- fun.

Then its moment passed and life moved along.

Then Hollywood did what Hollywood does and allowed someone a shot at resurrecting it in an attempt to do it better.  Except this time it was James Gunn, the director of both of Marvel's breakout 'Guardians' movies.  Both of those movies were generally held to be excellent and said excellence was generally laid at Gunn's feet.

And then we started seeing clips of a huge, potential-laden cast of absolutely ridiculous anti-heroes.  And then the trailers came and we were given a glimpse at DC's very obvious answer to Groot in the form of King Shark.

Glorious details just kept on stacking up until, finally, it was here.  And then the first reviews started rolling in, and they were all ... well, they were all pretty good!  So one night, I hunkered down with some popcorn and fizzy water, fully prepared to bathe in a fun summer blockbuster that the world, if we're all being honest, really needs right now.

Did Gunn go three for three?

THE SHORT VERSION:

Nope.  This was a terrible movie.

THE LONG, SPOILER-FILELD VERSION, WHICH IS OKAY BECAUSE YOU SHOULDN'T WATCH THIS:

This movie is so goddamned frustrating.  It had all of the elements required to make it truly excellent and yet it still somehow managed to royally fuck it up.  There are SO MANY THINGS about this film that make me mad.

First, there's the fact that, like another review I just published, this whole movie feels kind of like a giant bait and switch.  There was so much hype made up about the massive cast of characters in this film.  Even Gunn himself made a big deal about how big the cast was and how one of the key elements of the movie was the character development of each of the characters. Except half of those characters die in the first few minutes of the film.  Bam, splat, nada.  Among the casualties is Nathan Fillion's TDK, and while his character is utterly pointless, wasting Fillion is a crime against cinema.

Then you've got King Shark, a character that actually had the potential to be BETTER than Groot but who was utterly wasted.  Everything good about this character was shown in the trailers. Nothing good was left for him to do and he never even uttered his catch-phrase.  This could have been SO. MUCH. BETTER.

Then you've got Harley Quinn, and you can get your pitchforks now, but they need to let this character go.  Harley's involvement in this film was pointless and had almost nothing whatsoever to do with the story.  Yes, she's responsible for the one -- and only one -- unexpected thing that happens in the movie. Pretty much every other scene with her in it is painful to watch because of her overblown accent and painfully stupid schlock.  YES, there's a pretty amazing fight scene where Harley goes completely Mary Sue and kills everything in her path.  Watching it is somewhat dulled by the fact that the scene literally just feels like a chance for a kind of twisted Girl Power moment.  It just feels so damned disconnected from the film.

John Cena was wasted.

Idris Elba was wasted.

Peter Capaldi was terribly wasted, never explained, and ...ugh.

The Polka-Dot Man -- and I can't believe I'm writing this -- was HORRIBLY wasted.

The violence and gore is pointless on a level that makes Tarantino films seem considered.  Tarantino movies ARE actually comical with all of the blood and dismemberment.  They're a caricature, they're larger than reality.  In contrast, you have the gore in Suicide Squad that feels like someone really, REALLY tried to be realistic with it, in which case...why??

There's a really horrible scene with an aviary full of birds that does an excellent job of eliciting emotion from the audience.  It's just the wrong emotion.

Starro as a villain is one of those ridiculous things that only ever worked in the early days of comics and should never, EVER have been shown the light of day.  It looked ridiculous on-screen, the writers couldn't describe if it was bulletproof against even the largest of munitions thrown at it by Bloodsport or so flimsy that it could literally be nibbled to death by rats.  It's one GIANT EYE was so flimsy that Harley could do the REALLY OBVIOUS thing and poke it with something, and ...ugh.  Everything about Starro was utterly batshit dumb.

AUGH. There's just so much that's wrong with this movie. I've grown tired of listing it -- and yes, there's more.  There's more about Amanda Waller, more about Flag and his character 'arc'.  More, more more.   And here's where I'm really probably going to piss some people off, but I'm pretty sure that most of it is James Gunn's fault. You can feel his handiwork in almost every scene, from how scenes are constructed to the once again TERRIBLE use of music, especially during a slow walk.  The crude, childish humor is present, the constant picking at one another, the big, dumb bruiser, the rag-tag team... then you stop and blink because this all feels so familiar!

And that's when you realize that this movie is just a horrible version of 'Guardians Of The Galaxy' with more blood. You start to wonder just how much work Marvel had to do to salvage the two Guardians films.  You don't wonder why DC didn't do as much work to save this one. They clearly don't have the talent.

...At least you WOULD wonder that if you could actually finish it.  I wouldn't fault you if you couldn't.

I wouldn't blame you if you never even tried.  Clearly, it would be suicide.