Review: The Suicide Squad

 This Squad makes the old Squad look like garbage. Except Harley, she always looks fabulous.

I think we all remember the terrible Suicide Squad film from a 2016. Pacing was bad, the threat was bizarre, and the bonding was forced as hell. Sure, the casting was good, but that was about it. Now, when I heard that James Gunn was going to write and direct a sort-of sequel to that mess of a movie, I was apprehensive. But, having seen The Suicide Squad in theaters once and again on HBO Max to refresh my memory, I can say with confidence that those fears were proven false. But more on that later, let’s talk The Suicide Squad.

 

It's a big team, and over
half of them die!

We open with a long-haired man bouncing a ball in an open air but solitary cell. He bounces his racket ball around his whole cell and hits and kills a bird. This man, Savant, is brought out of his open-air time early by Amanda Waller, who offers him the usual deal, 10 years off his sentence if he performs a Suicide Mission for her. He gets the bomb implanted in his neck and his equipment back before meeting Col. Rick Flag and the rest of the Squad. Sorry, Task Force X. I guess the Suicide Squad is a demeaning name. So, The Suicide Squad this time around is made up of Flag, Savant, Captain Boomerang, Javelin, Blackguard, Mongal, TDK and Weasel. Harley joins late and has a kind of sweet moment with Boomerang as she comes in. Apparently, their still friends since last time, and Boomerang asks how she got arrested again. She jokes she had a road rage incident in a bank as she sits down. I bet Flag misses Katana right about now.  

 

While the copter takes off, we see the operators of Task Force X making bets on which of these guys are going to die. Waller communicates with Flag, telling him to get his team to the beach alive. Javelin asks TDK what his name means, Harley hits on Javelin, and we’re just shown a few minutes of bad guys on a suicide mission just before being ordered to drop. The team leaps into the water and thing are relatively fine… except for one incident. Weasel jumps into the water and immediately starts flaying and drowns. Turns out no one checked to see if he could swim… feels like a major oversite, but what are you going to do? Savant recovers his body and he drags it toward shore, confirming that Weasel is dead. The rest of the team makes it to shore, and Blackguard runs up and starts calling out to people, the Corto Maltese army, in the tree line. Yeah, he betrayed them.  The soldiers start firing, immediately killing Blackguard and starting a bloodbath.

 

Mercenary work never
looked so good.

The Suicide Squad kills a LOT of people, Harley killing a bunch with an RPG, Boomerang slicing heads and Flag dropping a few with his rifle. They order TDK, The Detachable Kid, to use his power… which is to detach and move his arms telepathically. Huh… When Harley asks the obvious “What the F,” Flag kind of shrugs and says that he didn’t pick the team. Mongal attacks a helicopter, bringing it down and killing a bunch of soldiers, but also killing herself and Captain Boomerang. Hooroo, Jai Courtney. We also see Javelin and TDK gunned down, and Savant, who was watching from the water, freaks out and tries to swim away. He makes it a few yards before Waller detonates his bomb and kills him.

 

It’s then revealed that what we just saw was the death of team 1, team 2 has made it to the island. We then get the opening credits, played over the analysts paying out their bets and showing all of Team 1’s bodies. We also see the same species of bird that Savant killed earlier eat some of him. Gross.

 

We jump back 3 days and are reintroduced to the leader of Team 2, Robert DuBois aka Bloodsport. He’s on cleaning duty, which includes pulling out Savant’s long hair from the drains. He’s an expert solider that is actually in prison for shooting Superman with a Kryptonite bullet and putting him in the ICU. He’s not interested in joining the Suicide Squad, but Waller seems oddly smug. She tells him he has a visitor. The visitor is his daughter. You expect a scene like Deadshot had with his daughter, a tender parent-child moment… but it’s pretty clear these two kind-of hate each other. He yells at her for getting caught stealing a stupid TV watch, and Tyla is basically mad that he’s mad at her getting caught, not at her shoplifting. After they both scream “F you” at each other, DuBois deflates, points out he told her to stay away from him, as he had a shit dad and knew he’d be a shit dad and that she’s better off without him. She finally admits that she’s only visiting because her court date is coming up and Waller told her that DuBois might be able to help.

 

Harley I think is officially
the most recurring DCEU
character.

DuBois returns to yell at Waller for trying to use his 14-year-old daughter to get him to join the Taskforce. Waller then points out that she’s 16, and implies that she will manipulate Tyla’s trial to get her sent to Belle Reve. The prison for supervillains has the highest mortality rate in the country, and is… you know, full of supervillains. DuBois grabs a sharp pen and holds it to Waller’s throat. Waller is able to talk him down and convince him to be apart of her mission.

 

She introduces Bloodsport to his team. We have Christopher Smith aka Peacemaker, there’s a pretty good joke where Waller reads off the exact same history/profile of Peacemaker as she did for Bloodsport; Nanaue, King Shark, a humanoid shark that is believed to be the descendent of a Shark God; Cleo Cazo aka Ratcatcher 2, who uses a device to communicate and control rats, and her personal pet rat Sebastian; and Abner Krill, the Polka-Dot man, he throws polka dots but it’s much scarier than it sounds.

 

We learn about Corto Maltese, an island nation that just recently had a violent coup lead by Generals Silvio Luna and Mateo Suarez. The mission is not, in fact, to kill Luna, but to break into a research base called Jotunheim and destroy a Project Starfish. That name is… troubling, as I know of only one Starfish in the DCEU and it is not something to be trifled with. Waller tells them that all they know about Project Starfish is extraterrestrial in nature. They are going to use the Gaius Graves aka the Mad Thinker, Project Starfish’s head researcher to break in. After some comments from Ratcatcher 2, King Shark and Peacemaker, Bloodsport rather pessimistically declares they’re all going to die, and Polka-Dot Man says that he hopes so.

 

We jump back to Team 2 making it to shore. They hear explosions in the distance, but Waller tells them to ignore it. The crew walk and argue. They notice that Polka-Dot Man is literally covered in giant glowing hives, he claims it’s just a rash. And explosion occurs and we cut back to Team 1. Harley makes it to a nearly dead Javelin, who gives her his Javelin, telling her to carry it for… but he dies before he can say “me,” and Harley is either too freaked out or crazy to know what he meant. She gets surrounded by guards and arrested. We see Flag escape but then also get surrounded.

 

King Shark has got a hankering
for people.

Team 2 makes camp for the night. Bloodsport wakes up to see an even more glowing hive covered Polka-Dot Man get up, go into the trees and vomit up Polka-Dots before returning, back to normal. Sebastian then gets his attention and he shoots King Shark immediately when he sees the creature about to eat Ratcatcher 2 like a hoagie. Ratcatcher 2 is understanding until Sebastian tells him what happened, and summons a bunch of rats to threaten him. Another fight ensues, where it’s revealed that Bloodsport has a rat phobia and that Peacemaker sleeps in his tighty-whiteys. I did not need to see a nearly nude John Cena, all I’m saying. Sebastian offers Bloodsport a leaf to show him he means no harm, but Bloodsport is still not into it. They have to figure out how to work with King Shark without fear of eating them. Ratcatcher offers to be his friend if he agrees not to eat any of them. King Shark, who has never had a friend, agrees.

 

Back at base, the Analysts get Flag’s signal. Waller tells them they have a new mission objective, to recover Flag. We also learn that Bloodsport and Flag know each other, and that Flag was the one that recommended him for the program. They’re told to terminated his captors with extreme prejudice. Peacemaker is all for the bloodbath. When Ratcatcher 2 asks why someone named Peacemaker is so into violence, he explains that he “loves peace. And {He} doesn’t care how many men, women and children {he} has to kill” to get it. King Shark starts the attack, eating a man in about five bites. Bloodsport and Peacemaker go in, and have a killing fight. They find the most creative and bizarre ways to kill people. The final shots being Bloodsport shooting a table leg, dropping a fan into a tub to electrocute a man and Peacemaker shooting a man with a compression bullet, a bullet that explodes after about 10 seconds. Bloodsport says no one like a show off and Peacemaker counters with “unless what they’re showing off is dope as f” to which Bloodsport has to agree. Polka-Dot Man unleashes a bunch of polka-dots from his gauntlets, destroying a watchtower as the polka-dots seem to disintegrate things on contact. They make it to the main tent… only to discover this is the rebel base and that Flag is chatting quite good naturedly with the camp leader, Sol Soria. Whoops. The villains try to pretend like they didn’t see anyone, except Polka-Dot Man who reveals that he, and I quote, “Turned them into {his} mother in {his} head and killed them.” Soria is obviously pissed but Flag is able to get her to agree to help them, as their missions align.

 

It's real weird when a pro
wrestler finds their ideal
part, but I'm here for it.

We then cut to the Mad Thinker being led into the palace in the Corto Maltese capital. They’re watching a film of some kind, with the Thinker explaining that it is the video footage of the capture of Project Starfish, the main focus of his research for the last 30 years. The space Starfish is shown to release smaller versions of itself that facegrab onto hosts, and add them to the collective, causing the main body to grow larger and more powerful. He leads them into Jotunheim, and we see the silhouette of a colossal Starfish in a container. Apparently, the former ruling family fed the thing with political dissidents and the like. Mateo wants to unleash it on the Americans, but Luna wants to use it as a Nuclear threat, a ticket to the big leagues. Mad Thinker points out he’s the only one who can control it, now, and he’s welcomed to the team. Luna is then told “she” has been captured.

 

Harley has been held in a tiger trap for the last few hours, but then is freed and put into a red dress before being taken to the capital. Luna greets her and tells her that he’s been admiring her from a far for a long time. They have a great day together, eating dinner, being shown his exotic birds and so on. At the end of the day, Luna admits he wants to marry her in order to legitimize his rule. She was picked because she is the perfect symbol of anti-America fervor, but he actually likes her after spending time with her. The two then have rather aggressive sex in his livingroom to celebrate, destroying several vases and paintings in their passion. After, Luna reveals his plan to use Project Starfish just as the old regime did to control the populace, to kill his enemies and political rivals. Harley, upon hearing that he’ll send kids to feed the beast, shoots Luna, killing him. She apologizes, explaining that after Joker she promised herself to watch out for any “red flags” in a potential relationship and murder the guy if she sees any. Obviously, killing kids is a Crimson Red Flag. She goes on to explain to a dying Luna that she had to kill him as men as bad as the ones she’s into don’t just leave. She claims that he was pretty, but he’s prettier now that all those rotten thoughts are out of his head. She’s arrested. Mateo is named President, and has Luna’s birds burned as a sign that he isn’t a romantic. Kay? He plans to release the beast on Russia, USA and China. He tells his men to get torture Harley for information on how many American agents are in the country.

 

Back with the Squad, Ratcatcher and Polka-Dot Man are flagging as they really aren’t the cross-country type. Polka-Dot Man’s face is breaking out again, and he finally explains why this keeps happening. His mother was a STAR Labs scientist that infected him with a virus to turn him into a superhero. If he doesn’t release the polka-dots once a day, he breaks out and eventually dies. When asked where his mother is, Polka-Dot Man says “Everywhere” and we’re shown what he sees, his mother cosplaying as every character around him. Damn. The group gets going again.

 

We cut over to a man driving a bus up to a military checkpoint. He stalls for time with his paperwork just long enough for the Squad to show up and kill them all. The guy, Milton, has supplies and disguises for them. King Shark thinks he can disguise himself to go with them, thinking that a fake mustache would be enough to hide the fact he’s a massive Shark. Flag mentions to Soria that if things do go bad at Jotunheim, that would leave the palace vulnerable. He’s a good dude.

 

As the Squad enters the capital, their communications start cutting out. Waller thinks the military put jammers up. Their communications might be spotty, but she can still activate the bombs and that’s nothing to what she’ll do to Tyla. The analysts around Waller are clearly uncomfortable with the threat to children, but keep doing their jobs.

 

I wonder how many 
Sebastian's there have been...

On the bus, Ratcatcher 2 asks Bloodsport about his rat thing, and he asks her why she likes rats. She explains first, that she and her Dad lived on the streets of Portugal due to his heroin addiction. He used his tech to steal trinkets for them and keep them warm at night. After he OD, she took his tech and went to America, where she was arrested for armed bank robbery. Rats count as weapons, I guess. Bloodsport then explains his deal, that his dad would punish him for failure in a variety of ways, one off which was locking him in a crate with hungry rats. Damn. Ratcatcher 2 and Bloodsport both promise to get the other out of this alive. They arrive at the Gentleman’s club Thinker prefers.

 

The Squad get comfortable and wait for him to show up. They bond while drinking and waiting for Thinker to show up. There’s a very weird scene with Polka-Dot Man on the dancefloor and we see it as he does, and he’s surrounded by his mother. Man has got some serious issues. King Shark, meanwhile is sitting in the truck and just looking kinda bored. Eventually, the Mad Thinker arrives. He’s made by Flag and the rest. Milton, who is outside, sees the military drive up and start looking for Americans. He tries to go in to warn the Squad but he’s kept out. Bloodsport pulls a gun on Mad Thinker and tells him they’re taking a trip to Jotunheim. They almost make it to the exit before the army arrives. Bloodsport hands thinker off to Polka-Dot Man and Ratcatcher 2, and tells them to meet him at his tracers’ coordinates. Then, he, Flag and Peacemaker turn themselves in to distract them.

 

Ratcatcher 2, Polka-Dot Man and Thinker make it out the back. Thinker points out that she’s obvious distressed, and she asks if he wants a dozen hungry rodents up his ass. “My answer might not be what you expect.” God, I love Peter Capaldi.

 

The captured trio is taken in armored Humvees. One of the guards mentions that Harley Quinn is still alive, much to Flag’s interest. One guard gives Bloodsport a cigarette. Bloodsport mentions the “death’s touch” the art of killing a man with a single blow. The guard doesn’t think it can be done with certainty, but then Flag, Bloodsport and Peacemaker demonstrate it on all of them. They then kill the guards up front, causing several traffic accidents, and end up crashing into the side of the road. Once out, they plan to go to Jotunheim, but Flag insists they go after Harley.

 

Don't bring up his mom

Harley is being tortured by Mateo and his guards. Unfortunately for them, Harley is kind of into torture so they’re getting anywhere with her. As she’s getting stun gunned, the rest of Task Force X arrives to try to break her out. Harley passes out. Mateo leaves her with his torturer, telling him that they’ll see if she talks when her fingers get cut off. Once alone, Harley wakes up and strangles the torturer to death with her legs. She then grabs the key with her toes and frees herself. She then grabs a gun and a pair of boots and sets about slaughtering soldiers like she’s on a shooting range. She’s a scary court jester. She grabs Javelin’s Javelin and escapes, just in time to see the Squad prepping to break in and free her. She’s really super happy to have people that are willing to come free her and offers to go back in so they can save her.

 

They interrogate Mad Thinker, demanding he take them to Jotunheim. There’s a pretty funny bit where Harley threatens to kill him if he has a personalized license plate, mismatch blacks or coughs without covering his mouth. Flag says those last three aren’t true, but not to take that as an excuse to cough without covering his mouth. Solid life rule in this Covid World we’re still living in despite what others might tell you. Thinker points out that cameras are everywhere, but they’re going to disable the security cameras with Ratcatcher 2’s rats. Flag and Ratcatcher 2 will go with Thinker to the main lab, and the rest are going to plant bombs all through the upper floors to blow the place to kingdom come.

 

The Squad drives up Jotunheim as it starts to rain. There’s this kind of weird shot where they walk through the rain to the front gate. They kill the guards and get inside. They make Mad Thinker put the emergency code in and put the lab into lockdown. They split up to plant their bombs and raid the lab. The internal security is roused to their presence, and the guards on the outside start ramming the gate. As the others set up their bombs, Peacemaker follows Flag and Ratcatcher 2, leaving King Shark by himself.

 

Mateo is warned about the Jotunheim attack and leaves with the majority of his guards, leaving the palace open for Sol Soria to raid the palace.

Rick's had it up to here with
this shit.

 

In the bowls of Jotunheim, they meet project Starfish, the creature using its controlled humans to beg for release. It’s at the point that Mad Thinker introduces Starro the Conqueror. He explains that everyone here are the corpses of political rivals, journalists and the like that the starfish control. He also reveals that this was all a black ops American project. Americans found Starro, and knew the potential of weaponizing it. They made a deal with the Corto Maltese government to do their experiment in secret. Peacemaker joins them. Flag grabs the hard drive to the computer. He’s tired of hiding and covering up the government’s dirty little secrets and is going to reveal it to the world. Peacemaker pulls a gun on him and tells him to drop the disk. He was charged to make sure the records don’t leave the lab. The building starts shaking, as the bombs went off early. Peacemaker doesn’t want to shoot him, but will to protect peace. Rubble falls, separating Ratcatcher 2 and Mad Thinker from the two soldiers. And freeing Starro. Thinker is grabbed, pulled into the cell and ripped to pieces.

 

Ratcatcher 2 and Sebastian make a hasty retreat. Peacemaker and Flag get up and start fighting over the disk. It’s a pretty cool fight, shown in the beginning reflected on Peacemaker’s helmet. Flag almost gets the upper hand on Peacemaker, but Peacemaker grabs some shrapnel and stabs Flag through the heart, killing him. He grunts “Peacemaker. What a joke,” as he dies. Better hope Enchantress doesn’t have her powers anymore, buddy. Peacemaker gets up to see Ratcatcher 2 get the disk and run away. Peacemaker follows her and knocks her to the ground, gun to her face. She points out that he can just destroy the disk, why does he need to kill her? He is going to kill her because he’s thorough.

 

We jump back 8 minutes ago. Bloodsport’s team sees the military arrive in force and hurry to set their bombs. King Shark, left on his own, finds an aquarium filled with bizarre Jellyfish like creature that he has fun with while the others work. Back with the others, Milton is killed by guards and Polka-Dot Man kills them in retaliation. There’s a pretty good bit where Bloodsport doesn’t remember Milton was with them, and Harley didn’t even notice him. They kill a few more guards, but Polka-Dot Man’s destructive polka-dots set off the bombs, destroying the upper floors, including the aquarium. King Shark is attacked by his new dumb friends who prove to be piranha like monsters. Harley swims over to rip some of them off as the other bombs go off, tilting the building. King Shark drops to the ground, but he’s one sturdy beast, surviving the fall and several gunshots. Harley pulls Bloodsport back in from his perch. King Shark gets up and bites the head off the commander of the troops. Jotunheim’s upper half snaps off completely and starts dropping. Bloodsport, Harley and Polka-Dot Man run up and escape the collapsing part, but Bloodsport keeps dropping, landing at where Peacemaker has Ratcatcher 2 at gun point. They shoot at each other, with Bloodsport’s smaller bullet breaking through Peacemaker’s and hitting him in the neck. Ratcatcher 2 catches Bloodsport on what happened. He grabs the disk as the surviving team members regroup.

 

He's got Starro on the brain.

Starro breaks through the lower floors and escapes. Starro releases it’s spores, grabbing onto and controlling the army around it. The Squad realize the Starro spores are unable to grab faces through a protective covering, so put on masks to block them. Well, Ratcatcher, Harley and Polka-Dot Man do. Bloodsport shoots them down, and the Spores can’t get through King Shark’s skin. Sol and her crew break into the palace and slaughter the generals of Corto Maltese as this is happening.

 

The controlled soldiers get back up. Through its puppet’s Starro claims this city is its and marches toward town. Back at Task Force X headquarters, the feed is back up and the lead analyst announces they have a freaking Kaiju up in here. Waller tries to tell the crew to pull out. Being bad guys, most of them almost go along with it, but then they say screw it and go back to stop Starro. Waller threatens to activate the bombs in their necks, but one of her analysts knocks her out with her golf club, allowing the Suicide Squad to go after it. So… it’s a super solider with transforming weapons, a woman who controls rats, a man shark, a crazed jester with a Javelin and a man who releases destructive Polka-Dots vs. a colossal mind controlling Alien starfish. Well… crap. Guess you’ll need to watch the movie to see how they pull this one out of the crapper.

 

Okay, that was a very fun movie. Margot Robbie continues to steal every scene she is in as Harley Quinn. She’s unstable and delightful. I liked seeing the other returning Suicide Squad alumni Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang and Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag. Sure, Courtney wasn’t in it for very long, but I liked seeing him and Harley still being friends after the last movie. And Flag was great as the legit soldier of the crew. I’m actually sorry this is his last outing. Sylvester Stallone was great as King Shark’s VA. He’s dumb and violent but everything he says is perfect. David Dastmalchian is amazing as Polka-Dot Man. He plays a very disturbed individual that I think genuinely wants to do good. He just got really messed up by his mum. And, fun fact, he says that he deeply identified with Polka-Dot Man as the character suffers from a skin condition, something Dastmalchian also has. He’s got vitiligo and was bullied and called Polka-Dots as a kid. Huh. John Cena was fun as Peacemaker, I read he was told to play the character like a Douchey dude-bro Captain America and that is the best description I’ve heard of him. And obviously Idris Elba was amazing in every scene. The scene between him and his daughter, played by Storm Reid was fantastic. They have great chemistry despite their characters clearly having a metric ton of issues. She hates him for being a shit parent, her hates her to keep her away from him so he doesn’t mess her up like his dad did to him. I loved his transforming weapon arsenal. For those who’ve yet to see it, his armor has specific pieces that he can detach from it and they transform into various weapons, guns, swords, or additional attachments to make the weapons bigger. Oh, and Viola Davis is fan-freaking-tastic as Amanda Waller. Seriously, she deserves an Oscar for this role. I also liked Gunn’s unique directing and his means of transitioning between scenes. He uses a lot of scenery shaped into words for the scene changes. Like Operation: Jotunheim forming in smoke after the car crash, only for Jotunheim to be blown away to form Harley when they decide to free her.

 

The bad is almost nonexistent. There are a handful of jokes that don’t land, but they are counter balanced by the sheer number that do. Starro is kind of underdeveloped as a monster, but that’s partially due to it not even making a full appearance until the finale. And after Luna’s death, I don’t know, I just don’t think Mateo was as good of a villain without him. I think I’d have preferred Harley screwing up her assassination attempt the first time, but then getting to kill him during the finale. And… yeah, that’s all the bad I can really think of.

 

And this isn’t so much a bad as I personally wish they had let Boomerang survive the initial attack as well. What? I wanted to see more of him and Harley being bros, and I would have liked to see how he and Flag interact.

 

I’m giving this one an A. This movie was superior to its predecessor in almost every way imaginable. I think the Squad was more likeable over all, and yet they never let you forget that most of them were still pretty bad people. Their mission to covertly shut down a black ops project that gets out of hand feels way more believable than stopping Enchantress and her brother in the last one. Why? Because Starro was contained and hidden right up to the end, where as Enchantress’ death magic thing was bright enough it 100% would have gotten at least the Flash or Batman’s attention long before the Squad got to the damn city. The body count was also significantly higher, making this an actual Suicide Squad, which I think averages like five deaths per mission minimum as compared to Suicide Squad which I think only had the death of El Diablo, which was also a heroic sacrifice, oh, and Slipknot, who was only there to show off the bombs going off. The effects were great, the final battle was amazing, and it actually made me hopeful to see another Suicide Squad movie and potentially more James Gunn DC Movies. They teased a Bloodsport vs. Superman fight, and I want to see that damned Prequel. Thanks. And that’s all I really have to say about that. Have a good night everyone!

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