A Brief History
On August 6, 2021, we got to watch our long awaited viewing of the latest film in the DC comic book based movie universe, The Suicide Squad, a sequel to the 2016 blockbuster movie, Suicide Squad, though in a stand alone sort of way, using some of but not all the same characters. In a word, this movie is Great! Action, lots of colorful action, gore and comedy rolled into a 132 minute package that feels like a half hour of mayhem. Wow, this time they really hit the mark…
Digging Deeper
While we do not like to provide spoilers, we do have to warn you, characters get killed, like for real, in this film. Suicide Squad members! So, you have to keep an eye on things and realize you might lose a character you like, though in some cases the Hollywood tradition of an almost sure death is proven to be an illusion. Bad guys get killed, like a lot, so the movie is not for the squeamish or probably the youngest family members.
A film obviously intended to be a blockbuster, the budget of $185 million is well spent on computer generated special effects and top notch casting. Margot Robbie reprises her role as Harley Quinn and Joel Kinnaman is back as Colonel Rick Flag, while Idris Elba, one of the hottest leading men in Hollywood, is a major character as Bloodsport. (In fact, Elba has appeared in both the Marvel and the DC comic book related films.) Familiar names such as Michael Booker, Viola Davis, John Cena and Pete Davidson appear on the credits, as well as a fascinating performance by Sylvester Stallone as a voice actor for a character called Nanaue, or simply King Shark, a weird sort of land shark/humanoid hybrid. What fun!
Written and directed by James Gunn (he of Guardians of the Galaxy fame), the film shows obvious benefits of having the creator also be the one that guides the production, fulfilling his vision in a coherent and crowd pleasing way. How pleasing, you ask? Rotten Tomatoes reports a 93% approval rating by critics, and most importantly, WE loved the film! Obviously, with the subject of mass numbers of people (and other entities) being killed and sometimes eaten or torn apart combined with some salty language (including a bizarre allusion to a rather odd eating fest), the movie is rated “R” and is not for pre-teens unless you are confident the youngsters can handle the adult material.
The 2016 Suicide Squad film garnered a massive box office of nearly $750 million on a budget of $175 million, but with the lingering effects of the Covid-19 pandemic it is hard to say what kind of revenue The Suicide Squad can generate, since it is being released both in theaters (August 5, 2021 in the USA) and on HBO Max. Lots of eye candy in this movie, though some parts are a little dark, though not as much so as too many films lately.
While it is true we generally are enthusiastic about movies we see, especially since we usually only see movies we really want to see, The Suicide Squad is particularly deserving of our praise. We give this film our strongest endorsement and hope you see it and enjoy it like we did. Happy viewing! (See some of our other movie reviews.)
Question for students (and subscribers): What is your nominee as the greatest comic based movie of all time? Why? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Conway, Gerry. The Suicide Squad Case Files 1. DC Comics, 2021.
Ostrander, John. The Suicide Squad Case Files 2. DC Comics, 2021.
The featured image in this article is of a poster for the film The Suicide Squad, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by either the publisher or the creator of the work depicted. It is believed that the use of scaled-down, low-resolution images of posters to provide critical commentary on the film in question on an educational website hosted on servers in the United States qualifies as fair use under the copyright law of the United States.
