The Suicide Squad

 

In the South American island nation of Corto Maltese, a new anti-American regime has overthrown the government, gaining access to a weapon of extraterrestrial origin. Intelligence director Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) dispatches Task Force X to infiltrate the country and destroy the research lab housing the weapon. The squad is made up of incarcerated villains with unique abilities who will receive time off their sentences…if they survive.

 

Writer-director James Gunn’s follow-up to David Ayers’ 2016 Suicide Squad is a bigger, brasher, brighter affair. Though it retains a similar irreverence, it benefits from improved plotting and pacing, Gunn’s singular vision, and energy to spare. That vision – gory slapstick with a heart – has admittedly limited appeal, but anyone who found Guardians of the Galaxy’s motley mix of bizarre misfits endearing will likely have a similar reaction.

 

Though The Suicide Squad boasts a huge cast, many appearances are brief: the film lives up to its name, after all. Among those we spend the most time with are returnees Waller, team leader Col. Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) as well as newcomers Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Peacemaker (John Cena), King Shark (voiced by Sylvester Stallone), Ratcatcher II (Daniela Melchior), and Polka Dot Man (David Dastmalchian). Waller remains the world’s scariest bureaucrat (kudos to Davis for bringing unparalleled ruthlessness and an epicly frosty glare), and Kinnaman as the straightlaced Flag is less wooden this time around. Harley’s arc and importance to the film both seem smaller, but a la Hugh Jackman and Wolverine, this is a character that Robbie owns even when the material isn’t up to her level. Bloodsport was originally meant to be Will Smith’s assassin character Deadshot, and while the two characters are superficially similar (lethal Black marksmen who are also fathers), Elba made the role his own. He functions as an audience quasi-surrogate, a competent professional surrounded by oddballs and (seeming) losers. As Peacemaker, John Cena is his perfect foil. Like Marvel’s U.S. Agent, it’s a “Captain America as jingoistic jerk” role, with Cena’s hyperconfidence distracting everyone from the stupidity of his costume (which is still the butt of at least one joke). King Shark replaces Killer Croc as the team’s comic relief monster, but he’s given both more personality (awkward and friendless) and more dialogue. A bipedal, socially unaware shark that sounds like Rocky doing Hulk-speak makes for a hilarious choice. Ratcatcher II, daughter of the first, is an original creation, a largely good-natured young woman who can control a legion of rodents. Given that Gunn chose to make the Ratcatchers sympathetic characters, excising their championing of the homeless population seems like a missed opportunity. And then there’s Abner “Polka Dot Man” Krill, a study in contradictions. His brightly dotted costume manages to out-silly Peacemaker’s, yet the dots that he tosses are actually extradimensional energy and can pack quite a punch. Krill was experimented on by his scientist mother to become a superhero, the trauma of which has taken its toll. This would ordinarily make him a tragic figure (and Dastmalchian, who grew up being teased for his vitiligo, taps into the character’s vulnerability), but his mental illness manifests as him seeing every character with his mother’s face, which is clearly played for laughs.

 

While this was a stumble, the film is otherwise more successful in layering its wackiness with more meaningful messaging. The American squad’s meddling in Corto Maltese’s affairs is played as a critique of imperialism, and in a welcome rarity for films that go down this road, the anti-American regime is acknowledged as being as horrible (if not more so) than the pro-Washington one that it replaced. Even the film’s biggest threat is one that would have likely posed no danger were it just left alone.

 

Freewheeling and funny, The Suicide Squad makes no apologies for its excesses, and there are plenty who simply won’t be on Gunn’s bandwidth. But if stylistically violent action-comedy holds any appeal, here’s one that offers more than mere wisecracks and explosions.