Tripwire Reviews The Suicide Squad

Suicidal Tendencies

Tripwire’s senior editor Andrew Colman takes a look at Warner Bros’ The Suicide Squad out in UK cinemas now. Warning: A few spoilers ahead…

The Suicide Squad
Director: James Gunn
Stars: Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, David Dastmalchian, Daniela Melchior, Peter Capaldi

DC’s return to the SS franchise is a bold, bloody affair with a mission – like its characters, a gaggle of failed super-villains forced by the U.S. government to tackle the Big Bad in a fictional South American island, it’s all about getting the job done, no matter how. Based on the Dirty Dozen and countless other films about expendable mercenaries who are blackmailed into doing America’s top secret dirty work, it’s about following the genre handbook to the letter, with a few minor diversions and the mandatory excessively graphic carnage turned up to eleven. If you want widescreen bloodshed and a few frat-house laughs, you got it.

Assured and Visionary director James Gunn of course is the man who brought us the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, before a dispute with his employers at Disney led him to rival behemoth Warners. The first of these two movies was a delight, as it was really about character-based fun and sending up convention. However, despite what we were told at the brief interview that this was Gunn’s baby, it still slavishly resembles previous DC (and to be fair, some Marvel) efforts. There are some interesting characters, notably the wonderfully ludicrous Polka Dot Man (David Dastmalchian, by far the best thing in the entire movie) and Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior) who actually do get humanised to a small extent, but they’re sketches rather than fully formed entities.

The film wants to be Deadpool, and yet wants to be taken seriously at the same time, so there’s a built-in unevenness throughout, when we get a smidgeon of backstory of some of the players nestled between the exploding heads, viscera, splatter comedy and other wince-inducing moments of bafflingly horrible cartoon violence. Not to mention the cliché-laden, time-honoured script, which could be ironic, although we’re never quite sure. It’s moot either way. Idris Elba’s Bloodsport is a decent effort, and he too is given a bare-bones backstory (the thirty second argument he has with his young daughter in jail being nearly all of it), plus he thankfully gets to keep his English accent, but it’s gruff tones and wooden dialogue all the way – although like Indiana Jones before him, he has a fear of a particular animal, so he’s got breadth.

I do like Idris Elba here, because at least he reacts balefully and quizzically to the absurd meta-destruction around him – but not so much Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, who once again is Road Runner with the usual vapid one-liners and psychopathy. Apparently the actress claimed that we would see a new side to the character – I’m not buying that, I’m afraid. Which leaves us with the musclebound John Cena as Peacemaker, who inhabits the character with actual nuance, and Peter Capaldi’s Thinker – I hope the thoroughly distinguished actor got a fat paycheck, as he really has so little to do beyond shouting lots of expository dialogue (and to remind the audience that there is a plot here, of sorts). And then there’s the Groot of the movie, King Shark (Sly Stallone / Steve Agee) who enjoys eating and eviscerating. Num num indeed.

Have I left anybody out? There’s a few freedom fighters involved, and of course Starro, a gigantic alien starfish who first appeared over sixty years ago in Brave and the Bold 28, in what was the Justice League of America’s first ever appearance. The early 60s at DC Comics were a palpably silly period, and even though there have been other iterations of this super-villain, it’s still trapped in that era. Despite this his presence makes for a truly gonzo finale, if that’s your bag. Which, assuming you paid to see this film, it is.

As with all super-hero films that involve obscenely over-the-top annihilation there’s a superfluous happy aftermath and by rote redemptive moments. This is bedrock mainstream cinema which screams cynicism from the producers – spoiler warnings are redundant when you know exactly what you’re getting (and would be disappointed if you didn’t). Nevertheless this deafeningly loud, sweary and obnoxious film is better than the first one and it doesn’t allow you to get bored.

Although you will groan a lot. One for the ages, it seems.

Three bloody stars.

The Suicide Squad is in UK cinemas now

Here’s the film’s trailer too