5 years ago we got Suicide Squad, the DC Extended Universe (DCEU)'s third entry and an ensemble film focusing on the antihero team of the same name. That film was less than stellar to say the least and is widely considered to be one of the worst superhero/comic book films in recent years, with the theatrical release feeling like a poorly edited mashup of multiple trailers. While there's more to the production story (such as studio interference from Warner Bros.), the generally panned Suicide Squad was still able to spawn a spinoff in last year's Birds of Prey and of course, the main topic of this post, a sequel in The Suicide Squad. While technically a follow-up as well as currently the most recent film in the DCEU's chronological timeline, this film behaves somewhat like a soft reboot and generally ignores the events of previous films. With an almost brand new cast of characters, let's see how this standalone sequel compares to the original.
REVIEW (SPOILER ALERT)
Introduction: The first film focused on Task Force X (the Suicide Squad's official name), a team composed of convicted felons who combat metahuman threats to the US government in exchange for 10 years off their prison sentences per successful mission. Directed by ruthless intel officer Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), this ragtag group of supervillains were led by Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), one of the only non-criminals in the team, and initially comprised such members as marksman Deadshot (Will Smith), crazed psychiatrist-turned-serial killer Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and Australian career thief Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) among others. In their inaugural mission, they were sent to take down Enchantress (Cara Delevingne), an ancient witch hellbent on destroying mankind, a mission they successfully accomplish (albeit with some manpower losses).
The Suicide Squad maintains a similar premise of Task Force X being sent to take down another threat to the US government, this time being Project Starfish, a secretive experiment housed in the Nazi-era lab of Jotunheim, which in turn is in the South American country of Corto Maltese. Unlike the previous film, which showcased a team of 8 members at the largest, the sequel has a far larger team at 14 supervillains total (although they're split into 2 teams). Also, most of these characters are newcomers, with the only returning members being Flag, Harley and Captain Boomerang. Regardless, the new members of Task Force X has to once against set aside their differences and work together to wipe out this new threat but along the way, they find out that there's more to the mission than they initially thought. This is the general gist of the film
Film vs comics: I'll preface this segment by saying that I won't be touching on any of the characters who appeared in 2016's Suicide Squad, namely Waller, Flag, Harley and Captain Boomerang, since that would be more relevant to the previous film. I also won't be touching on ALL the new characters introduced since that could take forever, instead I'll be focusing on those who had the most impact on the plot.
First off, let's talk about Robert DuBois aka Bloodsport (Idris Elba), the film's main character of sorts. In the comics, a young Robert and his brother Mickey dreamed of being soldiers but when both turned 18, only the latter enlisted, Robert having run away out of fear. Mickey's death in war drove his brother over the edge and he became the mercenary known as Bloodsport in his brother's honour. He would come into conflict with Superman and injure him with a Kryptonite gun, although Robert was ultimately defeated and thrown into Belle Reve, where he would later be forced by Amanda Waller to join her Suicide Squad. As of right now, he's being sent on missions to alternate universes to gather intel on the multiverse. The film doesn't really delve into his origins other than that Robert was a former British (he's American in the comics) Special Forces soldier who was trained since birth by his father to become an elite mercenary. Just like in the source material, he would wind up in Belle Reve after shooting Superman with a Kryptonite bullet but unlike the comics, Robert has a daughter named Tyla (Storm Reid), a teenage delinquent who he cares about greatly despite seemingly hating each other. After Amanda Waller threatens to indirectly kill Tyla, he has no choice but to join the Suicide Squad.
In the comics, Bloodsport is a master martial artist and claims to be trained in all forms of combat, having taken on metahumans, Atlanteans and Green Lanterns, and seemingly come out quite well from each encounter. He also wields a variety of weapons including standard firearms, high caliber rifles and even flamethrowers (as well as the aforementioned Kryptonite gun), all of which he can teleport to him via a built-in function in his new suit. The film has stayed mostly true to this by making Bloodsport proficient in various types of weaponry, usually firearms (or sometimes arrow-like projectiles in his gauntlets) but the difference being that he doesn't have a weapon teleporter. Instead, his weapons are built directly into his suit and are biometrically-activated, meaning only he can use them. This also means that unlike in the comics, Bloodsport has a finite amount of weapons in the film. That said, his costume in the film is extremely comic accurate, at least to his most recent design.
The next character I'll be looking at is Christopher Smith aka Peacemaker (John Cena), who unlike his actor can actually be seen (obligatory Cena joke, please don't leave). In the comics, Smith was a career diplomat who traveled to Washington, D.C. in search for the elimination of war. When he realised that a diplomatic approach was useless, he took on the hugely ironic mantle of Peacemaker and became an extremist vigilante who sought peace through any means possible, even if it meant killing others. As of right now, he's the Suicide Squad's field leader, having joined the team after Waller promised that he could achieve peace as a member, and also suffers from severe mental illness after a Dominator invasion left him in an erratic and almost suicidal state. The film has slightly changed his origins by making him the son of an extremely racist man who also trained him to become a dangerous mercenary (much like Bloodsport). Like his comics counterpart, Smith would come to be known as Peacemaker and seek peace through any means necessary, usually very violent ones. Somewhat similar to the comics, he behaves like Waller's enforcer in the team, ensuring that the mission is completed even if he has to kill his fellow teammates. Other than that, both versions of the character aren't that different and his costume in the films is literally ripped from the pages.
The two characters I've talked about so far are pretty cool but on the flipside, director James Gunn has gone on record to state that he's also deliberately included a supervillain who he considers the "dumbest DC character of all time". Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Abner Krill aka Polka Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), easily one of the lamest and most ridiculous supervillains in comics history. In the comics, he was a Gotham City crook who launched a crime wave based around spots and dots, hence his alter ego, pitting himself against Batman and Robin. While the character's made one cameo in recent comics, he was actually killed during the Final Crisis event and didn't reappear for many years even after the New 52 reboot. He was also never a member of the Suicide Squad. The film has changed his origins by making him the son of a superhero-obsessed S.T.A.R. Labs researcher, to the extent that she would use her research in an attempt to give her children superpowers. The Krill siblings were infected with an interdimensional virus that caused glowing polka dot-like growths to sprout on their skin which have to be expelled twice daily less the virus eats them alive from the inside.
Abner would suffer from severe PTSD and depression after seeing his siblings slowly succumb to the virus, and at some point would become a criminal who literally weaponises his virus. While he dislikes killing, he's able to do so if he imagines his targets as his mother, a woman he hates with all his heart, which could mean that at some point he might've killed her (likely the incident that wound up with him in Belle Reve). Polka Dot Man is the absolute pinnacle of Silver Age ludicrousness and in the comics, he wore a suit covered in polka dots that when removed could be used for a variety of purposes. Some of his gimmicks include Buzzsaw dots, fist dots and even a flying saucer dot, all of which were controlled via his utility belt. Like I mentioned earlier, the film has made him infinitely cooler by turning his polka dots into insanely deadly weapons that he shoots out of wrist gauntlets, capable of eating away at human flesh as well as ignite explosives. His costume in the film is also largely comic accurate, maintaining the polka dot theme while adopting a modernised and less campy overall look.
The final character I'll be talking about is Starro, the film's extremely comic accurate semi-antagonist. The very first foe that the Justice League fought in the comics, Starro is an alien who resembles a giant starfish with a central eye and 5 prehensile "limbs". He comes from a race known as the Star Conquerors and like their name suggests, he conquers other planets using starfish-like spores, which latch onto people's faces and turn them into his slaves. While usually depicted as a villain, Starro has fought for the side of good before, most recently having been part of a Justice League sub-team and even dying in battle for them during the "Dark Nights: Metal" event. The film version of the character depicts him as an alien who was brought to Earth by the US government many decades ago and was experimented on as Project Starfish. Much like in the comics, Starro uses his spores to control unwilling victims and absorb them into his hive mind but unlike the source material, he isn't really a villain. Immediately prior to his death in the film, Starro states that he was happy to simply float in outer space and see the stars, implying that his spore projection is merely a defense mechanism that he employed to stave off human experimentation.
Like I said at the start, there're a ton of other characters that appear in the film and we don't have time to cover all of them here so if there's enough viewer interest, I could do up a separate post breaking down the other characters. We shall see.
Pros: I'm going to sound like a broken recorder here but The Suicide Squad brings in an entire slew of characters and with very few exceptions, most of them are really obscure D-list supervillains whose names have been lost in time. Characters like Javelin (Flula Borg), Savant (Michael Rooker) or Blackguard (Pete Davidson) probably don't ring any bells and for good reason too, since you have to go pretty deep into comics to actually know who they are. This is actually one of the film's greatest assets because it allows the filmmakers to take far more liberties with their characters. For example, let's look at our main cast, namely Harley Quinn, Bloodsport, Peacemaker, Rick Flag, King Shark (Sylvester Stallone), Polka Dot Man and Ratcatcher II (Daniela Melchior). With the exception of Harley, Flag and maybe King Shark (since he's appeared on The Flash TV series), the rest of these guys are total nobodies, even if they have some cool showings in the comics like Bloodsport.
In this way, the filmmakers could make huge changes to these characters' stories and origins with the intention to make them more interesting and far more enjoyable to watch. Heck, Ratcatcher II is a brand new supervillain created just for the film, although her father, the original Ratcatcher, does make a short appearance (Taika Waititi). By changing up their stories, you're giving these guys a lot of personality and when combined with the actors' prowess, they have pretty good chemistry with one another. That provides a nice segue into my next point, the relationships within the Suicide Squad don't feel forced. In the first film, the team just kind of bands together after a short few minutes in a bar and the scene isn't particularly well written. You could argue that something similar happens in The Suicide Squad when the team are on their bus but it feels more human and our characters play off each better. Whether it's the "toxically masculine" rivalry between Bloodsport and Peacemaker, or the strangely pure and naive friendship between King Shark and Ratcatcher II, I love these character interactions and they're undoubtedly the best parts of this film.
On the topic of acting prowess, the star of the show has to be John Cena. I know, I can't believe it myself but his acting has legitimately improved since his beginnings in acting. For those who don't know, Cena is a professional wrestler and considering the nature of WWE, he has to have some form of acting experience but it could be said that his acting wasn't the best. In fact, some might say that his previous acting roles were just Cena playing himself. With The Suicide Squad though, he portrayed Peacemaker incredibly well, incorporating excellent comedic timing while eventually coming off as extremely unlikeable when he "betrays" his teammates. I have no doubt that when he returns with his own TV series (see The future of the DCEU), he'll be just as awesome. I also have to give props to Daniela Melchior and David Dastmalchian for their portrayals as Ratcatcher 2 and Polka Dot Man respectively, with the pair giving a lot of heart to the film.
Lastly, I think it was a good move on James Gunn's part to make the film R-rated (M18 in my country) and let me tell you, he abuses that R-rating hard. There's blood and gore everywhere, language would make a sailor blush and it's glorious. This is something that the previous film lacked and while it wasn't a huge contributing factor to its failure, such a rating definitely could've helped. R-rated comic book adaptations aren't anything new, especially with the extreme popularity of the Deadpool films and the Marvel Netflix series and I'm very glad that The Suicide Squad didn't shy away from the inevitable violence, it helped the film tremendously.
Cons: I had a hard time finding anything I disliked about The Suicide Squad because it's honestly really good but as is with everything, I do have some gripes. For starters, I don't like how they portrayed Amanda Waller. Don't get me wrong, she was thoroughly menacing and absolutely ruthless, willing to do anything for her country's best interests. She doesn't hesitate to personally kill her supervillain operatives and even threatens to harm innocent children, and that's fairly similar to her comic counterpart. What I didn't like is how incompetent Waller felt in this film. In the first film, she was perfectly capable of standing up to massively more powerful beings and influence dangerous criminals who could easily kill her before we could even blink. Waller was even (more or less) capable of facing down Bruce Wayne himself, even implying that she knows of his double life as Batman. Essentially, she was in control of the situation at all times.
With the sequel though, it often felt like things were quickly getting out of her grasp. Waller makes a ton of mistakes, not informing her operatives that Weasel can't swim before making them dive into the ocean, putting Bloodsport on the same team as Ratcatcher II despite the former's severe rat phobia and her very first plan in the film, to use most of her team as a distraction that resulted in an unnecessary bloodbath, was very misguided. By the end of the film, she's totally lost control of not only the Suicide Squad, who defy her orders and blackmail her, but also her aides, with one of them even knocking her out with a golf club before Waller can kill Bloodsport. While both films got her lawful evil nature right, it felt like The Suicide Squad removed her more analytical mind and replaced it with one that preferred brute force over all else. I commend Viola Davis' performance as the character because she really makes you hate her (#bestDCEUvillainsofar) but Waller could've been portrayed far better.
My other problem with this film is something that spun out of production issues and that is the character of Bloodsport. I'm about 85% certain that even casual viewers will notice the extreme similarities between him and previous leading man Deadshot, both characters being expert marksmen whose daughters are used by Amanda Waller as collateral to get them to join the Suicide Squad. This is likely because Will Smith was actually meant to return for The Suicide Squad as Deadshot but because of scheduling conflicts, the character was almost recast with Idris Elba. James Gunn would eventually replace Deadshot with Bloodsport to open up the possibility of the former to return to the DCEU (his solo film is in development). I don't dislike Elba's portrayal of Bloodsport, it's definitely different from how Smith performed as Deadshot but at the same time I wish they didn't have the daughter character and instead worked Mickey DuBois (who if you remember is Robert's brother in the comics) into the plot. Again, Bloodsport was fine in this film but could've been a far more unique character.
Miscellaneous/little touches: As usual, this segment will be for me to talk about some Easter eggs and references that popped up in this film, the first of which will be certain characters we saw in Belle Reve. Prior to the team's formation, we see Polka Dot Man being mocked by another inmate with the months of a year tattooed around his head. This was actually Julian Day aka Calendar Man (also played by Sean Gunn), a Batman villain who ages based on the seasons of the year. He's obsessed with dates and commits crimes based around them, most popularly being the central antagonist behind the "The Long Halloween" storyline. Behind Day, we see a man with strange playing card-like facial scars. Just like with Calendar Man, this inmate is also straight from the comics, being a villain of The Flash named Jeremy Tell aka Double Down (Jared Leland Gore). Tell was a conman who was cursed with the ability to magically manifest razor sharp playing cards on his body, which he pulls out from under his skin (hence the facial scars). Being magic, Tell has limited control over the cards once they're thrown and they're even capable of cutting Superman.
The final character Easter egg comes in the form of a female inmate who briefly appears on screen with multicoloured patterned skin and just like the two before her, she's an obscure supervillain named Kaleidoscope who's only appeared twice in the comics. With the power to create hallucinations and illusions by refracting light like a kaleidoscope (hence her name), she combatted Robby Reed, the original owner of the H-Dial. I'm not going to explain what that device does so do your own reading if you're interested. There's one more thing I'll mention in this segment and that is the return of Galaxy Broadcasting System aka GBS or WGBS, a news company in Metropolis. We've seen them a couple of times throughout the DCEU, namely in Man of Steel, Aquaman and Shazam!, where they reported on the various superhero shenanigans and of course, The Suicide Squad shows them making a report on the Suicide Squad's fight with Starro in Corto Maltese.
Why is this important? Well in the comics, Galaxy Communications (as they're known) is a leading global telecom company that's owned by media mogul Morgan Edge and has had dealings with the New God Darkseid, who's the ruler of Apokolips and basically the ultimate big bad of the DC universe (or even multiverse). Will such a connection ever make its way into the DCEU? I highly doubt so but it's an interesting prospect.
The future of the DCEU: If it wasn't clear from previous films, the DCEU is going in a very different direction from their rivals over at Marvel. Rather than focus on worldbuilding, they're instead telling a relatively self-contained story that doesn't really matter to the grand scheme of things but is still connected just enough. The Suicide Squad is the perfect example of this because it's not really affected by the events of previous films, although there are some callbacks. For instance, Harley Quinn makes passing mention to her breakup with The Joker and references her time in healing, which took place in Birds of Prey. It's likely because this film behaves more like a soft reboot and wipes the slate clean for the DCEU to continue putting out good stories and films.
That said, there're two post-credit scenes that tease future DCEU projects. The first showed us that Weasel is still alive after having presumed to have drowned prior to the Corto Maltese bloodbath. The animal hybrid shakily gets up and walks off into the jungle, where I can only assume he continues to live. Will he make his return? Probably not but it was a fun little bit added at the end. James Gunn has teased his continued involvement with the DCEU so we could totally see the Suicide Squad returning to the big screen in future.
The second post-credit scene is far more important because it shows that Peacemaker, who was thought to have been killed by Bloodsport in the film, is actually still alive (albeit hooked up to numerous hospital machines). He's visited by Warden Economos (Steve Agee) and Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), who have been assigned to work with the mercenary as punishment after their "mutiny" against Amanda Waller, and as you probably know by now, this is a direct link to the upcoming Peacemaker HBO Max TV series, scheduled to premiere in January 2022. This will be the very first DCEU TV series and will of course see the return of John Cena as the titular character as his origins are explored. I definitely foresee that Peacemaker will see a huge increase in popularity after this film so this TV series is a good move on DC and WB's part to capitalise on their new money-making antihero machine. We'll also be seeing such comic characters like Adrian Chase aka Vigilante (Freddie Stroma) and Judomaster (Nhut Le) so look forward to that.
Final thoughts: After the disaster that was the previous film, I don't think anyone thought the sequel could be worse. Thankfully, The Suicide Squad has been a huge step-up from its predecessor, giving us an enjoyable story, great characters with awesome performances and most importantly, a well-edited final product. Without the overt focus on worldbuilding, DC has managed to put out a stunning work that quite frankly puts their previous stuff to shame and has given us hope for a better future for the DCEU.
I give The Suicide Squad an astounding 8.5/10. Thanks for reading.
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