Review of The Suicide Squad (2021) by Greenisgood — 06 Aug 2021

TL;DR - Excellent first half and a great climax, slightly bloated and saggy middle. Even though I am a fan of James Gunn and this movie is leagues better than Snyderverse it was still overstuffed with too much pointless meandering going on. It needed a better edit, maybe shaving off about 30 minutes would make the film flow better.

The Good:

The characters are great everyone gets to do a little bit of something and watching them bounce off each other was the highlight of the film. Will Smith not returning was a bit sad and I love that Idris Alba was not in as a replacement, he has his own personality, and if Will ever returns they will have a great vibe. M. Robbie is now the definitive live-action Harley little by little getting more into the role over every film she has starred in, this film truly made me want to see this Harley with a Joker sadly they blew their load on that already.

Rat Catcher 2, Polka dot man had slightly more humanizing roles even though they do not have a lot of dialogue. Cena is a great entertainer as always and he borderlines on cringe but does not go fully into that territory. King Shark, Groot and Hulk in a bar is a film I wanna see make it happen please !!!

The premise is great and true to a suicide squad story nothing is what it seems and the plot unfolds and changes in unexpected ways and villains die a lot. Although the final main antagonist will not be much of a surprise for most DC animated fans, the movie is aimed at the masses and works well the way it is written. On a side note this was a great first live screen appearance of the final antagonist.

The Bad:

Every individual element of the film works well and is fun as a whole, it still does not justify the above 2-hour runtime. The opening act and the climax are perfect and I would not change anything, everything was tight and streamlined. Not too sure what happened in the middle section.

Harley's side plot was fun but way too long for the way the plotline is resolved. Not just Harley plotline but a lot can be edited out of the whole second act and still keep and resolve every story beat we have in the final cut that was streamed. I do not think this is a film-specific issue but rather the 'it's on streaming service so we can just keep everything in' mentality to allow films to pointlessly meander instead of editing it for a more smoother experience.

Final Words;.

This movie was a better watch than 2016, but DC as a whole has evolved since then shows like Doom Patrol and Superman and Lois and the excellent DC animations prove that DC is capable of giving us great stuff. This was a great and fun watch, although editing about 30 minutes from it would have made it an amazing and fun watch.