Did James Gunn's "The Suicide Squad" Kill the DC Curse?

Ok, maybe there isn't a curse, but it sure feels like one to me. Since the conclusion of Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight" trilogy, Warner Bros. has released 10 live-action films in the DC universe and maybe three of them have received a B or higher rating from me. DC's films have almost been consistent in their deficits: poor pacing, incoherent storytelling, and a lack of direction. Of those films, the one that found itself most plagued with more problems than Jay-Z was David Ayer's "Suicide Squad". Thus, my overwhelming concern when another Suicide Squad movie was announced with little other detail other than it supposedly being more reboot than sequel. Enter James Gunn, whose magnum opus up to this point is one of the top five Marvel movies over the past decade in "Guardians of the Galaxy," and I suddenly find myself hopeful for a movie drowned in crazy characters. I did not find either trailer to do a great job of building anticipation, especially with so much focus on the uber-annoying Harley Quinn, but if anybody can manage such a crew of oddballs, it would be James Gunn.

To protect the nation from an anti-American regime, Amanda Waller sends Task Force X (better known as the Suicide Squad) to the the island of Corto Maltese to destroy a laboratory housing a secret project codenamed "Project Starfish". When the first team is almost entirely decimated by military forces, it is up to the Bloodsport-led Team B (Peacemaker, Ratcatcher II, Polka Dot Man, King Shark) to complete the mission. To do so, they must first overcome the vast distrust and differences amongst each other and abduct the Thinker, the metahuman scientist heading the project. Amidst the colorful personalities is a secret mission that further divides the members of Task Force X as the true nature of Project Starfish comes to light and the threat of Starro the Conqueror hits Corto Maltese with no mercy.

There are a couple of things I really liked with how Gunn decided to structure the story and one glaring annoyance. The "Team A" fake-out was awesome, with the majority of the massive cast getting killed in the first 14 minutes of the movie and causing a real level of shock. A decent job was done balancing the individual character arcs, but had there been many more to have to present, the character qualities are likely to have gone downhill. The pacing was pretty well done, but I found there to be too much "side mission"-type engagement with the story. I get that this was done to better develop the characters, which worked in many ways, but I will also address how it went overboard with some. Showing the chapter titles throughout the movie felt campy and there was more than enough nods to being a comic book movie that I didn't need constant reminders with silly chapters. The CGI was suprisingly consistent throughout the film, not the best, but it never wavered nor became a glaring weak point. This is really surprising considering the color palletes of the film, going with colorful-looking characters amidst pretty neutral and mundane backgrounds.

Digging into the bulk of this movie, outside of its underlying theme of control, are the various characters and their interactions with each other. This movie did a few things really well, starting with toning down the role that Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) plays and having her feel more like a supporting character and not trying to push her to the forefront. Idris Elba's Bloodsport and Daniela Melchior's Ratcatcher 2, along with Sebastian the rat, are both absolute gems that led the emotional tone of the film. None of the highlights throughout either of their story arcs felt forced and the fully fleshed family-related motivations shed a light on Gunn's strengths as a character-driven director. For the rest of the primary team, Peacemaker (John Cena) was a decently fun character, but a lot of the cringe comedy came from him and without Elba's Bloodsport for the comical ping-pong, I can't say he would have been even remotely as memorable. I am not interested at all in his solo HBOMax series. So here comes the controversy, Polka-Dot Man was nowhere near as good of a character as the reactions I have been seeing cite him to be. I love David Dastmalchian, but this character was so inconsistent in his personality and had a "redemption" arc that did not feel earned, and thus, had no impact on my viewing. His mommy issues and the way in which they were represented was funny the first time but became old quite fast. I would probably be tossing the character in the trash if not for one of my favorite pieces of back-and-forth dialogue after Milton dies.

King Shark (voiced by Sylvester Stallone) was a forgettable character that did not live up to the memorability of other pop culture CGI characters and I thought to be on the same level as Weasel. Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) came off as much more fun and consistent with the mood of this film when compared to his previous portrayal of the character. I found the Thinker to be a wasted character with no real demonstration of his abilities, he could have easily been replaced by a generic mad scientist and had the same impact. I think the big misses with the character decisions were killing Pete Davidson's Blackguard and how the antagonists' storyline was told. Davidson was the absolute funniest thing in the movie before his unfortunate demise and I would take more time with him than any other character in the movie. I think there was too much time spent with the Corto Maltese military, including the needlessly incessant interplay between Silvio Luna (Juan Diego Botto) and Harley Quinn. Yes, I understand why this sequence existed, but Harley did not really need as extensive character development as other characters and this time felt a bit wasted on her. Rather, more development centered around Starro directly would have strengthened the tragedy of a creature ripped from its happiness of "floating, staring at the stars". Ultimately, while there were some really strong characters, there were just too many redemption arcs planted.

That last character to touch on is Amanda Waller, who was brilliantly portrayed by Viola Davis, but even she could not avoid an odd character development. All throughout the film, she maintained her callous nature but when she came to after being knocked out by her team, she did nothing but stare them down. A bit odd for someone willing to essentially kill another character's daughter. Moving on from the cast and onto the general feel of the movie, Gunn has an amazing knack for bringing campiness but placing comedy at just the right times to overshadow it. As campy as the film is, it plays with comedy so well that it flips the switch back to the story and reels the characters back in before they become too eye-rolling. This does wear down as the movie progresses, with some of the comedy starting to feel forced and cringey about halfway through. Again, the movie does a good job at minimizing it, but pushing a comedy movie past two hours is eventually going to wear itself down.

So, did it kill the curse? Thus far, yeah, it has. This is, probably, easily their third best film moving ahead of "Shazam" but not overtaking "Man of Steel" or "Wonder Woman". It had good humor that wavers here and there, but remained enjoyable throughout. I think there were some bad decisions regarding character weight and inclusion that nullified a lot of the intended emotional impact and comedy potential. It was the unexpected that propelled this movie forward: the unexpected performances, the unexpected quality, the unexpected humor, and the unexpected fun from a very dark cinematic universe.

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RATING: 🐀 🐀 🐀 🐀 / 5

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