In the movie, nervous shock value meets Hollywood sentimentality, resulting in a superhero movie unlike most others in the genre.
Suicide squad At first, it may seem like a typical superhero movie - another group of powerful comic book characters team up to battle insurmountable odds on a mysterious and deadly mission. The public will recognize some faces of the last (horrific) Suicide squad film, such as the merry criminal Harley Quinn (played by Margot Robbie). But much of the fun comes from trying to figure out who the newcomers are, including a costumed hunk named TDK (Nathan Fillion). When someone asks you what TDK means, you reply, “It doesn't mean anything. It's just my name. It represents me. "" Your name is ... letters? "" All names are letters, "answers another character.
Hollywood is now mired in superhero movie craze. Every year another stream of movies about caped benefactors dominates the box office. TDK (whose name it is in fact, a cheeky initialism) is mostly a joke by screenwriter / director James Gunn about the sheer number of characters that have appeared in these works at the moment. Comic book source material is running out, forcing movies to turn to villains whose names are just ... letters. Can viewers still love characters they've never heard of?
Gunn knows the answer is yes, since he launched the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise for Marvel, which also featured a motley little-known team of champions. But in the more laid-back world of DC Comics movies, which place less emphasis on narrative continuity and don't have a mandate to position people as long-term heroes, Gunn can finally do something truly new: break the unspoken rules of the game. gender and poke fun at their boastful morality.
The plot of the movie It's devilishly simple, until it isn't. Gunn's Suicide Squad, like the one before it, is a team of villains. The group emerged from prison and was coerced by the United States government to cover up the country's involvement in the evil experiments of a military junta in a fictional Latin American country. Villains storm a beach, infiltrate the nation's capital, and attempt to destroy an infamous prison. The bombs, ready to detonate if they disobey orders, are planted in their skulls, but the real motivation is the opportunity to wreak havoc under the American flag.
Some vestiges of the first film remain, but the newcomers are the most prominent. Idris Elba is a grumpy assassin named Bloodsport who is named the leader almost by default; John Cena plays a metal-helmeted psychotic patriot named Peacemaker; David Dastmalchian is a twisted introvert with multi-colored skin named the Polka-Dot Man; and Sylvester Stallone voices a jolly and awkward human shark hybrid who can't contain his appetite. The smartest addition may be Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), a moon-eyed hedgehog who can control rats; she's so high on the comic charts that she's not even the first villain to bear that name.
Gunn's challenge is not just that the main characters are dark; it is also that their goal is dishonorable, their attitudes range from disinterest to cruelty, and their only guiding principle is survival. He's pushing the boundaries of taste in a genre given to self-importance to see if audiences can still care about such vicious characters as the film concludes; Due to their knack for balancing cynicism and goofiness, they absolutely will. Suicide squad it's hilarious, sadly self-aware, and surprisingly violent, a refreshing mix of familiar conventions and gory satire. In a sea of sequels, reboots, crossovers, and origin stories, it stands out like few other recent adaptations. (Logan, Black Panther, Shazam!, Y Aquaman are some of the exceptions). Gunn's brilliance is that while he revels in the villainy of his ensemble, which he's happy to curse, maim, and kill without asking too many questions, he also captures the carnage he's leaving behind.
The team's mission is clearly intended as a one-way trip. Amid the bloody fun of the squad's attempts to reach their ultimate goal, Gunn slowly makes us question the goal of the task. Corto Maltese is a stand-in for many smaller nations that found themselves in the crosshairs of modern imperialism. The prison the squad is storming is It is also strangely reminiscent of the film's leads, appointed to the dirty work that America could never publicly admit to doing.
The film comes close to embracing the nihilistic humor of a South Park episode, concluding that no one can plausibly claim to be a hero or a villain. Gunn began his career at the (virtually) no-budget independent company Troma, where storytelling is often based on impact value. But he has always mixed that nervousness with the sentimentality of Hollywood, a combination that makes Suicide squad job. Amid the ultraviolence and political contempt, Gunn's love for his misfit characters shines through, keeping the entire exercise from feeling worthless and bitter.
