Michael's Movie Grade: B+
As someone who hated both the first Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey, I did not go into this movie excepting much. Man was I wrong, this film is a pure delight.
James Gunn is a mainstream Hollywood director who has his own unique style that is apparent in even his most mainstream works (the Guardians of the Galaxy movies are great examples of that). Luckily Warner Brothers seemed to give him all the freedom he could want, when he made this film. Before even the opening credits this movie excellently sets up expatiations in typical comic book movie fashion and then completely destroys them. These gives us a clear idea of the film we are about to see, one that is not going to strictly follow the conventions of the genre and one where anything can happen. Because of this, The Suicide Squad becomes one of the few superhero movies where you can never be sure what is going to happen next, and that was something a greatly appreciated.
One problem I had with the first Suicide Squad movie is that we never really got to see the villains be villains, making the main premise pointless. That is not the case here at all. Here we get to see the villains be truly horrible human beings. With the exception of Ratcatcher 2, we never asked to sympathize with or forgive these villains. We are instead simply asked to enjoy the ride and the mayhem. Yet at the same time we are able to root for them to save the day because the movie's antagonists are even worse than our villains, something this movie was able to pull off without ever having to play down the evilness of our main characters. That in itself is a fine piece of filmmaking.
The humor here is fantastic and there were many times I laughed out loud. Pretty much anything having to do with King Shark cracked me up (Sylvester Stallone's vocal performance certainly had a lot to do with that). The humor is the perfect mixture of clever satire on the superhero genre and just plain silly immature jokes. Regardless of what type of humor most of the jokes got good laughs out of me and everyone else in the theater.
While it is easy to argue that the gore is a bit excessive (and it is) the action sequences here are a lot of fun. They are big, bold and bloody in all the best ways and show perfectly just what an audience would want from an R rated Superhero movie. The climatic battles are in equal parts fun and intense and just a delight to watch.
Unfortunately this movie is longer than it needs to be and there are a few moments were it really seems to drag. Yet these moments are hardly enough to bring this movie down.
This is a pure delight for both superhero fans and fans of James Gunn.
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