Zane's take at the Cinema's

David Ayer’s Suicide Squad was met with a monstrous financial gain but wasn’t so much a critical gain from the critics or from the fans, for the majority of course. It was Warner Bros. attempt on creating their own Guardians of the Galaxy with a bunch of rouge and lethal villains to team up and do the governments dirty work. Now, there’s probably a few aspects that you could pull from Ayer’s Suicide Squad that were worth the watch but it would be a tiny list. Margot Robbie and even Will Smith crushed it and delivered the finest performances from that movie, but the rest of movie was more of stylish and hot topic music video with nothing that contributed nothing to the comic-book movie genre. Sure, it made tons of cash but it wasn’t met with hot critical reception and the studio was uncertain on how they wanted to move forward. There were talks of a sequel with directors Mel Gibson, Ruben Ruben Fleischer and even Gavin O’Connor considered to direct a sequel. It was then announced that writer and director James Gunn was in negoitaions to direct the next Suicide Squad movie, when it was also the same year where Gunn wad canned from directing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, after some inappropriate tweets. As soon as Gunn hired for The Suicide Squad, he was then back on board to direct Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, after he shot and completed The Suicide Squad, and instead of it being a sequel to David Ayer’s film, this is described more as a relaunch that took the franchise down a different path with a bigger and new ensemble. Several components from Ayer’s film were brought back for Gunn’s film, particularly Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang and Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flagg. Everything else was meant to be a completely different thing by giving it it’s own personality and to kind of separate itself from the other film. With The Suicide Squad out in theaters and on HBO max, this is version that we should have received back in 2016. The Suicide Squad is the best film James Gunn has made to date. It completely wipes away any thought or gripe of the original Suicide Squad, by giving it what the first movie desperately needed: seeing a team come together. Each and individual character gets their moment to shine, thereby creating the vibe and tone within a Suicide Squad.

Serving as a reboot, The Suicide Squad focuses on a conglomeration of supervillains with Harley Quinn, Bloodsport, Peacemaker and so much more who are assigned a mission located on an island named  Corto Maltese. Armed with a variety of weapons and odd super powers, they make their ways through the jungle on a search and destroy mission.

By far one of the best and refreshing elements of The Suicide Squad is what the original Suicide Squad eagerly needed and that was to actually see a team come together. That’s what made films like The Avengers, X-Men and especially Guardians of the Galaxy so great was that you got to see a team of characters (in this case, villains) see common ground and collaborate together. You never got to see that in Ayer’s film, but with Gunn’s film it’s wonderfully displayed and it’s great that you could never get enough of it. Granted, some of the characters in this movie are much more irreverent and goofy than the ones in the previous movie, but because of the direction of James Gunn, each character shines and each are given a proper moment to feel like they belong in this movie. It also proves that no matter what kind of movie it is, you can have 20, 30 or even 40 characters in one movie, as long as none of it feels over stuffed and The Suicide Squad never feels like that.

The characters in this movie are absolute diamonds and it’s almost a struggle to pick a character who stole the whole movie. Now even if you had a complaint with the first Suicide Squad movie, no one has anything negative to say about Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. This woman perfectly embodies everything about Harley Quinn in the way Robert Downey Jr. captures the essence of Iron Man and the way Hugh Jackman brings the character of Wolverine to the big screen. She captures every motif and gesture magnificently and out of all the movies she’s been in as Harley Quinn, she gives her all time best in The Suicide Squad. Idris Elba, serving as an almost Will Smith replacement as Bloodsport, was terrific as a leader and as someone who shared a great dynamic with the rest of the Suicide Squad. Even Joel Kinnaman, who was completely butchered as Rick Flagg, got a much better shot and better material to do with as his character. However, the new comers with John Cena as Peacemaker Sylvester Stallone as the voice of King Shark, Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher 2 and David Dastmalchian as Polka Dot Man add more excitement, laughter and a great dose of heart to the Suicide Squad. Every character is properly placed and utilized which makes the team layered and more dimensional.

We all love James Gunn and we all love what he did with the two Guardians of the Galaxy movies, when you consider how many tools and aspects his playing around with. He’s the perfect kind of director for a comic book movie ensemble, which is pretty much a given at this point knowing that types of comic-book movies he’s made in the past. Gunn, somehow, found a way to double down on his style and the amazing and brutal violence. He goes old school with his shot selections, the violence is absolutely gnarly and spectacular, but he also shows a great side of endearment within the team. Aside from the blood and guts, there’s a surprisingly solid level of heart and humanity lied in this movie. As far as the comic book movie genre is concerned, this is definitely what the genre needed. A nice change of pace that appeases to mainstream entertainment yet also finds away to me somewhat artsy in some unique way. It’s no telling if Warner Bros. let James Gunn do what ever he wanted, however his vision is beautifully displayed and it seemed as if he let his style and vision run all throughout this entire movie. At the end of the day, a movie belongs to the studio, it doesn’t belong to the director and it’s uncertain as to how much freedom James Gunn was given to him during principal photography. That said, The Suicide Squad feels like it belongs to James Gunn.

My grade for The Suicide Squad: A