Director: James Gunn
Distributor: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Duration: 132 minutes
The Suicide Squad (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
Even though on our site we didn’t give the 2016 version of Suicide Squad a bad score, a lot of viewers were disappointed with the overall experience. The Extended Edition we reviewed also received a few extra points due to the meaty extra content. That being said, the general dislike for the movie was mainly generated due to its convoluted storytelling, and Jared Leto’s rendition of The Joker. The latter of which got a lot of negative comments, and it seemed that the remarks revolving around Leto’s performance often overshadowed the overall enjoyable action-flick feel of the film. Due to this, a sequel was clearly not coming, and now it’s time to present the world with a different version of DC’s Suicide Squad in The Suicide Squad.
The Suicide Squad tells a similar story as the 2016 movie, where supervillains and criminals are being deployed on ‘suicide’ missions, in exchange for them to get a reduced prison sentence. Sadly, it seems that most do not return from these missions, and hence the group of participants is called the Suicide Squad. This time, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) assembles two squads to go to Corto Maltese, a small island nation, to destroy everything that has to do with ‘Project Starfish’. Sadly, the first team almost immediately gets wiped out, leaving it in the hands of only a handful of criminals (and oddities of nature) to get the job done. The very incompatible group of miscreants and damned souls will have their work cut out for them.
After a somewhat chaotic introduction, the movie’s flow and pacing stabilize and you’re in for a bumpy ride. The movie finds a proper balance between information and action, and it never drags out the experience. This new version is very bloody, and it actually came somewhat as a surprise as the 2016 version is fairly teen-friendly. Some characters do not come with an actual background story, which sometimes makes it a bit harder to completely care about said characters. Nonetheless, we enjoyed ourselves from start to finish, and we hope a second will follow soon.
Even though some familiar faces return for this Suicide Squad movie, the acting performances are top-notch. We find Idris Elba a slightly more charismatic leader than we did Will Smith in the 2016 movie. Margot Robbie plays a proper Harley Quinn again, and her character doesn’t feel as dumbed-down as it did in her own feature film, Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, which we thoroughly disliked. Viola Davis does a formidable job as Amanda Waller once again, and we couldn’t see anyone else do a better job as her. This makes it only logical that she returned to be the villainesque lead that uses criminals to do her bidding. Newcomers on the block are John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, David Dastmalchian, and Daniela Melchior, who all bring their characters to life splendidly. We have to give special props to Daniela, as she does an amazing job portraying Ratcatcher 2, even with her slightly shorter acting track record.
The Blu-ray edition of The Suicide Squad comes with a load of special features. These features include extended and deleted scenes, a very lengthy gag reel, a lot of scene breakdowns, funny parody trailers, and of course, creative thoughts behind the movie. You’ll be able to extend your movie-viewing pleasure by quite a bit when you go through all the extras. We loved learning a bit more about the source material, and seeing how certain things were changed for this live-action adaptation. This is one of those occasions where a physical copy will present you with a lot of added value.
Conclusion
The Suicide Squad has a totally different atmosphere and vibe compared to the 2016 rendition of Suicide Squad. While both movies may have their own dedicated fanbase, we must say that the storytelling, action, and just overall appeal of this movie are higher than the aforementioned 2016 ‘original’. We very much enjoyed watching this bloodsoaked story of the most disposable supervillain squad on Earth, and we had a lot of special content to wade through after the credits started rolling. This is one of the better and more interesting modern DC films out there.
The Suicide Squad (Blu-ray) - Movie Review,
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