There seems to be a certain atmosphere of surprise around the largely positive critical praise of The Suicide Squad, which I shall be adding to here in-fact. However this is entirely based upon the absolutely terrible output of the DCEU thus far, I even hate Wonder Woman. However I too adore James Gunn and have greatly enjoyed every film he has made thus far in his career, so in my heart of hearts I knew that if Gunn had a certain amount of carte blanche (“He’s giving us full Cate Blanchett to do what we want!”), then a film of quality would arise. The Suicide Squad is just that, an uproariously fun thrill ride through a collection of deeply exciting and thrilling action set pieces, with some surprisingly heartfelt moments and some wonderfully shockingly dark ones. All in all I really couldn’t have had more fun with Squad than I did that day. Now it’s by no means a perfect film, but it certainly is one that flies by despite its length and one that I shall be returning to multiple times in the future I feel.

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The film really is boasting it’s incredibly stacked cast and its right to do so, for beyond Gunn’s gleeful dispatching of certain big names rather early on, those that stick around for longer really do give an eclectic and wonderfully diverse crew of “nutty cons” (as the synopsis refers to them as). Leading from behind the scenes is Viola Davis, with a more menacing turn this time around and her character is thus all the more interesting because of it. Her grey area dynamics lead to a lot of the film’s most dynamic conversations actually, for as much as this film prides itself on its repeatedly excellent action set pieces, it also boasts a lot of intriguing complicated dialogue exchanges, the exact sort that are either terribly delivered or ignored in other non-Gunn helmed Marvel movies. This is probably my favourite Harley Quinn movie, where her mania is somewhat subdued and frankly a lot less annoying. She also has some of the best action in the film too, and a hilarious sub-plot sequence. Idris Elba, Joel Kinnerman and John Cena give variations on the muscle-bound leading man role and all have interesting dynamics that separate each of them from one another. The cameos are all plentiful, but are all interesting and fun to watch, and as one can quickly assume, don’t stay around for very long. Peter Capaldi, Daniella Melchoir and David Dastmalchian all have more wackier turns in the film, but repeatedly bring to them inherent warmth and humour and in the case of Melchoir a genuinely very touching moment (with a lovely small turn by Taiki Waititi).

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In so many ways James Gunn has been given all the toys in the toy-box and been allowed to play with them in a fantastically r-rated wonderland of gore, crudity and wonderfully over-the-top violence, and we have been given the best case scenario we could have ever hoped for in the case of The Suicide Squad. A film so enjoyably playful and excessively frantic and whimsical, with an inherent darkness and grit paired with it, that the biggest surprise for me in the film was after-the-fact finding out that it was over 2 hours long – for me the movie simply flew by, and as already stated will be one that I will be viewing again very soon. Gunn’s direction and script is enjoyably frantic and kinetic, never once letting up pace or its specific brand of controlled chaos, however also never letting it’s naturally over-the-top nature strain credulity with its own universe. Frankly it was rather refreshing to have superheroes and the like fall through buildings and from great heights and the like, with genuine repercussions and believable stakes. This is a world with a talking shark, but that world does have rules and although Gunn enjoys repeatedly breaking cinematic conventions regarding narrative, he sticks by the hard and fast rules of his own private super-world and the film really is all the better for it.

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An absolute blast of a 8/10, Gunn has perfected in this film what has frequently been referred to as big budget Troma film-making. With all the guts and gore and ridiculousness that made those no-budget features play like gang-busters, maximised by a studio machine. Standouts are all over, but Gunn is undoubtedly the king of this domain. In so many ways it just makes me wish for an R-rated Guardians movie, that I know deep down I will never get.

P.S. To say that there were a few clunkers in the dialogue department would be truthful, however these lead balloon gags really were few and far between and Gunn’s joke per minute ratio was on a pretty sterling form, and chiefly never let up even during the film’s most exciting moments. With moments as aforementioned also of genuinely touching heart.

P.P.S. My biggest, BIGGEST complaint with the first Suicide Squad was the wall to wall collection of classic rock songs without any rhyme or reason or any genuine choice behind them, just someone clearly having typed into Spotify “Best songs ever” and taking the top 30! This is thankfully not the case here and every choice is specific and even when they are at they’re most on the nose, they feel perfect.

-        -  Thomas Carruthers