I actually enjoy the first Suicide Squad, I’m fully aware that it’s not a good film, lots of big problems including plot holes, pacing, editing, Leto’s Joker, but I can enjoy the performances particularly those of Margot Robbie, Will Smith, Jay Hernandez and Viola Davis. I can see there’s a good movie in their, maybe it’s the talked about “Ayer cut” that might not ever see the light of day, and I believe caused WB to replace Snyder on the Justice League which led to that mess of a film by Joss Whedon.

Suicide Squad very much felt like DC’s answer to Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, so when it was announced that James Gunn was sacked from Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 (before he would later be rehired), he felt like a natural person to take on writing and directing the sequel, especially after Justice League, with people crying for “the Snyder cut”, WB seemed more likely to give directors the freedom to do what they want instead of interfering.

The Suicide Squad sees Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis and Jai Courtney all return in their roles with new characters played by Idris Elba, John Cena, David Dastmalchian, Sylvester Stallone and Daniela Melchior, forming Task Force X this time tasked to stop The Thinker, played by Peter Capaldi, and the mysterious Project Starfish.

The trailer promised big things, lots of practical stunts, fun, great action and violence which was missing from the first. And the film certainly starts out that way. The first 20 minutes or so is exactly what you want and what you expected, and maybe the best 20 minutes in any of the DCEU films so far. The film gets straight into the action, exactly what you’re there to see. When a film starts that way it’s difficult to keep it up for another 2 hours and the film doesn’t unfortunately. And that’s my biggest problem with the film, it’s pacing. The start is at 100mph that whatever else came after was going to feel slow, there are moments where it picks up and the film is at it’s best again, in the action moments. And I think that’s why the film will be successful with general audiences. They don’t care about whether there are some slower moments as long as there’s good action.

Similar to the first one, we don’t really have a villain and what there is, we don’t get too much backstory or spend much time with them so we don’t care too much by the time we get to the final act which isn’t particularly something special.

The new characters are interesting, some I wish we got to spend more time with, but Margot Robbie continues to impress as Harley Quinn and I hope we get to see her continue this role in whatever might be next in this bizarre cinematic universe. It’s weird for me that of all the characters in this film that Peacemaker is the only one we are confirmed to see again when his series is released early in 2022.

Overall, The Suicide Squad is fun, has some really good action and some great cinematography, feeling like a step in the right direction for the DCEU which will go in every single direction before we see anyone of these characters again with the likes of Shazam 2, Aquaman 2, Black Adam and of course, The Batman all in production at the moment.

What did you think of The Suicide Squad?

It’s quite likely I will do a spoiler review for this one so look out for that as well as Old and The Forever Purge, as well as Jungle Cruise which I haven’t seen just yet. To keep up to date with them follow on Instagram @floodersfilms and like on Facebook.