Review of The Suicide Squad
midlandsmovies • August 11, 2021
The Suicide Squad (2021) Dir. James Gunn
After taking a bunch of obscure comic misfits into the big leagues with Guardians of the Galaxy, director James Gunn has found himself helming a quasi-sequel to Suicide Squad (2016) having been temporarily fired from his own Marvel franchise. Jumping over to the mostly awful DCEU (not sorry), and in the footsteps of Zack Snyder’s Justice League re-edit, could Gunn create a similar resurrection of his own?
Well, very much yes. Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney and Margot Robbie are the lucky returnees from David Ayer’s first effort. And they’re joined by Idris Elba’s mercenary Bloodsport and John Cena’s “bro” Captain America-style douchebag Peacemaker.
CGI King Shark (Sly Stallone), David Dastmalchian as the quirky Polka-Dot Man and Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher 2 round out the group of outcasts. And then there’s Milton (a regular nobody who is with the team for almost their entire journey to provide a joke late on in the film).
Gunn has pulled these unfamiliar superheroes directly from the most obscure 70s versions of the Squad and the film adds his familiar idiosyncratic humour, weird one-liners and plenty of gory blood to a lot of success.
Unlike the 2016 version, characters are introduced and established in minutes (instead of half the film’s runtime) and there’s a tongue-in-cheek knowingness that a film like this sorely needs - especially if you’re gonna have a monstrous shark-man (or weasel even) as part of the team.
The plot sees two squads, on the promise of less jail time, arrive at the island Corto Maltese (Vicky Vale’s photos of this were great in 1989 Batman, natch) to destroy a secret military facility. After a double-crossing ambush the remnants of the first team merge forces with the back-up group to join local rebels and continue their mission.
From rats saying hello to Polka-Dot man’s virus infected face, the film is an exciting mixture of superhero tropes, incredibly peculiar situations, beguiling humour and oddball action. As they trudge through the jungle there’s hints of the freaky team dynamics of Predator and, thankfully, almost none of dullness of their first outing.
The actors have great chemistry with each other (Cena and Elba trade barbs throughout) and Gunn’s script has them bantering and hollering but at the same time, he also allows time for them to bond naturally in slower scenes. This helps by adding some tonal humanity to his frankly ludicrous concept.
The film barrels along as Harley Quinn gets captured and then escapes in a hail of bullets and bouquets (don't ask) and eventually we discover Peter Capaldi’s “Thinker” who is working on a project which sees a giant Starfish attack a city. With smaller starfish emanating from its armpit, they attach themselves face-hugger style to people’s heads as a way to control the area's population. Just writing that sentence would have been unthinkable just a few years ago under Snyder’s tenure.
So where does that leave the DCEU? In many ways, who cares? Whether they’re using the same actors from previous unsuccessful attempts or simply creating standalone movies (Joker and the forthcoming Batman) it seems as long as they allow directors to complete a vision with as little studio interference as possible then they’re on to a winner.
With Joker, Snyder’s recent re-imagining and now The Suicide Squad, DC has provided far more imaginative films than any Marvel project since Endgame. And kudos (finally) to them for doing so. It’s been a long time coming.
So despite my scepticism that anything could be made from the DCEU corpse, Gunn proves he can polish even the dullest of franchise turds into something incredibly watchable and fun with huge energy and blockbuster thrills. This is how you do it.
★★★★
Michael Sales
Up! (1976) Dir. Russ Meyer Well, bi-Adolf Hitler BDSM is not something (a) I thought I’d ever see 5 minutes into a movie and (b) ever expected to write in my lifetime to be fair but this spicy start is pretty standard for the work of exploitation filmmaker Russ Meyer. Up! is a kind of r*pe-revenge softcore p*rn film (there’s gonna be a fair bit of self-censorship in this review so apologies in advance), the type Meyer is known for. I’d describe the plot in more detail but it’s mostly a convoluted and incoherent mess of double-crossing, murder, violence and lots and lots of humping. In short, a man called Adolph gets murdered and a woman investigates (kinda) the circumstances but as she does so, a group of locals blackmail, attack and screw each other with the murder mystery barely mentioned throughout. With so little narrative, it could be argued if it’s essentially p*rn? To be fair, not far off. It’s about extreme as you can go without simply making a s*x film. Is that a…no, it’s a belly button hole. Bookending the film (and also seen at various points throughout) is a Greek Chorus - simply a busty fully nude woman of course - who delivers dialogue like “Pummelling the scrotum with joyous supplication” and other such poeticisms. This artistic flourish is mostly pointless - the actress herself saying the words were tough to learn because it was utter nonsense. On a technical level, the editing is surprisingly well done and the 4k image is frankly fantastic. Someone somewhere must be putting together a post-modern take about the beautiful landscapes and cinematography of Meyer’s * ahem * output. But it definitely does have a kitsch artistry. It has certainly provided plenty of cinematic influence though. Elements of Tarantino grindhouse sensibilities are on show - Meyers likes bosoms as much as Quents likes feet - and there’s even a leather gimp early on. I can also see how its had an impact on Ti West X’s with a focus on sexuality and the body as well, more obviously, Anna Biller’s feminist-twist The Love Witch (2016). Suffice to say it’s not for the weak of heart. I think in this day and age you can’t go into this completely blind to its style, period and context though. It's an X-rated Carry On style that was bad taste then and it’s bad taste now. It revels in its sleaziness without a single hint of shame or apology. Simply saying 'deal with it'. The main negative though is the absence of plot - if the film can even be looked at like that - which is barely present. This is a shame as the whole thing could do with a bit more coherence rather than endless shagging. But it’s far from titillation, it’s mostly clowning - albeit a very adult version of it. More saucy than sexy. Trying to review this through modern sensibilities is almost impossible. It’s as offensive can be from the first scene through to the final credits - heck even this 4k menu is simply one of the film's many s*x scenes. But there are some progressive themes as it doesn’t shy from confronting sexual freedom, bisexuality, gay sex, BDSM and consensual exploration. There's moments of comedy thrown in and I enjoyed a frankly hilarious 5-minute monologue explaining the culprit’s intentions, which was a ludicrous way to deliver a slasher-style ending. I suppose the main thing about Up! (and Meyers’ work overall) is there’s a sort of love it or loathe it quality about the whole shebang. But it’s so unlike anything being made today - for good or bad - that it’s never anything other than unpredictably fascinating. More explicit than most Meyers films - in fact more than any film - it’s a lewd, rude and crude (s)exploration with a satirical edge and campy enjoyment bouncing from every frame. ★★★ 3 / 5 Michael Sales Severin Films releases Russ Meyers' UP! (1976) and MOTORPSYCHO (1965) on 28 April 2025 in newly restored and scanned 4k with hours of new and archival Special Features https://severinfilms.co.uk/
On the 24th of April, the Midlands Art Centre opened its doors to Gobby Flicks Productions for a night of live comedy. Proceeds were raised towards the production of new short comedy films, directed and written by women.
Ti West’s The House of the Devil makes a wonderful companion piece to his film The Innkeepers. Both maintain the director’s referential approach to horror, incapsulating it in a slow burning 90 minutes that manages to build and maintain tension while cheekily winking to the audience and showing the mechanisms behind the scares.
Read the full list of nominees for the Midlands Movies Awards 2025