The Suicide Squad - No Homework Required

Comic book movies and TV shows are very complicated these days. There are multiple universes, reboots, remakes, director’s cuts, and TV shows. It’s hard to keep up with everything, much less follow along. Because of this, a film like The Suicide Squad should be one movie too many due it being a sequel/soft reboot filled with obscure characters that even the dorkiest audience member would have trouble recognizing. Instead, it ends up being the most singularly focused and entertaining comic book movie in years.

The first Suicide Squad was a bit of a mess. It was meant to be an R-rated, subversive response to the Marvel movies, but studio interference turned it into a forgettable PG-13 cog in the machine. When the DC universe failed to equal the popularity, and focus, of the Marvel movies, it appeared that the film would be a one-off. But when Marvel fired writer/director James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy), DC immediately hired him and told him he could make whatever he wanted; it turned out he wanted to give the Suicide Squad another chance. 

(NOTE: I won’t be writing any major spoilers in this review, but even being vague about certain things may spoil them, as this movie contains a few big surprises.) 

The Suicide Squad is kind of a sequel in that four characters (Amanda Waller, Rick Flag, Captain Boomerang, and Harley Quinn) return, but it’s also a bit of a reboot in that the focus is largeley on new members of the squad, like Idris Elba’s Bloodsport, Daniela Melchior’s Ratcatcher 2, and John Cena’s Peacemaker. Other members and events of the 2016 Squad are not referenced, which is kind of nice because that movie is so forgettable anyway (and I didn’t want to watch it again to prep for this movie).

Because the first film is largely ignored, The Suicide Squad is able to be refreshingly simple, and the tone is changed. The first film was slightly comedic, but overall it was a joyless affair. The Suicide Squad, on the other hand, is pretty much an action comedy. Some of the funniest moments occur between Bloodsport and Peacemaker as they develop a bit of a Gimli and Legolas rivalry during the mission. But the bulk of the humor is due to the self-aware nature of the film. This is a film that features a humanoid weasel and a talking shark (hilariously voiced by Sylvester Stallone); rather than try to come up with some reason for characters like this to exist, the film just makes fun of how ridiculous comic book characters can be. 

Speaking of ridiculous, there’s no need to get into the plot of this film. There’s a truly weird big villain at the end, and it needs to be taken care of. What more does anyone need to know? The story moves at such a fast and carefree pace that you don’t really care about how crazy the characters are or if all of the plot makes perfect sense because it’s simply a fun time. 

Most of the credit is due to James Gunn’s writing and direction (the action is brutal and easy to follow), but the perfect casting all around is key, as well. Idris Elba makes for a great anti-hero because he’s naturally charismatic enough to not be hated for being a jerk. Margot Robbie is now the official face of Harley Quinn and for good reason. Joel Kinnaman gets to have a lot more fun as Rick Flag this time around. Daniela Melchior provides a surprising and much-needed bit of heart to the film. Viola Davis is even more bureaucratically menacing this time around. And John Cena is the revelation of the film. His sincere delivery of silly dialogue is consistently hilarious. 

The cast in general seemed to be enjoying themselves, and that translates to the film. The Squad, flawed and annoying and crazy as some of them may be, is fun to be around. Scenes of them just hanging out are just as entertaining, if not more, than the action set pieces.

Perhaps this new Squad only seems great in comparison to the old one, or perhaps it’s easy to love a comic book movie that doesn’t require research to make sense. Or maybe it’s simply a great James Gunn film. One thing is for sure, The Suicide Squad is one of the only comic book movies in recent memory that I wanted to watch more than once, and not just because it’s a standalone story, separate from any complex “universe.” The Suicide Squad is rewatchable because behind all the gore and dark humor, there are interesting characters. And good characters can always carry a movie, no matter how silly it gets.

Random Thoughts/Favorite Quotes

James Gunn is known for his excellent music choices and the streak continues with this movie. Love the use of “Folsom Prison Blues” to start things off.

Michael Rooker should have to wear that wig in all future roles.

I love how Joel Kinnaman says “Weasel.”

Always cool to see Pibb represented.

“All names are letters, dickhead.”

For the record an Afghan Hound looks nothing like Weasel.

“He’s harmless. I mean he’s not harmless; he’s killed twenty-seven children. But...you know...we got him to...I think...he’s agreed to do this.”

I’m kind of indifferent towards Pete Davidson, but you know Gunn made a lot of people happy by having him get shot in the face less than ten minutes in.

Normally, I’m all for Jai Courtney getting killed off as immediately as possible, but I sincerely enjoy him as Captain Boomerang. He was one of my favorite parts of the first film. I think of him like Gerard Butler: just let the guy speak in his native accent in every role.

The reveal that all the soldiers the Squad kills are actually allies is my favorite twist of the film, but the beginning fake out of the first Squad being a diversion is a close second.

“Who the fuck is Bloodsport?” I love that I have no idea who most of these characters are, and it doesn’t matter. If watching Marvel feels like you have to do enough research to complete a dissertation at this point, then watching The Suicide Squad is the equivalent of forgetting that you had a test on a subject you already know nothing about, so you say “fuck it” and guess on every question. 

“Book read.”

King Shark is “reading” The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James.

Sylvester Stallone doesn’t know he’s in this movie. The filmmakers secretly recorded all his dialogue by just following him around...like in Bowfinger.

Seriously, though, Stallone’s voice acting is hilarious throughout.

“Who knows why mad men do what they do?”

“I can’t believe this thing had a bullet.”

If there’s one lesson to be learned here, it’s “don’t kill birds.”

But seriously, with the birds and the rats, there’s a real message about innocent, natural creatures and the repercussions for those that do them harm.

“Fake mustache.”

I really dig Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher 2. Her sincere line delivery and nearly comatose energy make her this weird heart of the film.

It kind of sucks that Gunn is going back to Marvel after this. He seems like he should have been with DC the whole time, just doing whatever the fuck he wanted. Oh well, at least we have this movie.

What makes this movie amazing is that halfway through all this crazy shit, there’s a quiet bus ride of character development.

I shouldn’t care about any of these obscure-ass characters, especially since they’re technically supposed to be villains, but I ended up caring more about them than I did in any of the bigger movies of either DC or Marvel. For instance, the party scene in the club is great. It’s funny and endearing (and sad when it cuts to King Shark by himself on the bus), and if they attempted a similar scene with the Justice League or the Avengers it just wouldn’t work. (Aside from the shawarma scene, I can’t think of another scene with either group just hanging out and enjoying themselves for a bit, but I could be wrong.)

I love that a dude named Bloodsport talks about the “Death Touch.” If only Van Damme was playing the guard he said it to…

I don’t want 3-D to make a comeback or anything, but I bet that Harley Quinn flower sequence would look awesome in 3-D.

“All right, who ate all the fucking empanadas?” 

“I am walking back and forth!”

Always good to hear the Pixies in a movie.

Much like Harley Quinn, I forgot about Milton the first time I watched the movie. But upon a second watch, his background involvement is amusing. Here’s this regular-ass dude running along with all these fucking weirdos.

The Thinker’s fucked up lab is right out of Dr. Logan’s in Day of the Dead.

I get the need to kill off nearly everyone from the first film (sort of rebooting the series while also creating real stakes), but it still sucked to see Flag die.

“New dumb friends!”

“Oh, fizzlesticks. Hold on.”

“What was Milton going to do?”

“Get on a satellite, Dale, you fucking dickhead!”

“If they have purpose, then so do we all.”

What a beautiful and disgusting way to kill the monster.

“I was happy, floating, staring at the stars.”

..

Halloween Month: "Slither"

*As always, I write these articles under the assumption that you’ve seen the movie already, so...SPOILERS.

Seeing a pre-famous Nathan Fillion wasted in Dracula 2000 led me to Slither, a much better fit for Fillion. Anyone who had already seen Firefly knew what to expect from Fillion in Slither. I was late to Firefly, so this was my first time seeing Fillion be...well, Fillion. His folksy sarcasm is expected now, but the first time you see it it’s very refreshing, especially in a gross out horror-comedy. But Slither has more than just Fillion going for it. Let me just type “Fillion” one more time here because I’m afraid I didn’t use his name enough in that intro.

If John Carpenter made The Thing a comedy

Before James Gunn got involved with Marvel and became so famous that someone looked up some old, offensive tweets in an effort to destroy him, he made Slither, his love letter to ‘80s classics like The Thing, The Fly, Gremlins, etc.

I remember not liking this movie all that much the first time I saw it. But it was one of those rare movies that I knew I should like, if that makes sense. And when I watched it again, I liked it much more. I chalk that up to two things. 1. I didn’t know what to make of Nathan Fillion’s character at first. I guess it took a little time for his typical schtick to grow on me. 2. I didn’t find it as funny as I expected it to be. This is on me, because there is plenty of humor in Slither, but the best stuff is in the dialogue, not in the gross sight gags. I think I just focused too much on the gore and whatnot the first time around. Also, I’m starting to think that I simply didn’t pay much attention to the film at all the first time I watched it, because there’s a lot of stuff going on in this film that I love.

Once I viewed this film in the same light as a John Carpenter movie, something clicked. I love Carpenter’s films, especially The Thing and They Live (guess what two movies I’m writing about next). But aside from Big Trouble in Little China, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, and They Live, his films are rarely funny (and They Live’s humor is more satirical than traditional). But Carpenter’s work, especially The Thing, can be funny in a reactionary way. When you see a dog creature sprout a cabbage-looking thing with teeth, you might laugh in a “what the fuck is going on here?” kind of way. It’s that “what the fuck?” humor that James Gunn latched onto with Slither. Instead of expecting the audience to say things like, “Well, now, that is some fucked up shit,” he has a character say it.

It’s an obvious and brilliant way to add a comedic layer to a horror film. Gunn realized, as many have before, that horror and comedy are very closely related. There is always an element of humor in scary movies, because people tend to laugh after they’ve been scared. When someone like Gunn makes a point to focus on the humor, it makes for a unique experience. But casting has a lot to do with that as well, and Gunn’s film is helped immensely by two of his regulars: Nathan Fillion and Michael Rooker.

I considered this a Nathan Fillion movie, but it’s really a Michael Rooker and Gregg Henry movie.

James Gunn’s writing deserves most of the credit for his films, but casting the right characters for his dialogue is key. With Slither, I first thought that Fillion carried the film, but in hindsight that’s probably because it was the first time I got to see Fillion be Fillion (going for the record of most “Fillions” in one article!). He is still the star of the film, and he provides most of the laughs. But watching it again, I realized how great Gregg Henry and Michael Rooker are in this movie.

Gregg Henry, who I first noticed in Payback, has a blast playing the ridiculously dicky Mayor MacReady (an homage to MacReady in The Thing). Pretty much everything he says is quotable. Most actors could make the character work, but Henry has a talent for taking his crazy lines to another level. It’s not just that he yells a lot of his lines; it’s this unbelieving tone he adopts. It’s as if he truly cannot fucking believe that any person or alien would have the balls to inconvenience him, either by trying to kill him or by forgetting his Mr. Pibb. This dude does not get enough credit for his comedic work.

Fillion and Henry are great, but this is Michael Rooker’s show. Most cinephiles first came across Rooker in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (I’ve seen Henry, but I first came across Rooker in Mallrats), but it seems like he’s only gained the attention he deserves because of The Walking Dead and Guardians of the Galaxy. And that’s a shame, because the dude has been consistently awesome for a while, but this might be the funniest he’s ever been.

At first, Rooker’s character seems a bit typical for him: he’s kind of an asshole. But once he becomes the host body for an alien, he becomes very funny. The alien needs as much meat as possible, which leads to Rooker walking around saying, “Meat” over and over. Meat is funny word, especially when it’s repeated, but Rooker’s delivery makes it even funnier. And that scene with the butcher is great as he keeps upping his ribeye order.

The role then becomes more of a vocal performance as he gets covered in prosthetics (which must be a joke Gunn likes to play on him since he also cast him as the blue-skinned Yondu). He’s still pretty funny buried under that plastic, yelling for his “sugar plum.”

James Gunn has worked with all three of these actors since Slither, and it’s easy to see why. Gunn’s writing is great, but it is especially dependent on the performers, and he’s found three in Fillion, Henry, and Rooker that get it. Perhaps they can all work together again once Gunn is released from director jail.

Do I regret buying this?

No, but I have to admit I think this is the first time I’ve rewatched this since I bought it. I had forgotten the majority of this film, so I’m glad I had it to experience it again. But odds are it’ll be a long time before I watch it again. I like it a lot, but it’s just not something I want to watch over and over again. If I had only just now come across this movie, I doubt I would end up buying it.

Random Thoughts

Michael Rooker plays a sleazy fucker so well.

Why do they have so much meat in their fridge? That was like twenty pounds Rooker grabbed out of there.

Elizabeth Banks drinks Tab. Disgusting.

“Damn, girl. You are chocolate for the eyes.”

Chekhov’s grenade…which is actually another joke of Gunn’s. He introduces that grenade at the police station in such an obvious way, so we know it’s coming back. But then he subverts our expectations in a funny way by having the grenade end up being useless.

“What kind of thing wants you to eat it?”

I love the excuses for how fucked up everyone is: bee sting, poison oak…

Gregg Henry's rant about Mr. Pibb is great: “Where is the Mr. Pibb? I told your secretary to pack Mr. Pibb. It’s the only Coke I like. God damn Brenda exploding like a water balloon, works driving my friends around like they’re god damn skin-cars, people are spitting acid at me, turning you into cottage cheese, and now there’s no fucking god damn Mr. Pibb?!

I disagree. I don't think Martian is a general word for “outer space fucker.”

Gregg Henry, monsterized: “Kill me, Pardy! Please!”

Pardy shoots him without hesitation.

"Guardians" Is the Weirdest, Possibly Best* Marvel Movie Yet

Guardians of the Galaxy

*I say "possibly best" because I need to let the movie sink in for a while before I claim it to be the best among a lot of very entertaining movies.

And you thought Thor was the weirdest part of the Marvel movie franchise.  As the superhero movies have branched out beyond Earth in recent years with the Thor films and The Avengers, I wondered how far mainstream audiences would go with Marvel into deep sci-fi territory.  Very far, it turns out.  Guardians of the Galaxy (which I will refer to as GotG from here on out because I’m lazy) presents an entirely new group of superheroes who only comic book fans will recognize in an entirely alien setting.  That’s exactly the kind of stuff I like, but I assumed regular audiences wouldn’t be so thrilled since they wouldn’t have an iconic character to get behind.  It turns out audiences and critics alike will go with a movie as long as it’s one of the most fun films of the summer.  (Side note: This shouldn’t be all that surprising since Star Wars could be described the exact same way, and people seemed to like that.  I would point out, however, that “Star Wars” didn’t get the marketing blitz that GotG did.)

GotG works so well because the titular galaxy it takes place in is so large and diverse.  Like most deep sci-fi works, there are many worlds in GotG, so when one is threatened it’s not as big of a deal as it normally is in a film.  What this means is that the film can still be fun while the stakes are quite high.  Characters can joke around at the direst of moments, and it feels normal.  That wouldn’t work if someone was trying to stop a nuke from blowing up America or something.  But when the planet on the line is Xandar, then who cares if we’re laughing while it is potentially destroyed?  (No offense to the fictional Xandarians.)

A goofy sci-fi action film needs a goofy cast of characters to inhabit it and GotG definitely has that covered.  This might just be the high of recently watching and loving this movie, but I’m leaning towards the Guardians over the Avengers at this point.  The group is led by Peter Quill, AKA Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), a kind of Indiana Jones/Han Solo hybrid.  He is joined by Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a green-skinned step-daughter of evil titan Thanos (and she’s not the weirdest member of the group by a long shot…); Drax (Dave Bautista), a literally literal (meaning he takes everything people say literally) vengeance seeking hulk; Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), a genetically-altered raccoon who can talk and is a weapons specialist; and Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), a living tree that can talk, sort of (he only says, “I am Groot”).  With a group like this, the movie pretty much has to be goofy and fun.

Marvel has succeeded with all of these increasingly weird properties for multiple reasons.  The cast is usually spot-on, they spend plenty of money for each film, but, most importantly, they hand off the riskiest films to fellow geeks.  Joss Whedon was the perfect choice to helm The Avengers, and lesser-known geek-friendly writer-director (hey, that’s the first time I’ve used three hyphenates in a row!) James Gunn is equally perfect for GotG.  I am a huge fan of Gunn’s first feature, Slither, so I knew when he got this job that GotG would be something special.  Hats off to Marvel for handing off their properties to people who know what they’re doing.  By the way, if you haven’t seen Slither, check it out.

Gunn (and co-screenwriter Nicole Perlman) bring a great sense of humor and nostalgia to the film that makes it stand out even more from the “traditional” Marvel properties.  All of the films in the series have their comedic elements, but GotG is a bit different in that it’s a bit more self-aware.  An example of this would be the fact that Star Lord refers to the mysterious orb at the center of the movie (like the Tesseract or Aether from other films) as having an “Ark of the Covenant vibe” essentially saying the film is a bit like Indiana Jones and these movies always involve some mysterious powerful substance that is never clearly defined.  My least favorite part of all of these films are the Infinity Stones for the very reason that they’re mysterious, are simply called “powerful,” and bad guys want them for bad reasons.  It’s just too vague and uninteresting.  GotG at least calls itself out for it, which makes it easier to stomach.  Moving on, the nostalgia aspect sets the film apart even more.  Star Lord is taken from Earth in 1988 and happens to have an “Awesome Mix Tape” and a Walkman with him.  This allows the film to be scored to music from the late 70s and early 80s.  The contradictory nature of that music set to sci-fi action and locales is funny and kind of cool, really.  And since Star Lord is the only character from Earth (that we see, anyway), he gets to do some Marty McFly-esque referencing as he discusses Footloose in a mythical fashion and refers to John Stamos as a famous outlaw. 

Much of the humor is thanks to the delivery of the cast.  Pratt is a natural as Star Lord.  He has received the most attention for getting in such great shape for the role, and that is impressive, but what makes him stand out in a Marvel movie is his delivery of goofiness, which isn’t surprising given his work on Parks & Recreation.  Regardless of why he gets recognition, he definitely deserves it and carries the film easily.  Saldana is fine as Gamora though the tough sci-fi girl role she always plays is wearing kind of thin.  Dave Bautista surprised me the most with his matter of fact delivery.  The fact that he takes everything literally made for some of the funniest moments.  The voice work for Rocket and Groot is fine, but what’s more impressive about these characters is that they ended up being the most sympathetic members of the group, and they were created through motion capture. 

GotG is still an action film, though the action feels like an afterthought.  That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of impressive fights and whatnot, it’s just that, at this point, we’ve seen a world or galaxy or whatever saved from annihilation by some vague cosmic power so many times that it’s no big deal.  How many times can we see a giant ship of some kind crash into stuff before we get kind of bored with it?  That’s really not a knock against the movie; it’s just that this film handles everything else so much more interestingly that the action isn’t the focus. 

Guardians of the Galaxy (I’ll write it out one more time) is also unique in that almost everyone seems to love it.  That is truly refreshing because I am very used to loving a movie only to see the message boards filled with hate (to be fair, that’s still happening, but it seems much lighter than usual for a movie this big).  That said, I don’t think everyone will love this, and I certainly don’t recommend it to everyone.  The first fifteen minutes of the film involve so many different extremely sci-fi settings and situations that it starts to sound like gibberish.  That could possibly put people off of this movie.  If you can get past that kind of stuff, however, I think there is a movie here for everyone.  It looks pretty crazy, but it offers the kind of fun entertainment that almost anyone can enjoy.  Now let’s see if The Avengers: Age of Ultron can top this next year.  Honestly, I don’t see how it can.

Guardians receives a: