THE SUICIDE SQUAD - Born Again

Let's just all agree that this is the first Suicide Squad movie anyone has made, yeah?

Yeah.

At this point, it should come as no surprise that James Gunn is good about making movies revolving around mismatched teams of misfits, but the degree to which The Suicide Squad immediately jumps into the deep end of the pool with both feet while still confidently leading even fairly fresh audiences along is impressive. The can't-miss premise of "what if all these memorable DC villains teamed up together to take on even nastier bad guys on high body count black ops missions?" is on fully marquee display here, but the real testament to the film's quality is how it folds those basics into a surprisingly heartfelt (if not terribly earnest) and righteously angry narrative.

Task Force X (the official designation of the titular Squad) and its leader Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) open the film in medias res as they're being dispatched on yet another hairy mission, this time to the fictional country of Corto Maltese to investigate and destroy the research on a "Project Starfish." For all the veneer of continuity Gunn's script brings in (Margot Robbie is clearly the same Harley Quinn from Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey), it's used as garnish for the arcs rather than tiresome exposition. The film throws its central premise and a slam-bang opening action sequence at the audience before stepping back and laying down just enough context for the relatively-breezy 130 minute action exploitation romp. It also leaves enough road to explores some genuinely wild and wacky corners of the DC comics source material history, but in a way that feels deliberate and of the moment.

Getting to shine as one of the principal leads is Idris Elba as the mercenary Bloodshot, and it's great to see a leading man who's been giving "movie star" caliber performances for decades finally have the room to stretch in a fun, meaty Movie Star Role that he's perfectly keyed into. Bloodshot acts as both the "straight man" emotional anchor and occasional audience surrogate navigating the wilder members like the bloodthirsty Peacemaker (John Cena), frightening-yet-sympathetic Polka Dot Man (David Dasmalchian), the eternally-hungry King Shark (Sylvester Stallone), the aforementioned Quinn, and Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), aka the MVP of the film and friend to rat superhero Sebastian. Gunn is no stranger to balancing on the knife's edge between conflicting and complimentary for engaging action team dynamics, and not only gives every major character their own arc (Harley gets her own mini-movie, even), but also Big Damn Hero moments to spare and ties to the central thematic thrust - once it's revealed.

Where the film is less universally successful is in managing tone and humor. The swerves between pitch-dark horror violence and outlandishly cartoonish '80s action movie violence can be pretty sharp, and not all the jokes landed for me as well as they have in some of his previous films (though that's gonna vary by personal taste). There's also a shagginess to the structure that comes from the admittedly ambitious choice to emulate some of the comic medium's narrative quirks (the film adopts "chapters" that roughly correlate to "issues" of a limited trade paperback run), but by the time the extended third act kicks into its second high gear, the film has become something truly special in the realm of comic book movie adaptations. Even characters who were almost a non-presence in the first film like team point man Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) get to dig into surprising and fun dramatic corners, and members like Polka Dot Man and King Shark, who could have easily been just a joke (and are genuinely funny throughout), get to play against some serious pathos.

For my money, it's a film that occasionally trips over its own feet a bit while patting itself on the back for being so clever, but it is really damn clever. The "Predator, but even more committed to the bit" premise is gold, the follow-through is breezily confident, and the action is consistently inventive, impactful, and more than "wet" enough to satisfy splatter fans (Gunn more than earns his R-rating, and shows he hasn't lost a step in crafting carnage since his Slither days). The anarchic energy sometimes keeps the pieces from meshing as well as they might, but it all comes together more than well enough.

And when it does, it makes dying to save the world look damn good indeed.