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Margot Robbie’s playful
antihero leads funny new
take on ‘The Suicide Squad’
By Chris Hewitt
Star Tribune
T
he title “The Suicide Squad”
feels like a diss of the fi rst
movie in the series, simply called
“Suicide Squad,” and I am here
for it.
The 2016 movie was garish
and unpleasant (thanks, Jared
Leto!) but the new one with the
article “The” is playful and funny.
“The Suicide Squad” resembles
a gorier, more profane “Guard-
ians of the Galaxy,” which is no
surprise since it was written and
directed by James Gunn, pivot-
ing from Marvel to DC. He’s so
attentive to every detail in the
new movie that even the inter-
titles that identify the settings
are inventive and amusing.
It opens by debuting a fresh
team of superheroic goons,
including Michael Rooker as the
meanest guy to wear orange
Crocs since Mario Batali got
canceled. He introduces himself
to us by slaughtering a songbird.
One thing, though: As the post-
ers warn, “Don’t get attached” to
the newcomers.
As in the original, sadistic
federal agent Viola Davis has
recruited them from Belle Reve
Prison, and if you think that name
sounds like something out of a
Tennessee Williams play, it is —
it’s the mansion Blanche must
leave in “A Streetcar Named De-
sire.” Blanche was always headed
for tragedy and so are Rooker
and the other newbies, forced to
embark on a mission that means
nearly certain death.
That’s where the movie gets
its title, and “The Suicide Squad”
quickly shifts to bigger-name
goons, including Margot Robbie
as Harley Quinn, John Cena as
muscle-bound Peacemaker, Idris
Elba as temperamental Blood-
sport and Sylvester Stallone as
the voice of an extremely dumb
shark that can walk on land and
(barely) talk.
They’re sent to a fi ctitious
South American island to stop an
evil genius from gaining control
of a device that, like all devices
in movies with evil geniuses, will
somehow let him control the
world. But you won’t care much
about the plot — Gunn certainly
doesn’t — because the cartoony
mayhem that surrounds it is the
real point.
Robbie, who also starred in
spinoff “Birds of Prey,” captures
that spirit perfectly. Her Harley
Quinn is buoyant but damaged,
blithe but deadly. Robbie conveys
that even Quinn isn’t sure what
she’s going to do next — her line
readings often change direction
in the middle of a sentence —
because she’s a creature of pure
instinct. That’s best demonstrat-
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Warner Bros. Pictures
David Dastmalchian (back left), King Shark (back center) and Daniela Melchior
(back right), with John Cena (front left) and Idris Elba (front right) in “The
Suicide Squad.”
ed in a scene where an enormous
building collapses around Quinn
and she still pauses on her way
out to fi nd something delightful
in the rain of rubble.
Eventually, “The Suicide
Squad” becomes a Godzilla-
esque movie, with our antiheroes
battling a giant creature that is
stomping all over skyscrapers. It
shifts a few times, since it’s also
a caper movie and a get-the-
gang-back-together movie. But
“The Suicide Squad” navigates
those left turns deftly because of
Gunn’s confi dence that, no mat-
ter what adventure his characters
face, he’s really making a dark
comedy.
He’s also setting up other,
future projects in this universe —
a “Peacemaker” series debuts on
HBO Max in January — but “The
Suicide Squad” stands on its own
in a way superhero movies often
don’t. I feel confi dent audiences
will be satisfi ed about where it
ends, even if it does leave us
hoping to see more of this team.
“A Suicide Squad,” anyone?
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