"The Suicide Squad" hurls so much blood and gore you may feel like hosing your eyeballs

The Suicide Squad
Starring Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Daniela Melchior, David Dastmalchian, Sylvester Stallone, Peter Capaldi and Alice Braga. Written and directed by James Gunn. Opens Friday at theatres everywhere. 132 minutes.14A
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Peter Howell
Movie Critic
It makes perfect sense the movie branch of DC Comics would want to filch James Gunn from rival Marvel Comics to retool its under-achieving âSuicide Squadâ flick of five summers ago.
Writer/director Gunn is the Dr. Frankenstein of genre filmmaking, a Troma-honed comic technician who gathers up discarded or misused characters and zaps new life into them. He stitched and spun the rejects of his superhero satire âGuardians of the Galaxyâ into box-office gold, with two blockbuster films to date and a third in the works.
Gunn fetches the bolt cutters, flame throwers and splatter guns for his âSuicide Squadâ reboot, working from the reasonable premise that almost nothing is sacred when youâre dealing with super-villains.
Subtle this picture ainât. Campy and horrifying by turns, it hurls so much blood and viscera onto the big screen you may feel like hosing out your eyeballs after watching it. Scene changes are indicated by giant letters spelled out with blood, fire or smoke.
The 14A rating in Ontario is surprising, since the large amount of killing and profanity is something found more in restricted films and âhard Râ ones at that.
Plot-wise, Gunn retains the basic concept of David Ayerâs original movie â an insanely clownish posse of freaks and villains is sprung from jail to save the world from a bigger threat â while dropping most of the characters and the actors who played them, among them Will Smithâs Deadshot and Jared Letoâs Joker. (Gunn adds a few things, too, including a âTheâ in front of the movieâs title.)
Shaking up the squad is a risky move, although bets are wisely hedged by retaining Margot Robbieâs Harley Quinn, the happily homicidal harlequin. A fan favourite, she has traded her baseball bat for a more lethal spear, all the better to pierce eyeballs, skulls and hearts. One of her killing sprees is accompanied by the soundtrack ditty âJust a Gigolo (I Ainât Got Nobody),â Louis Primaâs song of cynical insouciance.
Harley carries on as if nothing happened from one movie to the next although, for the viewer, itâs a bit like turning out to see a beloved rock band and discovering the lead singer fronting a new group of musicians.
It takes a little getting used to, especially as Gunn employs cinematic sleight-of-hand off the top to make us think weâre getting one group of suicidal planet-savers while really giving us another.
Eventually these battered and smirking faces come into focus. Harley is joined by a motley crew that includes Idris Elbaâs trigger-twitchy Bloodsport (the filmâs best new character), John Cenaâs bluntly instrumental Peacemaker, David Dastmalchianâs weirdly Oedipal Polka-Dot Man and Daniela Melchiorâs Pied Piper-ish Ratcatcher 2. Thereâs also a ravenous walking shark named King Shark, a.k.a. Nanaue, voiced by Sylvester Stallone, who could be best buds with Groot from âGuardians of the Galaxy.â
Theyâre sent by their Suicide Squad commander (a returning and more snarly Viola Davis) on a dark ops mission to a Latin American island called Corto Maltese, which is in the midst of a coup, among other mayhem. This (fictional) jungle hellhole has been exploited by everybody from the Nazis to Banana Republic despots to a mad scientist named Thinker (Peter Capaldi), whose electrode-adorned head looks like a tribute to the coronavirus.
Gunn manages to work in some real-world references that make the U.S. governmentâs global interventions look more sinister than well-intended. This may explain, along with the relentless gore, why âThe Suicide Squadâ isnât nearly as funny as âGuardians of the Galaxy.â
The most dangerous menace on Corto Maltese is what Iâll coyly describe as the filmâs biggest star attraction, who makes the final 20 minutes of âThe Suicide Squadâ the most over-the-top movie climax since the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man stalked the haunted streets of New York in âGhostbusters.â
Prepare to be splattered, but also satisfied in a summer blockbuster kind of way.
TIFFâs big dog gala is scratched: Family comedy âClifford the Big Red Dogâ has been scratched from the Gala program lineup of next monthâs Toronto International Film Festival. Studio Paramount has cancelled the filmâs Sept. 17 theatrical release, reportedly due to fears of COVID-19 variant spread. No release date means no TIFF premiere. đ
(This review was originally published in the Toronto Star.)
@peterhowellfilm