Movie Review - The Suicide Squad

The Suicide Squad *** (out of 5) (R) For context, this review comes from one who generally enjoys superhero flicks, especially those with some levity, but isn’t enough into the culture to know much from their source material, or retain many character details and arcs from one movie to the next. With that in mind, this sequel (more or less) to last year’s Birds of Prey arrived with a typical level of dropoff. Margot Robbie’s sexy, insane ultraviolent Harley Quinn character made that last one funnier and more coherent than this one.
A new group of gifted ne’er-do-wells is pressed into service for a world-threatening (aren’t they all?) mission, ala The Dirty Dozen and its many imitators. The fun part lies partly in the lack of predictability about who will survive and for how long. The best-known actors may not last the longest in all cases. Some of the dialog is clever, but Robbie’s relatively short screen time is a huge detriment to the overall entertainment value of what’s billed as an action comedy in this confusing foray into the island home of essential megavillains, and a glut of subplots.

Beyond that, the less written the better, though Harley’s moment in the spotlight about midway through the adventure might justify putting up with the shortcomings of the rest of the product. Maximum enjoyment will come from surprises in the script and the abundant CGI features. The splatter factor is all one could hope for from such films, earning the R-rating that separates it from the usual PG-13 level studios deem suitable. Or profitable. True to form, there’s a teaser after the credits for the next installment featuring some of the characters presented here. (8/6/21 in theaters and on HBO Max)