This article contains SPOILERS please read at your own risk!
The Suicide Squad is a grotesque drama filled with gripping punchlines, sickening and violent action sequences, and some righteous moments that you just can’t escape.
DC has outdone itself by taking a step towards the worst. Under James Gunn’s adventurous leadership the jaw-dropping feature has gained praise beyond its predecessor.
The surprising gala is the sequel/reboot of Suicide Squad (2016) and it goes somewhat like this :
We begin with Amanda Waller and her daunting and too-good-to-be-true offer to our supervillains, an escape from the blood-curdling Belle Reve Prison. Where she recruits our misfits for a covert mission on Corto Maltese island, intending to destroy all evidence of “Project Starfish”.
Two crews are set on this mission but only one group survives. Those lucky few involve the daring leader Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), the insecure Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), always hungry King Shark (Steve Agee/Sylvester Stallone), and the dangerously patriotic Peacemaker (John Cena). Later they pick up the two surviving members of the first crew Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), who manages to escape the trap set by Amanda Waller.
Ultimately all these underdogs track down that “Project Starfish” is placed in Jotunheim, a fortress built by Nazi soldiers, and they can only breach it with the help of Thinker (Peter Capaldi).
After breaching it and coming face to face with the “Project Starfish,” a horrifying discovery is made that the initiative imprisoned innocent people and fed them to Starro, an alien giant Starfish that was captured by the American government. And the Squad’s mission is not to destroy this alien creature but to hide the involvement of the government from the public eye.
Now obviously this poses some serious moral questions even for our supervillains. Innocents are sacrificed for a government-proposed larger cause. Rick Flag then steps forward and in his leading position claims that he won’t like to act as puppets for the government anymore. James Gunn does a good job in making this moment memorable, highlighting the Superhero vibe. But unfortunately, this is short-lived, when Peacemaker (John Cena) our red, blue, and white patriotic American turns out to be a mole for Amanda Waller.
Amanda Waller plays it smart by appointing the Peacemaker on her side, his motto of peace at whatever cost, gets her job done. The Peacemaker takes charge and kills Rick Flag to meet his agenda, but soon follows him in death after he is discovered for his misdeed. So after some pretty heavy fights and skirmishes followed by character deaths, we find Starro breaking out of Jotunheim and rampaging on towards the civilians with his mini Starros,mind-controlling clones.
Amanda calls the members back, telling them to leave the citizens behind to face their grueling death alone. The cold and razor-sharp orders of Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) are what makes this moment truly ugly. But at the last moment, we see Bloodsport defying her cruelty and acting as a leader by choosing to go back and he is soon joined by the rest.
Waller even threatens to blow their heads up, just like in the last movie but this time she is betrayed by someone from her brethren, Flo Crowley (Tinashe Kajese), an employee at Belle Reve who knocks her out after seeing what Amanda is doing is nothing short of villainy.
The squad then unleashes a full-on attack on Starro, we see them defeat him by coming together like a true team. Each of them uses their ability to bring down Starros but the final blow comes from Harley as she stabs Starro in the eye with a javelin, which allows Ratchacher 2 to let his rats invade the beast’s body and eat him from the inside out.
But Starros death is followed by an emotional moment where he reminisces that he wanted to live a peaceful life amongst the cosmos, but was brutally experimented on and used by the Americans and Corto Maltesians. This gives us an insight that the line between good and bad is very thin and the government might be on the wrong side.
In the end, Bloodsport secures the hard drive with all the secrets of government and uses it as a bargaining chip, for his and the remaining Suicide Squad crew’s freedom. He threatens to leak the information if any of the Suicide Squad members are killed or even threatened. Waller agrees reluctantly and Bloodsport, Harley, Ratcatcher 2, and Kind Shark all leave safely from the island.
The ending leaves space for more stories to come and gives a subtle nod towards the struggle and injustice faced by the Villains. You just can’t help but feel a little empathy for all these characters as they leave.
What’s surprising is the Post-Credit Scene, where we see Peacemaker surviving, in a hospital bed where he is planning his next, to “save the fucking world”. After damaging so much it is quite surprising that Peacemaker survives, it will be interesting to see what new will come of him in his series Peacemaker on HBO Max.
The Suicide Squad can’t end without its signature humor, and with that, we see the return of Weasel the child-killing beast, the first member to meet his death because no one cared to ask him if he could swim. But it also leaves us uneasy because now he is loose on the people of Corto Maltese and they should probably watch out for him.
So in true James Gunn fashion, in the end, The Suicide Squad leaves you with a bag full of emotions and feelings to sort through.
The Suicide Squad is now available in theaters and streaming on HBO Max as well.
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