James Gunn has recently grown to become a pretty well-regarded director due to his unique film-making and spontaneous style of directing. From earlier days with his involvement in the 2006 horror comedy Slither, to the more recent success with him reinventing Guardians of the Galaxy into a franchise that people can’t get enough of, Gunn has turned heads for his work which often lean towards a blacker comedic sensibility which also can lead into things from the extremely gruesome and gritty to extremely light and childish. While Guardians made him a public name, nothing felt more fitting than when he was chosen to direct the next Suicide Squad film for Warner Brothers after they wanted a retry following their initial failure with the David Ayer directed first film in 2016. Considering the film’s lack of gore and an R rating, Gunn had all the right stylistic elements to make that work, which led to a lot of people getting incredibly hyped for the movie when it eventually was released in 2021. Set somewhat within the same continuity as the first film (its honestly a little confusing), Intelligence officer Amanda Waller (played again by Viola Davis) continues her ‘’less than ethical’’ job of recruiting known criminals to work in her secretive Task Force X to handle missions that are too dangerous for non-disposable people, facing immediate execution if they fail or desert. One mission in particular involves going to Corto Maltese and taking down the giant alien Starfish named Starro. On this mission involves Colonel Rick Flag (played by Joel Kinnaman), Harley Quinn (played again by Margot Robbie), Bloodsport (played by Idris Elba), Peacemaker (played by John Cena), King Shark (voiced by Sylvester Stallone), Polka-Dot Man (played by David Dastmalchian) and Ratcatcher (played by Daniela Melchior), and it will take all of them working together to destroy this ridiculous threat. Acting as a kind of refreshing of the idea to start anew, The Suicide Squad satisfied audiences much more than the previous film, appreciating the style and energy that Gunn breathed into the concept.

Despite feeling like a perfect choice for a film like this, Gunn wasn’t the first choice of director for this version of The Suicide Squad, with Warner Brothers going through several different names (even Mel Gibson at one point) to direct the film, but eventually Gunn found his way behind the project and had plenty of approval and control over whatever happened in the story; who should be cast, how it should end, it was very clear this was going to be HIS film and not something that could be constantly breathed on by studio executives. You can definitely feel that in how much this movie wants to be drastically different from not only the first film, but from every other DC film made within the universe at this point in time. While the DCEU (DC Extended Universe) struggles with piecing everything together neatly even to this day, it isn’t afraid to be drastically different in tone, mood and focus from other DC films (which Marvel has still struggled to do despite its long MCU run). The film’s blatant obviousness on not only its gore and unfiltered aggression, but also in how it can be vulgar, juvenile, and unabashedly weird, not only fits very well with a Suicide Squad film, but also helps it stand out wonderfully in the line-up of usually grim unpleasantly dull films DC had previously made (like the first Suicide Squad). One of the downsides however is that Gunn seemed so energized and happy to be working on the film for its style, tone, content, and weirdness that it feels like that came front and centre against other usually important film elements like an engaging narrative, a point of focus to latch onto, character development, a majority of that is either glossed over and barely mentioned, or just non-existent in general. It doesn’t waste time on mapping out character arcs and backstories, or even the origins of the Squad and the true focus of what the stakes are for this mission, but in a movie like this it could be argued that it isn’t needed. Gunn has proven in his other projects to be able to mix his off-the-walls humor and style with legitimate character and plot however, so it does feel like a misstep.

Another consequence of this style over substance mentality in the film is that with such a large expansive cast as this film has, there’s going to be some faces that don’t get much attention and even when they are main players, the movie isn’t really about deep character or complex emotions. Without giving anything away, the movie doesn’t keep its giant cast for as long as you would expect, but even that situation felt oddly handled and just an excuse to feel different and to pad out time away from what could have been used on set-up and real character. Again, Gunn has proven in even his sillier projects that he can include a sense of real character and progression in his films despite them featuring goofy extreme situations, so there isn’t much of an excuse here except that it wasn’t what he really wanted to focus on. With that said, not all the characters are that bad and some feel perfect for this style of movie. Starro for the main villain of the film is so bizarre and so weirdly played serious that it actually works wonderfully in this film; being legitimately funny, weird, and even surprisingly intimidating in moments, he feels like the peak potential of what this movie wants to accomplish and something that wouldn’t fly in any other DC movie but fits wonderfully here. The main team also have their fair share of flaws as well; Rick Flag is his usual boring self, Polka Dot Man actually gets some great adjustments to his original comic counterpart, but he still just feels like the ‘’other team member’’, King Shark only exists for laughs and he does that fine enough, Harley Quinn is just as fun and enjoyably performed by Margot Robbie as she was before, but she feels weirdly forced into the movie and adds little more than another face on the poster (you could’ve cut her out of this movie and missed nothing substantial), Peacemaker has so little personality that it feels like his series was his true showcase as oppose to this one, and Ratcatcher and Bloodsport are the only two with any real sense of character and growth. Everybody’s acting is pretty good, but it’s a shame that the cast couldn’t be as colorful in personality as they were in design.

Clearly what was the most important aspect when it came to making this film was the aesthetics and the technicals behind how the film looked, sounded, and felt. It’s a movie that clearly runs off of its oddness and its clear love of violence, gore, and everything unpleasant that you can get away with in a movie like this. While the movie doesn’t feature anything explicitly cruel, drawn-out, or featuring any sex or extreme swears, the intense visuals behind the gore and the creativity behind how some of it is displayed makes it at least feel warranted. Because the story is paper thin and the characters aren’t fleshed out very well, it needs to rely on this part of the film to really stand out and it thankfully does do that. As the film keeps going after a pretty uneventful and dull opening, the mission leads down some paths that feature some good visuals, good fights scenes, some decent comedy and even a hint of character, so when it comes to the climax, it feels set-up enough that it doesn’t feel like time was wasted watching it. What is weird about Gunn is that despite being known for being a comedic director, his comedy is very much an acquired taste, and, in this film, it doesn’t always work. His obsession with rambling dialogue which is usually just immature or gross for the sake of being immature and gross doesn’t feel very interesting for comedy, so its not always going to hit, but on the flip side, his other aspects of writing can be really strong. He knows how to direct actors, he makes his films look visually pleasing, he usually has a good soundtrack filled with retro music, and he can balance his tones out enough that there can be a dark and deep side in his usually goofy films.

Looking at this as a film on its own, The Suicide Squad is still deeply flawed in how it presents its story and characters and could have improved itself a lot more to factor in some appropriately dark and twisted material that still managed to be complex and interesting and not just mindless bloodshed, but on the other hand, this movie is still much better than its predecessor and has aspect of it that are just as fun and lively as it looks like. It is definitely a much more enjoyable sit and will leave its audience much more relieved than before, but how much people will love it has the chance of being moreso because of the poor execution of the last film. It may cause people to just ignore this film’s problems because ‘’this one is still better’’, but that isn’t a good excuse. This movie could have been a lot better, but this is still much more like a Suicide Squad movie and one that could actually have people coming back to see it unlike the one with Jared Leto in it.

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