I knew that when Warner Bros/DC hired James Gunn to make a Suicide Squad movie that it was going to be a great deal of fun. As I write this on August 1st, I can hand on heart say that so far, The Suicide Squad is the most fun movie I have seen this year. It is an absolute blast from the beginning until the ends credits sequence!
How to Stream or Download The Suicide Squad
You will be able stream and watch The Suicide Squad online starting August 5 2021 on HBO Max. Click on the Download button at the end of the review to check it out. Read also our review of Suicide Squad (2016).
The Movie Review
This is a very interesting movie in that technically it is a sequel (and rightfully so it is sometimes called Suicide Squad 2, but it is completely its own thing. Joel Kinnaman returns as Rick Flag, Margot Robbie returns as Harley Quinn and Viola Davis returns as the cold as ice Amanda Waller. However, there are no references to anything that went down in the first movie.
The cast in general is fantastic with the main characters being Idris Elba as Bloodsport, John Cena as Peacemaker, Daniella Melchoir as Ratcatcher 2, David Dastmalchain as Polkadot Man, and Sly Stallone providing the voice for King Shark. There are many other fun smaller performances too and I think they nailed the casting for this movie.
The basic plot of the movie is that Amanda Waller has sent two Suicide Squad teams to the island of Corto Maltese where there is an old Nazi bunker that is being used to conduct experiments on an alien life form that is freaking Starro which is awesome! They are tasked with blowing it all to hell and getting out of there.
Well, things go very wrong and they end up getting pulled into a military coup, an alien rampage, and a betrayal as well. It is a lot of fun and in typical James Gunn fashion, the writing is very witty and you do care about these characters. The action set pieces are fantastic and the whole movie really does look like a million bucks.
The Suicide Squad also has a great soundtrack, just like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies he made, each song feels like it was perfectly selected for that specific scene. While it may at first seem like a big dumb action movie (and that is kind of the gimmick) this is a movie that does have a lot of heart and is very character-driven.
The way the plot will jump in time is quite clever and it is the kind of movie where each person who watches it will probably have their own couple of favorite characters. The way that James Gunn was able to just do his own thing with this movie is great and I think the main reason that it all works so well.
No matter your thoughts on the first Suicide Squad movie or the DC movie-verse in general, I cannot recommend The Suicide Squad highly enough. It was just an absolute blast and is 100 percent a movie that I will be watching again at some point. The writing is great, it has great characters that are very well brought to life and it looks and sounds like a billion bucks too!
