Review: James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad is like The Boys on steroids

Enlarge / Don't call it a reboot: Margot Robbie stars in James Gunn's The Suicide Squad. (credit: Warner Bros.)

Fan enthusiasm has been high leading up to the premiere of The Suicide Squad, James "Don't Call It a Reboot" Gunn's band-of-misfit-supervillains homage to the classic 1967 film The Dirty Dozen (among many other influences). That enthusiasm was not misplaced. This 10th installment in the DCEU is a fast-paced, blood-soaked escapade that skillfully balances gore and goofiness, with equal amounts of irreverence and sincerity. Think The Boys pumped up on steroids.

(Some spoilers below but no major reveals.)

As I've written previously, The Suicide Squad is not a direct sequel to the 2016 film directed by David Ayer. Although Gunn wanted to take the franchise in a new direction and introduce new characters, thespians Joel Kinnaman and Viola Davis do reprise their 2016 roles. He's Col. Rick Flag, the squad's understandably jaded field leader, and she's Intelligence Officer Amanda Waller. They're helped out by prison warden John Economos (played by Steve Agee), who's also Waller's aide. As with the 2016 film, the titular squad is composed entirely of criminal supervillains, led by Flag, under the authority of Waller. Waller plants nanite bombs in their necks to keep them reasonably under control, and she promises to shorten their sentences if their missions are successful.

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