For a long time superhero cinema, perhaps in a search for variants and to broaden its horizons, has been feeling a hyperviolent terrain and something far from what is generally known as family cinema. The incursion of the genre in the gore more deranged is not something new: it has been developing for years. Kick-ass, Logan, Deadpool and the remarkable series The Boys they obtained the R classification, which, at least in principle, restricts the contents to an adult audience. In this context, DC, the historical firm behind superheroes such as Batman and Superman, Marvel’s eternal competitor, bet strongly in this regard, finding one of the films1 of the most insanely gory superheroes yet, with an on-screen hemoglobin level exceeding that of any exploit movie gore from the seventies. Of course, all in an exaggerated and playful context without any basis of realism, which leads to the outburst being enjoyable and digestible by a large public.
The Suicide Squad is a highly developed and revisited group of antiheroes in DC comics. It is basically a group of criminals with powers used by the government as cannon fodder for special missions or directly suicidal. In 2016 the first installment came out, entitled Suicide Squadstarring Will Smith, with Jared Leto playing a weird Joker and Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, perhaps the most beloved psychopath in the comic book universe. The movie wasn’t bad, but DC was won over by political correctness: the very essence of the comics was that, on their missions, squad members died like flies, often in extremely violent ways. This was not present in that movie, but it was in this new installment, titled The Suicide Squad (in case clarification is necessary, the article the is the difference between both titles).
But DC’s strongest asset is not the turn into this bloody and merciless world with its characters, but to have one of the most pampered and sought-after directors in Hollywood. This is James Gunn, director of none other than Guardians of the Galaxy, 1 and 2, and funs like Slither (2006) and Super (2010). Some unfortunate tweets published by Gunn caused Disney and its Marvel Studios subsidiary to fire him from their ranks, which was a huge opportunity for DC to get the goose that lays the golden eggs. Gunn was commissioned to write and direct this film, and in doing so he achieved one of the highest points of his career. It’s about a blockbuster colorful, spectacular and especially surprising; an explosive delivery in which the heads and guts of both Tyrians and Trojans fly.
Gunn seems to have learned a life lesson from filmmaker Robert Rodríguez, as this film has so many concordances to his style. Thus, the ability to prioritize creativity over perfectionism, unleashing the imagination without too much fear of ridicule, is its most valuable attribute. It is also evident the court he has for his characters to develop in mundane and almost childish situations, and to make them dance casually. There are, in addition, multiple references to popular culture, a whole sample that Gunn is a nurtured cinephile, not only of local cinema, but also of foreign influences, which can be seen in the appearance on the screen of a Mafalda keychain and a wonderful clip in which Harley Quinn eliminates a score of soldiers, from whose wounds emerge, instead of blood, colorful flowers: a tribute to the great Japanese film Why Don’t You Play In Hell?, de Sion Sono.
Apparently, the production made a kind of clean slate by eliminating Smith and replacing him with Idris Elba, disappearing other characters and placing on the front page the best interpreter of the previous installment: Robbie, an actress who overflows charisma and talent in each frame. The characters are lovable, although without reaching the charm of the guardians. And it is true that, at times, their dialogues do not cause the grace they would like, but the shortcomings are more than compensated: difficult to find a cinema so devilishly entertaining.
1. The Suicide Squad, United States-Canada, 2021.
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