tek's rating: ½

Suicide Squad (PG-13)
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Caution: spoilers.

This is the third movie in the DCEU. It came out in 2016, but I didn't see it until 2021. It did well at the box office but poorly with critics. Personally, I liked it a lot. It's not a really great movie, but I can't put my finger on anything I actually disliked about it. (If I read complaints others had about the movie, my reactions would range from "I didn't even notice that" to "I didn't care one way or the other about that" to "actually I liked that".) I want to mention that before I watched it, I knew Joker was in the movie, so I assumed he'd be part of the Suicide Squad (officially known as "Task Force X"), but he wasn't. Maybe I should mention that there's an extended cut of the movie, which I haven't seen.

There's a scene that, if I recall correctly, was also in "Batman v Superman", but here it's extended to include Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) pitching her plan to form Task Force X, made up of supervillains who are locked up in a Black Site called Belle Reve penitentiary. She wants to use them to combat possible future metahuman threats. The team she assembles consists of Deadshot (Will Smith), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Captain Boomerang, El Diablo, Killer Croc, and Slipknot. They all have remote-controlled nanite bombs injected into their necks to ensure they won't betray Waller or try to escape. (Spoiler: at one point early on, Captain Boomerang decides he doesn't believe the bombs are real, and plans to escape. He convinces Slipknot to join him, and the latter makes the first move. He's quickly killed by the bomb, and Boomerang changes his mind about escaping.) Anyway, the team is led by Colonel Rick Flag, who is in love with an archaeologist named June Moone (Cara Delevingne). Dr. Moone had been possessed by a witch called Enchantress, who is controlled by Waller, who has possession of Enchantress's heart. She's also part of the team at first, but betrays them to release her brother, who the internet informs me is called Incubus, but I never heard that name used in the film. Anyway, he possesses a human and plans to destroy or enslave humanity or whatever. Another member of the team is Katana, who isn't a criminal exactly (though she does seem to be a vigilante), who serves as Flag's bodyguard. It's after Enchantress releases Incubus that Task Force X is put into action, though IIRC, the team didn't yet know about her betrayal. (My memory sucks and I'm a bit confused on this point.) Enchantress turns people into an army of monsters that the team has to fight their way through to rescue someone, whose identity is kept secret until they reach their objective. Later, they have to fight Enchantress and Incubus.

While all this is going on, Joker is planning to rescue Harley from Belle Reve, though at one point it seems that he steals a device that could remove the bomb from her neck. But I have no idea how Joker could have known she had a bomb in her neck or that the task force even existed. But maybe I misunderstood that scene; it didn't seem at all clear. Anyway, his role in the movie is somewhat limited, but we do see him a few times.

Of course, the team ultimately succeeds in their mission, but still have to return to Belle Reve, albeit with reduced sentences and a few amenities. I don't want to reveal any more of the plot, but I will say there's a mid-credits scene of a meeting between Waller and Bruce Wayne. Anyway... I thought the whole movie was rather fun and there was a fair amount of humor, mostly from Harley Quinn. She's definitely my favorite part of the movie. But Deadshot and El Diablo also had some dramatic backstories involving their families.


comic book movies

DC Extended Universe
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Man of Steel * Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice * Suicide Squad * Wonder Woman * Justice League * Aquaman * Shazam! * Birds of Prey *
Wonder Woman 1984 * The Suicide Squad * Black Adam * Shazam! Fury of the Gods * The Flash * Blue Beetle
TV: Crisis on Infinite Earths * Peacemaker