THE SUICIDE SQUAD
Gunn reform
“Heigh ho, heigh ho, it’s off to kill we go…”
★★★★★ EXTYRAS ★★★★☆
► RELEASED OUT NOW!
2021 | 15 | Blu-ray (4K/standard)/DVD/ download/VOD
► Director James Gunn
► Cast Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman
We don’t (as yet) know what David Ayer’s take on DC’s Dirty Dozen-style supervillain team would have looked like if studio suits had wound their necks in, but we doubt it’d have matched James Gunn’s sequel. Accessible to both newbies and those who’ve blanked the 2016 farrago from their memories, it has everything its predecessor lacked, including a proper story (infiltrate a top-secret South American base) and characters you come to care about.
Fearlessly leaning into the madness of the original comic, unafraid to embrace a character who shoots out polka dots or a kaiju-sized alien starfish, it combines Deadpool levels of saltiness, action both brutally comedic and stylishly balletic, and a fair amount of heart – all while satirising American foreign policy, embodied in douchebag Captain America-type Peacemaker. The ne plus ultra of franchise salvage.
Extras Gunn’s commentary is strong on things like pointing out improv by the cast. And most of the eight deleted/alternate scenes are so good it’s a shame they were snipped. Peter Capaldi fares worst: a sequence showing how The Thinker talked his way past guards would have plugged a glaring hole; we also missed out on the Scot using the phrase “spandex twats”.