The Suicide Squad

Recently, our friends over at The Signal Watch podcast covered their viewing of “The Suicide Squad” and the bubbly, giggling glee in the first several minutes (Jamie) of commentary had me thinking “Maybe we should go see this.” When Lauren suggested it, Monday night, I was in with gusto.

This movie was a ton of fun, very silly, oddly geopolitically aware, surprisingly beautiful in stretches, and insanely violent atop a great soundtrack. I really enjoyed it. It’s a perfect summer popcorn movie.

Prior to this, I had not seen any of the previous “Suicide Squad” / Harley Quinn properties. I had avoided the earlier “Suicide Squad” because I don’t buy Will Smith as an action hero. He’s a funny enough guy, but edgy? Action? No. Additionally, the film was saddled by the antic reports about Jared Leto’s take on The Joker. In the words of Lt. Murtaugh: I’m too old for that shit.

Since that time, however, Margot Robbie’s star has continued rising with her impressive turns in I, Tonya and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Robbie paired with the formidable Idris Elba in a James Gunn bit of mayhem was extremely promising and paid off entirely. I think the secret sauce was:

1. The (is it a trademark yet?) James Gunn trope of unending scenes of death with fantastic soundtracks; compare with Yondu going HAM in the “Guardians” series
2. The (is it trademark yet) James Gunn trope of using physical violence and simply. not. cutting. away during takes of blunt force trauma
3. The virtuous collaboration between hair, makeup, and Margot Robbie’s bone structure that makes solo scenes of her vivid and curiously effortless
4. Idris Elba (and John Cena!) adding realistic characterization to their roles (“Bloodsport” and “Peacemaker,” respectively) so that we weren’t off in goofy superhero magic land all the time

The Gunn Death Orgy

When I saw the following scene at the theatre I was laughing uncomfortably as the body-count just kept ticking:

while it certainly owes a lot to slaughter scenes like the battle at O-Ren’s hideout in “Kill Bill,” this is a level of comic absurdity, nihilism, and blood that I think is pretty distinct to Gunn. Compare to Tarantino:

While I wouldn’t call Gunn’s prior efforts restrained, in this universe, I feel like the reins were fully off and he was able to pursue his death orgy scene unfettered.

Related: Gunn will often have characters engage in blunt-force punching, slamming heads into grates, slamming grates into heads and similar. Typically, after a few impacts, a director will cut away: “You get it, hes incapacitated.” Gunn, however, will do it many impacts beyond that trained cut point. It’s a fun quirk to his action scenes.

Margot Robbie

Margot Robbie is beautiful. Margot Robbie is talented. Margot Robbie is game to try things. I think that this star, in the right context, with the right costumes, makeup, and director is a stem cell for amazing screen visuals.

Robbie has scenes where she displays confronting her beau about some “red flags” with a fatal, comic élan and absurdity on the par of a Coen brothers scene.

In other scenes, she performs a balletic death orgy where, at its apex, Gunn works against his trademark (see above) and fills the screen with a technicolor fantasy wonderland like a sick version of “Snow White converses with the sylvan creatures.” We’re invited to shift into Harley’s mind and see that the scores of spurting, riven, dismembered and decapitated bodies expiring agonizingly in explosions of exsanguinary effluence all around her could be (in Harley’s Brooklynese): “pretty flowahs explodin’ in uawwwl the culuhs of the rainbow!”

In yet other scenes, she performs run-and-jump action hero stuff convincingly. Many of the critical action scenes work with her, by her, and for her.

Anchors: Elba and Cena

One of the reasons the hyper-violence of the “Guardians” series worked was that Gamora (Zoe Saldana) often played a beleaguered straight-woman to the chaos (Rocket), bravado (Quill), context-unawareness (Drax), or monoverbality (Groot) all around her. In this film, Elba and Cena, despite being the most powerful (arguably) “leaders” of the mission fill that. Many of the jokes are on them as straight men (as noted by Jamie in the podcast, his solution for descending a 10 story building is both action-y, hilarious, and semi-realistic).

These two animate the most critical acting scenes (Robbie is often by herself or addressing, as a form of apostrophe, a corpse) and, while they’re action stars, they’re also capable of bringing some real tension to these scenes. On top of this, they’re both hilarious. Elba’s visit to SNL in The Plague Year was a strong showing for an actor known for his drama, intensity, and menace (his Stringer Bell is one of the worst villains ever on screen). Cena, for his part, has keen timing for humor and drama honed by his years in wrestling. He understands archetype acting instinctively much in the same way as Dwayne Johnson. Cena also shows that he can have a sense of humor about his ridiculously good Boy Scout looks / demeanor that matches a sculpted physique for the ages.

Miscellaneous

I found Viola Davis convincing, but I didn’t like the whole “control room” drama arc. It felt forced and unnecessary to me. But I suppose it helped keep the ante up on our heroes whenever the action pace slowed down. For what it’s worth, Neuromancer used a similar “time bomb inside of you” device to keep action moving.