The Suicide Squad (not to be confused with the 2016 film Suicide Squad) is superior in a lot of ways to it's predecessor thanks in large part to James Gunn - the cast is (in a lot of ways) better, script is tighter, the directing uses the actors to much greater effect, and the soundtrack (much like Gunn's two Guardians of the Galaxy films) has a lot of great needle drops.
Margot Robbie gets a fair chunk of screen time. To be fair, she's credited with making the first film tolerable, then did another successful turn as Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), as well as being an executive producer on this film it's not hard to see why. She's a very good actress and definitely enjoys playing the character. Her little mini-arc plays out nicely and then finds a way to link back up with the rest of the movie.
Viola Davis does another great turn as Amanda Waller. She carries the energy of the character and you can totally believe that she's the sort of person to make Batman blink first (as she did in the comics). She's not in a ton of scenes and the story does her character some disservice towards the beginning of act 3.
Joel Kinnaman rounds out the returning cast as Rick Flagg. He's fine. His character is better written than he was in the first film. The problem lies in the fact that when your character's primary trait is babysitter to a pack of sociopaths you just don't have a lot to work with on screen.
Now one of the challenges you run into with an ensemble cast - especially one comprised of anti-hero characters - is that some are going to be some characters that just aren't that fun. Depending on your tastes and sense of humor, it's entirely possible that they may be different characters than they were for me. Some of the characters I liked immediately (Stallone is delightful as King Shark and gives the character far more life than the CGI monster of the Week on The Flash ever had), some grew on me as the film went on, & some were just kinda there.
This is a Hard R film - lots of graphic violence and a metric ton of profanity. Needless to say my inner 12 year old ate that up with a spoon. I will say that it wasn't gore porn. The kills were graphic because murdering people is messy and since this isn't a PG-13 movie you can show it on screen.
Ultimately it was a fun, late summer popcorn film and I'll probably watch it again.
3 out of 5
