Mr. Movie: The Suicide Squad is ridiculous in spades

Here’s the premise. After the first Suicide Squad disaster a new Suicide Squad is formed. It’s led by Idris Elba’s, Bloodsport. They’re told to go to an island called, Corto Maltese.

There, a monster is entombed in a tower. When a military coup takes place — one unfriendly to the U.S. — fears are that the creature will be used by the island leaders to take over the world.

The squad is tasked with unseating the coup leaders and killing the monster.

Along the way, they pick up the first movie’s Harley Quinn who was in a squad used as a decoy so no one would notice the new squad landing at a different place on the island. She got caught along with the original movie’s Col. Rick Flag who also survived.

That’s the gist.

Don’t confuse “The Suicide Squad” with the original film, 2016’s “Suicide Squad.” It co-starred Will Smith. Some of the characters from the first movie get a reprise. Other than that, “The Suicide Squad” isn’t close to as bad as the original.

The why comes from James Gunn. He is a different — and better — writer and director. Also don’t judge this movie on Margot Robbie’s performance as Harley Quinn in the movie, “Birds of Prey.”

Both “Suicide Squad” and “Birds of Prey” sucked. “The Suicide Squad” does not.

In the original film it seemed like none of the actors were having a good time with their parts.

Only Robbie — who plays Quinn as over-the-top as any character you’ve ever seen in a movie — had fun in the film.

Her performance made the movie and helps make this one.

Also helping is how all of the actors in “The Suicide Squad” seems to be having fun.

Camaraderie is helpful when a story idea and script are this — um — juvenile. The starfish monster premise is totally hokey. Worse. When you finally get to the monster at the climax, the effects are laughable.

Maybe that’s intentional. It seemed to work.

The real star of the movie is Gunn and his bad writing. Yes, sometimes bad writing can be excellent. Can we call it excellently bad. A better example of that statement comes from his main claim to fame. Gunn wrote the two Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

Gunn has a way of making the ridiculous work. And this one has ridiculous in spades.

Gunn packs the film with the usual superhero stuff. The effects are overdone, the action sequences are predictable, and are many times done in front of a green screen. His monster looks as bad as those found in grade-B monster and horror movies from the 1950s.

It’s gloriously bad.

That gives the acting crew a script and story that is fun to do. Even better, Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Daniel Melchoir and David Dastmalchian play it straight. Seriously straight makes the movie work.

Only Robbie’s Harley Quinn is way, way out there and that’s expected. She has a romance scene that is one of the funniest in the movie.

One last acting point. The actor having the most fun in the film isn’t seen. It’s Sylvester Stallone who gives voice to King Shark. He has some great lines and the character is one of the most interesting in the movie.

Interesting but really dumb. A man-sized shark? Seriously? It’s not as silly as a character who grows polkadots all over his face and when thrown they slice up whatever gets in the way.

Then there’s the woman who can control hoards of rats. Other characters are just as stupid sounding.

Like I noted earlier, juvenile but somehow, some way, it works.

DC Comic movies — as Superman, most of the Batman movies and others show — have not been very good. They’re mostly dark, drab, poorly written and have a bloated plot that unnecessarily extends the time of the movie.

There are few exceptions. “Joker” is one. It was an intense film that picked up bunches of best actor nods for Joaquin Phoenix. The now released “The Suicide Squad” is another.

Just plain dumb is best definition I can give you for “The Suicide Squad.” Dumb in a good way. We can all use a little dumb fun once in awhile, can’t we? Or to put it differently, sometimes really dumb movies are just dumb fun.

This one is just that.

Rated R for language, extreme violence, brief nudity. It’s showing at the Fairchild Cinemas Pasco, Queensgate 12 and Southgate 10 and at the AMC Classic Kennewick 12.

Rating: 4 out of 5

This story was originally published August 6, 2021 at 3:38 PM with the headline "Mr. Movie: The Suicide Squad is ridiculous in spades."