The name James Gunn should be familiar by now to at least a superhero-loving audience, after all he made two of the most popular MCU blockbusters, ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’ and ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2’. However, Gunn originally started his career with films that were much less suitable for young people and suitable for the masses, albeit with the trash film company Troma, with horror films like ‘Slither’ or the ponderous (and incredibly brutal) superhero satire ‘Super’.
What a real James Gunn superhero film from the budget class of a ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’ looks like can also be admired – in “The suicide squad“, to which you can only subscribe until April 3, 2024 Netflix can stream.
“If ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’ was 50% James Gunn, now ‘The Suicide Squad’ is 100%.”, writes FILMSTARTS editor-in-chief Christoph Petersen in his review of “The Suicide Squad”. This film should not be confused with “Suicide Squad” (without “The”) from 2016 – “The Suicide Squad” is a loose sequel that includes some characters from the first part (such as Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn), but its predecessor is largely ignored.
Crazy comedy blockbuster
Whether “The Suicide Squad” is something for you becomes clear at the beginning of the film. Because the first 20 minutes count with tons of ripped and riddled bodies, darkly humorous jokes and surprising twists “The sickest, craziest, funniest, most brutal, weirdest, most surprising and all-around most beautiful thing you could ever experience in a comedy blockbuster.”as our review says.
In this way, Gunn creates a pleasant counterbalance to the overwhelming Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), which for all its quality is far too well-oiled a machine to produce a film as crazy and revolutionary as “The Suicide Squad” – genre experiments such as the black and white horror homage “Werewolf By Night” or not!
The plot of “The Suicide Squad”
The US government has a problem: a coup has taken place in the fictional island nation of Corto Maltese. Therefore, the US-backed regime is no longer in power and a closely guarded secret is in danger of being exposed: an alien secret weapon stationed in an old research facility. Therefore, Task Force X (also known as the Suicide Squad) is quickly dispatched to solve the problem. But the mission goes anything but smoothly…