Suicide Squad is dead. Long live The Suicide Squad.
Following director David Ayer‘s disastrous, incoherent tonal mess of a movie back in 2016, DC has hired Guardians of the Galaxy guru James Gunn to do a reboot the franchise about a motley crew of villain antiheroes. While Gunn will be doing a full-on overhaul, many of Ayer’s original cast are returning.
Granted, Will Smith is out and Idris Elba is in as Bloodsport, but a actors from the first ensemble who are back include Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn), Joel Kinnaman (Rick Flag), Jai Courtney (Captain Boomerang), and Viola Davis (Amanda Waller). Joining them are newbies played by John Cena, Storm Reid, Nathan Fillion, Taika Waititi, Pete Davidson, Alice Braga, and Michael Rooker, plus Peter Capaldi as the villain The Thinker.
This First Look behind-the-scenes video, which premiered at the DC Fandome, looks…cheesy. Sorry, but it does.
The best I can say for this preview is that Gunn’s take at least seems to be consistent in tone and vision. Unfortunately, I can’t say that I’m a fan of what I see. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that I am not this movie’s target audience, not by a long shot (as I’ve never been big on Gunn’s mainstream comic book camp), and this may be exactly what a lot of fans are hoping for — especially for those who would invite a Guardians spin to this franchise.
Even so, regardless if this preview gets you hyped or turns you off, it’s particularly hard to buy the pitch that this mirrors a “gritty ’70s war movie.” Come on. Whatever this Suicide Squad is, it looks to be the exact opposite of a gritty 70s war movie. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but stop trying to force cred onto something via such a desperate reach.
Well find out more, no doubt, as we inch toward the big release next summer, and an official trailer could give us a better perception of what this will be, but for now it looks to be little more than a glorified cosplay fan flick — which, again, may be perfect for a lot of people.
The Suicide Squad will hit movie theaters on August 6, 2021.
