In the Flesh: The Suicide Squad

For better and for worse, Suicide Squad is James Gunn, aging shock jock and Troma alum, to the core. The camerawork is serviceable at best, the humor sometimes flatly sexist in a sneering adolescent way — think of the military junta’s secretary, her breasts constantly jiggling as she runs in and out of frame — and the freaks are the good guys, the suits the enemy. The end result isn’t anything particularly special, but it gets an easy leg up on the Disney war machine’s ceaseless content grind by owning its own fun stupidity. A baby-eating weasel drowns immediately after being air-dropped into the ocean, Pete Davidson gets his face blown off, Peter Capaldi admits with a shamefaced grin that he raped the gigantic mind-controlling starfish alien upon which he was experimenting — it’s stupid, mean-spirited, and more often than not amusing.

Not that the movie doesn’t boast its fair share of dud jokes. Sylvester Stallone falls completely flat as the ravenous, dull-witted King Shark, his thudding delivery making a complete hash of the simplest “big guy is dumb and strong” jokes. Elaborate bits like the dim mak or “killing touch” joke suffer from lazy blocking and poor setup. Idris Elba, for all his easy confidence and frankly incredible handsomeness, just never feels quite right as lethal assassin Bloodsport, the latest in a line of mainstream action roles he’s occupied gamely but without depth. Perhaps it’s the specter of his star-making turn as The Wire’s Stringer Bell, so grippingly quiet and cerebral, which suggests he’s been serially miscast ever since. John Cena’s fanatically blunt and bloodthirsty Peacemaker (“I treasure peace with all my heart; I don’t care how many men, women, and children I have to kill to get it”) feels much more at home in the film’s atmosphere of chaotic stupidity.

The rest of the supporting cast — Stallone aside — are surprisingly strong, from David Dastmalchian’s wimpy, cringing Polka-Dot Man with his dead stare and bizarre hallucinations of his abusive mother to the always excellent Margot Robbie’s balletic performance as Harley Quinn, a character who without her commitment would be little more than an accent and a Hot Topic wardrobe. The movie finds its unlikely heart in Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), the depressive, sleepy child of a genius heroin addict and sneak thief whose claim to fame — a beacon which summons and commands rats — she wields to great effect. The rats are cute and seldom overplayed, Bloodsport’s rat phobia a surprisingly charming little arc, and Ratcatcher 2’s final flashback to her father’s (Taika Waititi) cheesy but endearing statement that he chose rats because if even the lowliest creatures could have purpose, then so could he is perhaps the film’s most genuine emotional beat. A big dumb climax hits, manages to be both fun and creative, we get to see some of Gunn’s beloved practical gore effects, and then The Suicide Squad wraps, its modest goals mostly achieved, its reach and grasp in perfectly respectable equilibrium.