The film also paints for a “decent” debut given the current context with a total value of around $ 30 million in the US The consensus dictates that it is fun, that it takes advantage of the material it comes from (according to the critics), that it has a lot of and very exaggerated action and good jokes that make it an improvement on its predecessor (the public) and perhaps in that mix is the question.
A lot has been said about superhero cinema and it has been commented for some time that perhaps his life or his time of popularity is coming to an end. It is difficult to estimate when only this year Marvel will release, after the 2020 drought, in addition to “Black Widow”, “Eternals” and “Shang Chi and the legend of the seven rings”, to which is added its co-production with Sony of “Spider-Man: Without Homecoming”, “Venom” and others like “Thunder Force” or “Major Gromov” from Netflix. However, before there have been other genres (western, musicals, to name a couple) that have been at the top to finally give way to another and continue as one more in the general mix.
Scholars indicate that the stages of any genre are four: primitive, classical, revisionist and parody. The first talks about those works that allow defining a genre (“Blade”, “X-Men”), while in the next the genre finds and polishes its essential characteristics (practically any of the Marvel titles). Then, in the revisionist stage, the genre plays with its own characteristics, breaks with its own myths (“Logan”, “Deadpool”) to finally make fun of them. And that’s where “The Suicide Squad” comes in.
“The Suicide Squad” is a good movie or at least that is what critics and audiences indicate, in what they agree, which does not always happen. Now, it is not a movie for all audiences. It is much closer to “Deadpool”, that is to say, very violent, with a constant use of high-sounding language, self-aware that it is a comic, making fun of it. It is in many ways parodic of superhero movies.
For those who do not know what it is about, he deals with a group of villains who support the government in very difficult, practically impossible or suicidal missions (hence the title) in exchange for reducing their sentence. In this sequel to “Suicide Squad” (a title received with 26%, but with a box office of more than 700 million dollars that justified the continuation), in addition, James Gunn, the director, takes everything to the extreme. For example, many of the characters that are included are there as a mockery of their own characteristics. A couple of examples are TDK whose “super power” or “special ability” is that it can separate its limbs (arms or legs) from its body and, exactly, what is useful about that? Another one is Weasel, a weasel that also looks like a werewolf or an unattractive dog that actually has nothing special outside of it (it serves to create comedy … or grief). Then there are Bloodshot and Peacemarker, who, with different personalities, have the same ability: they never miss a shot. The movie makes fun of all this and more, and it is not the only thing. Without making major spoilers, because it happens in the first minutes, many of those villains who come to life on the big screen for the first time die in brutally spectacular ways. They are indispensable and that is the point. If the characters are and they are a reflection of their own vehicle, are the films of the genre also?
So “The Suicide Squad” is the beginning of the end? In more ways than one it could be or, at least, a clear sign that, despite the fact that there are issues that are talked about as that have not yet been done (as is the promise with each new Marvel installment) and that perhaps more than one are accessory (such as race, gender or nationality). Time would tell, but it would be a great irony for a “suicide squad” to be the suicide of the superhero cinema at the hands of villains.