James Gunn has wasted no time. With ‘The Suicide Squad’ still warm and surely forming part of the connaisseurs’ shelves, John Cena is once again at the command of this indomitable thug with the “continuation” of the film. ‘The peacemaker‘arrives at HBO Max determined not to leave a puppet with a head. Literally, in addition.
All for peace
It was clear that there were not many more attractive options than John Cena with a shiny helmet on his head to continue the legacy of the old squad on television. With the star serving as executive producer, a cast of old familiar faces in and out of his universe, and a slew of retro-hair-metal tracks, ‘The Peacemaker’ arrives looking for ruckus.
Written and (for the most part) directed by James Gunn, the series based on the antihero (or anti-villain) created in the late 1960s by Joe Gill and Pat Boyette, is set for a time after the events of the movie, and for this he offers a brief summary of what was previously seen in Gunn’s cult film. Of course, don’t expect anyone to invent anything new, but tons of fun.
Like all the imagery of the director of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, ‘The Peacemaker’ is a perfect bad milk jukebox, parent-child trauma, wild hordes of villains, music and jokes so dirty that they could only be seen on a current screen through a payment platform with parental control and the total creative freedom that DC has placed in the filmmaker.
Gunn, who knows about demystifying characters for a while, does not hesitate to rescue the Watcher of the house (authentic revelation of the series, Freddie Stroma) and give him a screen pass that has nothing to do with the one that appeared in the universe ‘Arrow’. Plus the coolest avenger in a suit From our childhood, the cast is rounded off with Steve Agee, Danielle Brooks, Robert Patrick or Jennifer Holland, all enjoying themselves from a header that I highly doubt that anyone is going to skip.
Another detail that draws attention is the appearance of Jody Hill to sign the fourth episode, key in the main plots and deprived of the characters, and which shows that the director of the extraordinary ‘Security Corps’, despite a last feature film that is better to be forgotten, is a filmmaker who loves to live with characters with a high level of gray.
‘The Peacemaker’ is funny, rude, certainly wild (James Gunn is still betting on the traditional bait) and completely eighties. What’s more, as the episodes progress and this group of lonely wretches is a much bigger mission than they imagined, I couldn’t stop thinking about how accomplished his afternoon series spirit from our childhood is. Closer to ‘The A-Team’ than to the film that gives rise to the series, the new from James Gunn is first-rate entertainment.