This article contains spoilers from Suicide Squad. If you haven’t seen it or don’t want to know what happens in the movie, then you should scram. Last chance: Get the heck out of here.
There was nothing simple about James Gunn’s Suicide Squad — except maybe the plot. OK, definitely the plot.
Everything else — the action, the characters, the humor — was a blur of chaos. The movie was so committed to being absurd that it somehow worked perfectly, elevating the stakes of silliness with every outrageous scene. It started with a human-sized weasel seemingly (but not actually) drowning to death and finished with the death of a Kaiju starfish with mind control powers by the name of Starro The Conqueror. And by the way, there was no other way to end this movie than to have that beast upend a building and attempt to take control of an entire city — and, perhaps, the world, if the Suicide Squad had not intervened.
The characters and the tone of the movie were consistently over the top, with moments like King Shark, basically a steroidal Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy, trying to eat “Num Num” up until the final credits. That’s what made it funny. That’s what made it more succesful, in my opinion, than the OK-but-inconsistent DCU movies like the two Wonder Woman films and Zac Snyder’s Justice League.
It’s a low bar to clear to earn the title of “Best DCU film.” But I’d say that’s what this reboot of Suicide Squad earned. And I’m not the only one who feels that way.