Weekend Watch: The Suicide Squad, And Vivo
Baddies try to do good and a honey bear has a mission...
Image Credit: Warner Bros.
Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, in which I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, James Gunn unleashes DC’s supervillain squad and Lin-Manuel Miranda is a singing kinkajou in a new animated adventure. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite
James Gunn has already proved his mettle on the superhero front with the Guardians Of The Galaxy movies, and long before that demonstrated that he’s a dyed-in-the-wool genre fan. For all the fun of the Guardians, The Suicide Squad finds him fully unleashed, able to revel in the violence and profanity that an R-rating allows. This is not to say that his latest film is simply a collection of violence and swearing: as with his other work, Gunn also finds a rich seam of heartfelt emotion too.
The Suicide Squad also represents DC looking to get a do-over with the characters after 2016’s less-than-perfect effort from David Ayer (studio interference or no, Gunn’s sensibilities really do seem to fit with the concept to a far greater degree than Ayer’s). The concept’s relatively basic: a group of villains from the DC comic book universe is offered time off their sentences if they’ll undertake a dangerous mission in a foreign land. The twist? If they misbehave in any way, implanted explosives will turn their heads to bits faster than you can say Scanners. Porting over from the first film (you do not need to have seen it to understand what’s going on here, by the way) are the likes of DC standout Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) straight-arrow soldier Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), and goofy Aussie Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney). Oh, and not forgetting the imperious Amanda Waller, a government official played by Viola Davis who oversees the team known more formally as Task Force X.
New recruits this time include Idris Elba’s Deadshot (grumpy, good with weapons), John Cena’s Peacemaker (douchey, also good with weapons), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), good with rats, and Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), good with… Polka dots? (They explode, so they’re not useless). Then we have King Shark (a shark-like being descended from a god who is extremely strong and durable, but stupid, brought to life on set by Steve Agee and voiced by Sylvester Stallone), and Weasel. Who is a humanoid-ish weasel. He’s played, in true Gunn style, by the director’s brother Sean, the performance capture veteran behind Guardians’ Rocket Raccoon.
This is Gunn finding a near-perfect balance between his weird and his sweet sides, the two complementing each other for a mix that offers full-on entertainment. Not every joke lands, true, but there’s a much higher hit rate here than in some recent blockbusters. And part of it is a cast that finds exactly what they and their director need in each performance. Elba is world-weary and wry, the glue that holds both the action and emotion together (Melchior is also a big part of that, in a role that is sure to lead to a lot more work). Cena, meanwhile, perfectly finds the vibe of Peacemaker, American foreign policy in human form, proudly mowing down anyone in the name of world peace). The rest are uniformly great – Robbie has long since become the ideal embodiment of Harley’s twisted, happy-go-lucky persona), while props must go to Dastmalchian for finding real humanity in Polka-Dot Man’s psychological damage and desire to be something more than he seems. King Shark kills both humans and gags, while Weasel… Well, you’ll see.
While it does still stay within the usual format of superhero movies – the team, the challenges, the big finish – The Suicide Squad still subverts expectations, and wonderfully so. It’s bloody and occasionally bloody brilliant.
The Suicide Squad will be in cinemas and HBO Max in the States today. It’s already on release in UK cinemas.
Image Credit: Netflix
While you should absolutely not show any children The Suicide Squad, the young (and young-at-heart) would probably get a kick out of Vivo, approximately the 17th film this year set to feature Lin-Manuel Miranda’s abilities. All right, so it’s the second of three (thanks to In The Heights’ pandemic-enforced delayed-release and the upcoming Tick… Tick… Boom! adaptation). Vivo, directed by DreamWorks Animation veteran Kirk DeMicco (with Brandon Jeffords as co-director), was originally a Sony film before the studio, worried about the box office, sold it off to Netflix.
Written by DeMicco alongside Heights’ Quiara Alegría Hudes, Vivo follows the title character, a kinkajou who accidentally ends up befriending a street musician (Juan de Marcos González’ Andrés). Together, the pair regularly earns cash performing in a Havana plaza and everything is going swimmingly until Andrés receives a letter from his old performing partner (and unrequited love) Marta Sandoval, voiced by Gloria Estefan. Marta, you see, has long since gone on to become a superstar. She’s about to play her final concert in Miami and wants Andrés to come and perform. This shakes up Vivo’s entire world, and then tragedy strikes (I won’t spell it out, but you can guess), leaving the little furry singer on a quest to get a song that Andrés wrote for Marta to her by the time of the gig. To get to Miami, he’ll need the help of the offbeat Gabi (Ynairaly Simo), who marches to the beat of her own drum (it’s even her showstopping song).
The unlikely pair on a mission isn’t exactly the freshest concept, but Vivo makes it work with appealing voice acting by Miranda (who also wrote the catchy original songs that definitely make you know it’s his music) and particularly Simo, who gives Gabi just enough of a different vibe to skirt annoying child syndrome. The quest itself is perfectly serviceable, even if the outcome is never in doubt, and it’s really just a way to have this odd couple travel through the world of the film.
There’s heart and happiness here, and the film also doesn’t shy away from shades of darkness and danger. Ultimately, though, it’s an appealing musical with jaunty animation (the Sony Pictures Animation team never quite hits Spider-Verse or Mitchells Vs The Machines highs here, but that’s not the focus) and at least a couple of earworms.
Vivo releases on Netflix on Friday.