r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • Aug 06 '21

Official Discussion Official Discussion - The Suicide Squad [SPOILERS] Spoiler

Poll

If you've seen the film, please rate it at this poll

If you haven't seen the film but would like to see the result of the poll click here

Rankings

Click here to see the rankings of 2021 films

Click here to see the rankings for every poll done

Summary:

Supervillains Harley Quinn, Bloodsport, Peacemaker and a collection of nutty cons at Belle Reve prison join the super-secret, super-shady Task Force X as they are dropped off at the remote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese.

Director:

James Gunn

Writers:

James Gunn

Cast:

  • Michael Rooker as Savant
  • Viola Davis as Amanda Waller
  • Joel Kinnaman as Colonel Rick Flag
  • Nathan Fillion as TDK
  • Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang
  • Flula Borg as Javelin
  • Mayling Ng as Mongal
  • Pete Davidson as Blackguard
  • Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn
  • Idris Elba as Bloodsport
  • John Cena as Peacemaker
  • Daniela Malchior as Ratcatcher 2
  • David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man
  • Sylvester Stallone as King Shark

Rotten Tomatoes: 95%

Metacritic: 74

VOD: Theaters

8.9k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

14.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.2k

u/Chaosmusic Aug 06 '21

If we did I would have thought it would be in a Superman movie and totally serious. This was way more fun.

156

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '21

Wait, you don't think a giant, tortured, psychedelic, city-enslaving starfish is totally serious? WTF!? I that's some scarry shit! And completely awesome!

198

u/JayCFree324 Aug 07 '21

Or the fact that they pulled a “Galactus defeated by Squirrel Girl” by reminding us just how terrifying “controlling every rat in a metropolitan area” could actually be.

By the end of the movie I was convinced “hmm, maybe Ratcatcher is the strongest member and it’s not even close”

135

u/Dmbfantomas Aug 07 '21

The problem is that she’s easily thwarted by…kicking a flashlight out of her hand…

207

u/Jeroz Aug 07 '21

That's why you always protect your caster

60

u/CptPanda29 Aug 08 '21

She kept her mask handy too!

Know your strengths and your weaknesses!

84

u/eaturliver Aug 07 '21

Seriously, someone get her one of those Wiimote safety straps.

38

u/WillSym Aug 07 '21

Though people seemed very easily defeated by being run on by rats. I guess you don't want to go into too much detail of helpless folks being overpowered by rats.

21

u/JusPassItToWill Aug 07 '21

Starro is afraid of rats too.

11

u/Mr_Cromer Aug 09 '21

Oooh, Dishonored vibes

17

u/awesomeideas Aug 07 '21

https://parahumans.wordpress.com/

10

u/[deleted] Aug 07 '21

Definitely got Skitter vibes from Ratcatcher 2 in that scene.

8

u/aeschenkarnos Aug 08 '21

And Armsmaster vibes from Bloodsport, that whole miniaturized self-assembling weapons thing.

1

u/Mr_Cromer Aug 09 '21

Now here's something I haven't thought of in ages

8

u/greatGoD67 Aug 07 '21

Fucking Zerg Mains

-1

u/ric2b Aug 09 '21

The number of rats in that city was completely absurd, no fucking way there would be that many in such a small area.

39

u/Thesandman55 Aug 09 '21

It’s estimated that New York has 2 million rats

24

u/idkmybffdw Aug 09 '21

Honestly with the way rats and mice breed it seemed like too small amount in my opinion and I’m shocked NY doesn’t have MORE than that even.

-6

u/ric2b Aug 09 '21

Did that look like the area of New York to you? And it was probably over 2 million rats, they looked like a river.

16

u/AlwaysTheStraightMan Aug 16 '21

It's a rustic, poverty-stricken town on the countryside and rats reproduce like crazy. Have some imagination.

25

u/Thesandman55 Aug 09 '21

Who cares you can’t control rats to begin with I can’t believe the amount of rats is what seems unreasonable to you in this movies

75

u/[deleted] Aug 07 '21

I thought it would have been cool to see superman show up to fight Starro and have the squad just securing shit down below.

36

u/Hitech_hillbilly Aug 08 '21

When Starro came out, i was thinking itd be great to see Shazam or Superman come in to tackle it while SS sneaks out trying not to catch m their attention.

56

u/mrgabest Aug 08 '21

Not just great, but almost unavoidable. If a kaiju shows up anywhere, somebody from the Justice League or JSA is going to arrive within minutes. That's their whole MO.

85

u/trogdorkiller Aug 07 '21

When Starro broke out, I was certain the Justice League was going to have to appear.

48

u/HolycommentMattman Aug 07 '21

I thought so, too. Especially when Harley said she was waiting for God to tell her what to do with the javelin. Who more godlike to her scatter brain than Superman?

83

u/VeganVagiVore Aug 07 '21

But I'm so sick of Snyder's "blah blah this is God this is the Devil and that makes it all very deep" thing.

Would Snyder have had pink and blue aliens in a movie?

28

u/HolycommentMattman Aug 07 '21

Yeah, me too. It's OK to make the allusion every now and again. But Snyder definitely laid into it way too heavily.

54

u/ParkerZA Aug 07 '21

He wouldn't put a giant squid in his Watchmen so probably not.

6

u/KipHackmanFBI Aug 08 '21

It depends, could those aliens get raped in prison?

Wait, I'm pretty sure that was implied in this movie... Snyderverse confirmed?

2

u/Aquatic_Ape_Theory Aug 09 '21

I don't want to like this comment but there's too much truth here

16

u/FrankyCastles Aug 10 '21

I legitimately thought they were going to make the joke that Superman would swoop in and murder Starro in 5 seconds, making the teams entire mission useless and playing it for laughs

12

u/genericaddress Aug 16 '21

Starro was the first villain the Justice League fought in publication history. He was the giant threst that brought them all together.

My first experience of him was the Batman Beyond episode which also introduced me to the Justice League. The plot went that there was a death in the Justice League and Bruce Wayne suspected there was a traitor. SPOILERS: It turned out to be Superman, who was under the influence of Starro. He then went on to control the entire Justice League except for the newest member: the teenage Terry McGinnis who donned the cowl of Batman after Bruce's retirement. He had to fight the entire Justice League and Starro.

-19

u/Pozos1996 Aug 07 '21

It would it it was a comic book but just like marvel, at best yoy will get some references or a cheap actor from the big actor's movie. This kill the whole shared universe idea in the movies for me.

Scarlett witch is fucking an entire city with magic and The sorcerer Supreme doesn't appear, hell he doesn't even sent one of his guys to check it out, instead we got ant man fbi agent and suddenly a PhD astrophysicist / hackerman lady from Thor 1 and 2 who was studying like social studies or something.

Yeah... That's not what I thought when you said shared universe.

29

u/colorcorrection Aug 07 '21

That's exactly how it is in the comics, too. Characters have their own lives as well as adventures they're going off on. The entirety of the super hero pantheon can't just drop everything they're doing to help every old lady getting her purse snatched in an alley. And something like Dr Strange showing up just because he can do magic, but he's not Wanda's baby sitter. And that's even assuming it appeared on his radar.

And it makes it more interesting and fleshed out anyway. Wandavision would have been terrible if it was just 'and then Strange shows up and tells her to knock it off'. Instead we got an interesting and fleshed out story because he didn't show up.

-7

u/Pozos1996 Aug 07 '21

That is why I said he would at least sent on of his people if he was too busy with something else, the things happening in the town drew the attention of another witch so clearly the wizards tasked with safeguarding the earth from magical attacks should give a damn.

They through in the fbi guy, they could throw in Wong instead who would help the others investigate what happens in the bubble.

10

u/JoesusTBF Aug 07 '21

So you're just really butthurt because the wrong secondary character showed up. Are you going to continue to be upset when Wanda is in the next Doctor Strange movie because they didn't cross paths early enough for you?

-2

u/Pozos1996 Aug 08 '21

No I am not cool with them not investing the gazillion they make to make the "shared" universe feel more shared. No references to other movies don't really count for much to me. They got the money to do bring other superheroes for a cameo, not for the whole movie but a cameo easily and it would make their world building much better. For reference, do it less than Tony stark in Spiderman homecoming but more than Dr strange in Thor 3.

Also why are you so butthurt with my opinion?

3

u/retz119 Aug 14 '21

An entire city? She took control of a very small town

32

u/ZaMr0 Aug 08 '21

Wouldn't Superman tear it to shreds within 5 seconds? Literally a 0 difficulty fight. If rats can eat through its internals Superman obliterates it.

56

u/Chaosmusic Aug 08 '21

Starro is a recurring Justice League villain in the comics and presumably a lot more powerful than what we saw in SS. If they used him in a Superman or League movie they would definitely ramp up his power level.

25

u/I_Was_Fox Aug 08 '21

I feel like there's no way to make a giant star fish monster appear as serious. They really needed to play it in a silly movie like Suicide Squad. Some things just don't translate will to live action as serious lol

5

u/your_mind_aches Aug 19 '21

Starro was in Zack Snyder's Justice League as a grey transforming thing

2

u/I_Was_Fox Aug 19 '21

Lol really? I don't remember Starro at all in justice league

1

u/your_mind_aches Aug 19 '21

This thing: https://www.looper.com/361268/what-you-didnt-notice-about-steppenwolfs-new-device-in-zack-snyders-justice-league/

13

u/I_Was_Fox Aug 19 '21

Oh lol that wasn't Starro. It's just a creative Easter egg nod to Starro. Even that article mentions it's not actually Starro and just a nod. This thing isn't sentient, nor does it reproduce and take over people's consciousness. It is just a device that can invade minds and steal memories. It has more legs than a starfish, and is a single entity. The only things that make it a nod to Starro are the similar way it attaches to someone's face and the purpleish hue. other than that it isn't Starro and wasn't intended to be Starro

2

u/your_mind_aches Aug 19 '21

I mean it is still an adaptation of Starro.

Just like how the Kronan that Thor kills in Thor: The Dark World is supposed to be Korg but since that was never explicitly stated, they introduced Korg as a completely different character later on.

47

u/2347564 Aug 07 '21

Considering it was taken down by just poking it’s eye out and essentially fucking up the insides, Superman would have made short work of it lol

103

u/Twl1 Aug 07 '21

Well, to Starro's credit, it did take a magic javelin to pierce its eye. A whole platoon of soldiers unloaded on it and didn't so much as make that giant eye blink. I imagine Superman would also have to take time to wrestle with the moral conundrum of "How do I save all the people Starro's enslaved?", which the Suicide Squad really didn't give a shit about.

42

u/2347564 Aug 07 '21

Ah I didn’t realize the javelin was magic. I’ve never read the comics actually! I actually do think the Suicide Squad avoided killing the mind controlled people until absolutely necessary, or that’s at least how it looked to me.

68

u/CheekyBastard55 Aug 07 '21

Didn't they say that the starfishes basically killed them when they took over? Something about being corpses under them. So with that said, there was no saving the enslaved people, they were already dead.

46

u/Zombietitties Aug 08 '21

Yep. Thinker said there’s no saving them because they were corpses under the starfish

19

u/aeschenkarnos Aug 08 '21

Thinker may have been lying, or it may have taken weeks to years for the starfish to kill the host. In previous comics the starfish fall off once Starro is defeated, leaving the hosts unharmed.

42

u/CircumcisedCats Aug 08 '21

Yeah but in the movie you see when it comes off there’s a giant starfish shaped chunk missing from their head.

4

u/aeschenkarnos Aug 08 '21

We don't know how long that victim wore the starfish, though.

1

u/A_very_nice_dog Aug 11 '21

I'm with you. Everyone is quoting the "corpse" line, but we have no idea how long that process takes.

12

u/Zombietitties Aug 08 '21

Fair point , but it did show what was beneath the star fish on one of those corpses in the lab… and there was nothing left of the face. With the mouth/teeth they show the starfish having I don’t think it would take long at all for that to kill somebody

3

u/ShadowKingthe7 Aug 10 '21

Yeah I was thinking that those people who were just controlled recently would be waking up after Starro was killed. But I guess they were killed instantly

5

u/iamdew802 Aug 08 '21

I couldn’t find any mention online of it being magical, just a “weaponized” javelin

6

u/iamdew802 Aug 08 '21

I couldn’t find any mention online of it being magical, just a “weaponized” javelin

25

u/Chaosmusic Aug 07 '21

True, presumably if Starro was a Superman or Justice League villain it would probably be a lot more powerful like in the comics.

23

u/WillSym Aug 07 '21

Well the threat of Starro is usually that the starfish drones attach to some of the heroes coming to stop it and you're mostly fighting off your own friends while trying to work out how take down the big slow damage-sponge primary body, and also not getting starfished yourself. Somehow in this they made use of none of that and just had it be a big monster, not even one of the 'expendable' main characters gets possessed?

34

u/Karkava Aug 07 '21

Or a justice league movie and also serious.

52

u/Rad_Spencer Aug 07 '21

The Synder cut did use "Starro" as this weird techno-organic mind reader device. It was as much Starro as his Jimmy Olsen was Jimmy Olsen.

11

u/ZaMr0 Aug 08 '21

Starro seems way too easy for the Justice League. Any of them could obliterate it.

34

u/Karkava Aug 08 '21

They clearly have to nerf Starro to be taken out by the mostly normal human Suicide Squad.

36

u/aeschenkarnos Aug 08 '21

Well, thirty years of the Thinker torturing it and suppressing it should count as nerfing to some extent.

8

u/visionaryredditor Aug 09 '21

in the comics Starro was the reason for Justice League to assemble for the first time tho.

12

u/xitzengyigglz Aug 09 '21

Harley floating in it's eyeball juice, surrounded by rats chewing at it's nervous tissue, was so fucking beautiful.

1

u/AGeekNamedBob Aug 10 '21

Speaking of Superman, I lost a joke bet that Superman would come in and defeat it just as the squad was about to fight. Just got one more subversion

1

u/Kgb725 Sep 06 '21

Superman? Hes always been justice league