HERE’S an interesting scenario.
Let’s consider for a moment that Superman and every single one of the DC Comics heroes and villains were real and that they exist in our world today.
And let’s say Superman turns evil and goes rouge. Maybe he was exposed to red, pink or black kryptonite which makes him a bit “off center.”
One morning, Superman flies over to the White House, tears open the roof of the building, grabs US President Barack Obama by the throat and blasts off into the sky; at 35,000 feet, Superman drops the pleading American President and Mr. Obama immediately hits terminal velocity and becomes a fireball over the Atlantic Ocean.
And there is nothing the US Government or any force on Earth that could stop the Man of Steel.
This is the really creepy side of “Suicide Squad” in which the inmates are let loose from the sanitarium and are running free to conduct all sort of mayhem. This time it is the US Government, faced with an overwhelming destructive force, puts together a supervillain team—not heroes—and throw them all into this meat grinder.
If they win, they get clemency for their heinous crimes. If the villains lose, who cares? They are patsies; incarcerated for time and all eternity in the prison hellhole known as Belle Reve Penitentiary (French for “Beautiful Dream”), located in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, which is specifically designed to house only superhuman (in this case “metahuman”) criminals.
And we have a near “A” list of actors being really bad in “Suicide Squad” with Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn), Cara Delevinge (Enchantress), Jai Courtney (Captain Boomerang) and Will Smith (Deadshot).
The Suicide Squad villains are let out only because each are injected — reluctantly, of course — with a failsafe device. Any of these super criminals gets out of line and “pop” no more fried chicken dinners for them.
Also thrown into this menagerie of madness is Jay Hernandez as El Diablo who can throw fire from his fingertips and Adewale Akinnyoye-Agbaje as the half-human, half-crocodile (don’t laugh) monster known as Killer Croc.
The cherry on top of this sundae is an absolutely over the top performance by Academy Award winner Jared Leto as The Joker, a far cry from Heath Ledger (“The Dark Knight”) but still entertaining. In his quick backstory, he has an immediate attraction to his prison psychiatrist Dr. Harleen Quinzel who, like Joker, falls into a vat of chemicals which scrambles her brains and presto chango, out she pops, nutty as a fruitcake like her “pudding” and a one-woman wrecking crew.
All of the villains in this Suicide Squad have a backstory—Smith’s Floyd Lawson saw his family murdered; Karan Fukuhara is the sword-wielding Katana can summon demons from a netherworld but none are more truly terrifying than the cave spelunker June Moore who unwittingly cracks open monsters from the darkness of the Earth who possess her mind, body and soul when she is transformed into the magic-wielding Enchantress.
Running roughshod over this nutty crew is the equally maniacal US Government operative Viola Davis as Amanda Waller who concocts this crazy concept of using bad guys to do America’s really icky dirty work.
Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn) and Jared Leto (The Joker) in a scene from “Suicide Squad”
Director David Ayer (“Fury”) who also wrote the screenplay, has full reign with this crazy crew and simply lets them and its delightful fun loose.
Filmed on location in Ontario, Canada, “Suicide Squad” is not for the squeamish. Human lives are taken one after another, and the big bad the supervillains have the face in the film’s conclusion is truly evil incarnate.
I love superhero movies and according to the global box office, so does the worldwide movie-going audience. But like you, Dear Reader, I am more inclined to root for the villains than the “red, white and blue” superhero.
I want to know what makes Dr. Doom, The Red Skull and Thanos the great bad guys they really are and in “Suicide Squad,” it’s Ben Affleck’s Batman who is the villain with the Joker and Harley Quinn the “heroes” who are racing through Gotham City in a souped-up sports car in a frantic effort to escape the Dark Knight.
Great Caesar’s Ghost … the Suicide Squad supervillains are running the sanitarium.
Run for your lives!
Questions, comments or travel suggestions, write me at theruffolos@readingruffolos.com.