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Tag: John Cena

QuickView: The Suicide Squad (2021)

“Killing kids is kinda a red flag.”

Harley Quinn

Whilst it remains unclear the extent to which studio intervention caused the issues in David Ayers’ Suicide Squad, James Gunn’s follow-up has been billed as a soft reboot – in reality, with a number of returning characters it is essentially a direct sequel with a revised (and more consistent) tone. The key ingredient Gunn provides is his skill in writing dysfunctinal group chemistry which proved so successful in Guardians of the Galaxy. What makes The Suicide Squad excel is this in combination with beautiful visual flourishes and creative variation when it comes to the action, choreographed around the characters’ varying levels of power and skill rather than the godlike punchfests that have routinely plagued the DCEU. Viewers should be prepared for ridiculous ultraviolent excess — this is the sort of film where multiple people are literally torn in half — but it is fitting for a group of villains, and Gunn uses it to comment on American foreign policy. As pure entertainment, this concotion produces the best comicbook film in the past few years.

8/10

QuickView: Bumblebee (2018)

Bumblebee quad poster

“Look, people can be terrible about things they don’t understand.”

Charlie Watson

This soft reboot of the Transformers franchise often feels like a cars-and-robots take on How To Train Your Dragon, similarly centred around an outsider bonding with a powerfully destructive but kind and damaged creature. Michael Bay’s films revelled in robotic carnage, whilst scenes featuring humans were generally an afterthought (it’s evident from Bay’s filmography that he doesn’t really get or care about humans). That is inverted here, with humanity at the core of the film. Between True Grit and The Edge of Seventeen, Hailee Steinfeld has swiftly become one of my favourite actors of her generation. She has less to work with here, but her warmth and charm routinely make us forget she is acting against a central character that wasn’t present; it is this, as much as ILM‘s wizardry, that brings Bumblebee to life. Bumblebee may be largely predictable family-friendly fare, but beneath the metallic sheen is humanity that the franchise has sorely lacked.

7/10

"A film is a petrified fountain of thought."

(CC) BY-NC 2003-2023 Priyan Meewella

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