The Suicide Squad Has Screened, See What People Are Saying About James Gunn’s DC Debut

The Suicide Squad group shot in front of a flag

If you're a fan of comic book movies at all then you're likely looking forward to James Gunn's The Suicide Squad. The man who previously made a pair of Guardians of the Galaxy movies for Marvel, and will make one more, took his talents across the street to the folks at DC Comics and created a very different sort of super "hero" team. The early trailers looked very promising which only has fans more excited, but now the movie has actually been seen by critics, and they are basically universal in their praise. The Suicide Squad is everything you want it to be.

The embargo has lifted on those critics that were able to get an early look at The Suicide Squad and I looked hard and could not find a single social media response that wasn't glowing. To be sure, it's not simply that everybody is in agreement that The Suicide Squad is good, but everybody seems to be in agreement that it's amazing. CinemaBlend's own Eric Eisenberg was one of those that got an early peek, and he had trouble naming a standout character or element because he found everything about the movie so good.

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Eric wasn't the only member of the CinemaBlend team I'm a little jealous of right now. Sean O'Connell has also seen The Suicide Squad and above all he salutes the work of director James Gunn, who he credits with bringing a life to these DC villains that we've never seen before. This may be the second Suicide Squad movie, but it's what this team should always be according to him.

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And it would be one thing if only CinemaBlend felt this way about The Suicide Squad, but the sentiment is heard basically across the board. Future reviews will need to find new synonyms for calling the movie "insane" because that word is being used a lot, with a variety of modifying adjectives. Critic Drew Taylor echoes the opinions of most, that this version of Task Force X is fully on board this wild ride and it shows in the finished product. He says the film itself is so wild it feels like a dream.

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But sometimes it isn't all about the craziness. While James Gunn's entire career has showed us that he's capable of creating larger than life characters, he's also showed an ability to bring real emotional depth to those characters. And while one might not expect to get that deep with a bipedal shark that eats people, Fandango's Erik Davis says that of all the things that The Suicide Squad is, it's also sweet.

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Of course, The Suicide Squad is also rated-R, and with that rating comes expectations. If you'd rather see your supervillains be angry, vulgar and violent than emotional, no worries, because the movie has all of that too according to ComicBook.com's Brandon Davis

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There was a lot of expectation riding on The Suicide Squad. The first movie was a box office smash. James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy movies are among some of the best regarded in the Marvel Universe. Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn is clearly the MVP of DC's Universe so far. One would think that bringing all this together, it would have been difficult to make a movie that literally everybody loves, but it really seems like that's exactly what has happened. The rest of us will get to find out when The Suicide Squad opens in theaters and on HBO Max on August 6.

Dirk Libbey
Content Producer/Theme Park Beat

CinemaBlend’s resident theme park junkie and amateur Disney historian, Dirk began writing for CinemaBlend as a freelancer in 2015 before joining the site full-time in 2018. He has previously held positions as a Staff Writer and Games Editor, but has more recently transformed his true passion into his job as the head of the site's Theme Park section. He has previously done freelance work for various gaming and technology sites. Prior to starting his second career as a writer he worked for 12 years in sales for various companies within the consumer electronics industry. He has a degree in political science from the University of California, Davis.  Is an armchair Imagineer, Epcot Stan, Future Club 33 Member.