Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton
Week of August 16, 2021
The Suicide Squad
Rated R for drug use, brief graphic nudity, language throughout, some sexual references, strong violence and gore
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%
In Theaters and on HBO Max
In 2106, The Suicide Squad was met with a critical and audience thud, delivering a great concept with lousy execution and a completely mediocre product. Now five years later, they are kind of rebooting with some of the same cast, a completely different vibe and Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn in the captain’s chair. Gone is Will Smith and Jared Leto and returning are Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman and Viola Davis, with Idris Elba and John Cena coming along for the ride. The story is similar enough. The U.S. government needs an expendable army with super powers to take care of a bunch of dirty work, so they recruit imprisoned super villains who want to wipe a few years off their sentence. In this case, they are sent into a fictitious South American country in order to infiltrate a secret project which poses a risk to the world. But this time out, the movie doesn’t work because of the plot, which is way better than the last one, but rather because of the outrageous sense of humor that pervades the entire movie. From the opening seconds, it becomes clear that it will be rather difficult to stop laughing. I know I couldn’t. Much like Deadpool, which I’m assuming was a major influence, the movie works more as a comedy but is enhanced with some serious action, and in this case even some sci-fi. It helps to have a talented cast that looks like it is having a blast with the material. For pure entertainment value – you can’t beat it. A
Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard
Rated R for some sexual content, pervasive language and strong bloody violence
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 25%
Available on Disc and Streaming
In 2017, The Hitman’s Bodyguard didn’t exactly win over critics (it scored a 43% Rotten Tomatoes score), but it managed to eke out enough box office to greenlight a sequel. This time out, Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson and Salma Hayek add in Morgan Freeman and Antonio Banderas to the mix as everyone double-crosses their way through an ultra-violent adventure with roughly the same lame jokes as the first outing and a completely inconsequential plot. Like Suicide Squad, this new adventure tries to match its action with humor, but the humor is nowhere near strong enough and all you are left with is a charismatic cast making a movie that turns out to be more tedious than fun. It does have its moments where you think there is potential, but those moments are fleeting and ultimately forgettable. C-