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New Escapist Video! On How “The Suicide Squad” Uses Idris Elba…

Posted on August 17, 2021 by Darren

So, as I have mentioned before, I am launching a new video series as a companion piece to In the Frame at The Escapist. The video will typically launch with every second Monday’s article, and be released on the magazine’s YouTube channel the following week. This is kinda cool, because we’re helping relaunch the magazine’s film content – so if you can throw a subscription our way, it would mean a lot.

With the release of The Suicide Squad last week, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at one of the things that the film did very well. In particular, the movie used its lead actor to great effect. The Suicide Squad is a movie that understands Idris Elba’s movie star persona and understands how it enhances the general mood of the film around it.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: bloodsport, escapist, Idris Elba, James Gunn, omar ahmed, the escapist, the suicide squad, video | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Suicide Squad

Posted on July 29, 2021 by Darren

The Suicide Squad is a stunning piece of blockbuster cinema.

There’s an understandable urge to treat The Suicide Squad as something of an outlier, particularly in the modern wave of big superhero blockbusters. After all, this is an R-rated blockbuster about a bunch of super-villains populated largely be characters that few people will recognise, let alone care about, and which exists in something of a strange continuity limbo away from the rest of the shared continuity. It is darkly funny, bitterly bleak, and decidedly uninterested in things like brand synergy. It is a sequel to a maligned film from a director now best known for his work with a rival studio and a rival property.

Squad goals.

Looked at from a certain angle, The Suicide Squad must seem as alien as the monster that rampages through the film’s third act – a space oddity that fell to Earth. However, this just makes it all the more remarkable that writer and director James Gunn has managed to fashion all of this into a thrilling and spectacular piece of blockbuster cinema that understands the appeal and the potential of the superhero genre without forsaking its own distinct perspective and while delivering on everything that a well-made populist blockbuster should.

There are very few superhero movies that are put together like The Suicide Squad. That’s their problem.