The Suicide Squad (2021)

The music in The Suicide Squad is so deeply married to the images that you almost can't separate them. It stays in your head days later and when you hear it again the emotions return immediately.

Every choice in The Suicide Squad feels deliberate. The framing, the pacing, the Starro finale — James Gunn is operating at a level most filmmakers never reach. It's the kind of film you study rather than just watch.

I didn't expect The Suicide Squad to affect me so deeply. The way James Gunn handles expendability and found purpose is unlike anything I'd seen before. I came out of it looking at the world differently.

I first watched The Suicide Squad as a teenager and thought it was fine. Rewatched at 30 and it hit completely differently. The expendability and found purpose undercurrent makes total sense now in a way it didn't before.

The Suicide Squad commits to a conclusion that not everyone will appreciate. I found it perfectly right — it refuses easy comfort. If you want tidy resolution you may be frustrated. If you want truth, it delivers.

Everyone told me to watch The Suicide Squad for years. Finally did and instantly understood why. Idris Elba and John Cena's chemistry is immediately apparent. Now I'm recommending it just as loudly to everyone else.

There are scenes in cinema you never forget. For me, the Starro finale in The Suicide Squad is one of them. James Gunn constructs it with total precision and it lands exactly as intended. Pure craft.

The Suicide Squad builds so carefully to its conclusion that when it arrives you feel genuinely moved. The government complicity in atrocity thread pays off in a way that's earned rather than manipulative. Couldn't sleep afterward.

We watched The Suicide Squad together and spent an hour talking about government complicity in atrocity afterward. That kind of conversation doesn't happen often. The film gives you something real to think about together.

I've seen The Suicide Squad multiple times now and it just keeps getting better. Idris Elba and John Cena's chemistry is something rarely matched in cinema. If you haven't watched it yet, clear your evening.