Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay (2018)

Amanda Waller (Vanessa Williams) reactivates the Suicide Squad, this time with Deadshot (Christian Slater), Harley Quinn (Tara Strong), Captain Boomerang (Liam McIntyre), Killer Frost (Kristen Bauer van Stratten), Bronze Tiger (Billy Brown), and Copperhead (Gideon Emery), to retrieve a magical device. It is of immediate importance to her, as well as to several major villains, and could be useful later to most every criminal alive. The team sets out in an RV, following clues to the object while fighting two teams of even greater deviants who are also searching for it. Should they fail, Waller will set off the explosives she’s placed in their skulls. To succeed they are going to have to kill a lot of people, but then, that’s what they like to do. [And that’s all I’m saying. Most reviewers are giving out spoilers, including what the squad is going after, why, and specifically who they meet, all of which is better left unknown.]

Who’d have thought DC could get tone right? The previous attempts at Suicide Squad movies (Batman: Assault on Arkham and Suicide Squad) had some good points, but failed in important ways. What was needed was a lack of restraint. If you are going to make a film about villains being forced by a villain to fight other villains, then you need to wallow in it. Forget juvenile comic book morality as well as redemption arcs and heroics. Everyone involved is sick and twisted, so let them show that off in all its grunge-tainted glory. And that’s exactly what we get. Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay is exploitation gold (or pyrite as gold is not the target) and a schlocky good time.

It starts with music straight out of Rodriguez & Tarantino’s Grindhouse (along with faux scratches in the film in case you missed the idea) and that sets the right tone. The whole film feels like what you’d get if those two filmmakers made a DC flick—and now I really want them too. This is gory, violent fun, pure and simple. It’s just about taking a road trip with some disturbed people as they run into even more disturbed people. And there’s none of the normal comics purity to get in the way. People die. Lots and lots of people. And they bleed. If this was live action it would earn its R-Rating. As animation, and not particularly good animation (though not bad enough to be annoying), it should have been given a PG13 as the gore is not going to upset anyone. But if you describe the decapitations and impalings, you can see where the R came from. And While Hell to Pay leans into violence more than sex, at least it doesn’t feel prudish. There’s also a lot of humor, so somebody learned their lesson about dark things not needing to be dour.

This is the busiest film yet from DC Animation. A lot happens, but it isn’t rushed. There’s a large cast of characters, all with their own personalities, motivations, and ticks, multiple battles, intertwined story lines, a great deal of movement, and even non-violent character interactions, and it fits together nicely. The trick was giving us only what we need. There’s no long character introductions (or the three intros we got for each of the major players in the live action Suicide Squad) or pointless conversations. There’s no fat.

While a return to form for DC Animated Films, Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay isn’t flawless. Two issues drag it down. The first is common to all DC team-ups: They can’t work out the power levels. Since some characters are massively stronger than others, the only way battles can work is if the most powerful characters act stupidly. Notice how Superman had to be otherwise engaged, or dead, during most of Justice League so there was some point to Aquaman being around to punch things. It is a tricky problem, so these filmmakers, as always, took the easy way out. To get Harley into the fray with her baseball bat, Deadshot has to pause before shooting and Killer Frost has to do nothing half the time. There’s no way Harley would get a chance to do anything if Frost just froze everyone, so she doesn’t. And this is far too noticeable.

The other major issue appears with all Suicide Squad appearances: They aren’t an interesting group. Captain Boomerang is tedious (in the comics and movies) and this incarnation’s noble bad guy— Bronze Tiger—barely counts as a character. He’s a martial artist. Wow. Harley can be fun, and for this grouping Copperhead and Killer Frost are fine in supporting roles, but the others are drab, making the team drab. The biggest problem, as always, is Deadshot. He may be the least interesting character DC ever created. I don’t care about his daughter fixation and “he shoots good” is not special in a world of gods and monsters. DC keeps wanting to turn him into an anti-hero that we care about (see the live action Suicide Squad) and that doesn’t hold up. But since he is so dull, he’s easy to write for (making a coherent plot for Harley would be difficult as she has no interest in acting coherently). So we get a lot of Deadshot, and I never want a lot of Deadshot. If they’d dropped him (and Boomerang and Tiger) and slotted in a few more colorful villains, it would have been more fun.

But they used who they used, and with this crew, they did very well. When considering the overall quality, my rating is a bit generous, but I’m concerned with if you should see the film, and the answer is that you should.