The Suicide Squad Red-Band Trailer

Viewer discretion advised! No nudity, but lots of bloody violence and language.



What do you think?

Looks like a trainwreck.

jorowi wrote:Looks like a trainwreck.

I tend to agree.

Very much looks like the type of Suicide Squad movie that WB wanted the last one to be, as opposed to what David Ayer wanted to make. In that sense, at least it won't be a weird hybrid of two different movies.

Seems like they've taken the cheesiest campiest characters they could find in the back corner of DC, and then added language and gore and crudeness to make it seem edgy.

One of my biggest complaints about the last one was that Killer Croc, who should have been the scariest, most dangerous character was used for comic relief.
It seems here that King Shark again will be comic relief, but at the same time, he seems very dangerous. In fact, his toddler-mind probably makes him even more frightening.

So this is where DC movies are headed. We can't have any more Henry Cavil Superman, but we get Polka-Dot man and Peter Capaldi dressed as a salt shaker.

I'm certainly undecided, but I didn't feel the same "train wreck" reaction you guys did. You know me, I would LOVE more of the Snyder-vibe in DC movies. But I'm also very open to movies being allowed to have different tones, given that different comics have different tones.

I've read some suicide squad and Secret Six (basically the same thing with a different name for awhile) and seen how writers like Gail Simone can take these ridiculous, 5th tier villains and explore them in new ways and actually make them cool characters you care about... right before they die horribly. I'm also admittedly a fan of dark/morbid humor, which this trailer had quite a bit of.

So I'll say that I like a good amount of what I'm seeing here. I just hope this trailer doesn't represent the ONLY tones explored in the movie.

Eh. Colors are too bright. Language is too comically crude (as opposed to stressfully crude). And Birds of Prey left a bad taste in my mouth (or whatever). This looks like a far bigger tonal shift than Thor: Ragnarok was from its predecessors, and I didn't really like that one. I'm not overly excited.

AGoodReed wrote: Language is too comically crude (as opposed to stressfully crude). .

Oooh! Unpack this one for me! Sounds like an interesting and useful distinction I might want to have in my reviewing toolbelt. How would you define and distinguish each of those?

Paeter wrote:

AGoodReed wrote: Language is too comically crude (as opposed to stressfully crude). .

Oooh! Unpack this one for me! Sounds like an interesting and useful distinction I might want to have in my reviewing toolbelt. How would you define and distinguish each of those?

The distinction kind of just came to me as I was thinking about the trailer. Comical crudeness is profanity and raunchy language employed for comic effect. Pretty much any R-rated comedy these days is full of this. Role Models, The Watch, and The Heat are some that come to mind. I'm not into movies like that anymore.

Stressful crudeness is profanity used to express the fear and/or intensity of what the characters are going through. More serious movies are going to use this, especially horror movies. A frightened girl trapped in the house by a Michael Myers or a Ghostface is not likely to clean up the language she uses as she tries to open the window in her room and it jams. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake had some of this type of crudeness to it. R. Lee Ermey did a couple gross things that could only be funny to the most morbid sense of humor, and it helped to show just how disturbing a situation the protagonists were getting into.

AGoodReed wrote:

Stressful crudeness is profanity used to express the fear and/or intensity of what the characters are going through. More serious movies are going to use this, especially horror movies.

Gotcha, that makes sense. And I suppose the mix of the two (comedic profanity as a result of stress) still falls under "stressful crudeness". That's definitely the kind I prefer. The strictly comedic crudeness, among other things, just usually isn't funny to me. Like that obnoxious smart alec in school who is trying too hard to be funny. I connect more with vulnerable character moments, both in suspense and in comedy.

One of my favorite lines from this trailer was from Polka Dot man. Paraphrase: Someone says "we're all gonna die" and he very solemnly says "I hope so". One look at his costume and gimmick and you can believe he's maybe tired of life.

I think that just spoke to my jaded, world-weary heart and made me laugh out loud.