Summer Blockbusters: The Suicide Squad / Jungle Cruise

In the Shadows of Summers Past

Spoilers

The cinematic year, much like its real-life counterpart, is separated into several seasons. Eschewing the common and dull terms of 'Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter', the movies prefer bigger glossier titles. The year begins with 'Oscars Season', full of heavy films, lots of mood lighting, and a good dose of Gary Oldman and Meryl Streep. It's followed by 'Mindless Fluff Months', an antidote to the previous season through its complete lack of quality or drive. The year ends with the 'Festive Battle' period, where smaller blockbusters duel and are ultimately defeated by Christmas films or Star Wars. Yet right now we are in the glossiest, the biggest, the most over the top of all seasons: Summer Blockbusters.

With the Delta Variant still cascading through the States, the cinema industry has not fully settled yet back into its full and regular flow. The blockbusters are being streamed or held back further. Yet some bold contenders have pushed their way through. Recently I saw two, both sat in the shadows of previous contenders in the Summer Blockbuster melee.

The Suicide Squad

4/5

You may be forgiven for being slightly confused by this 'new film' if you don't keep up with your cinematic superheroes fully. In 2016 Warner Bros. released their latest DC offering, a film they expected to fully blast the doors off of their comically inept cinematic universe. Suicide Squad was based on the comic books of the same name, a series (at least from the mid-80s onwards) about a group of super powered prisoners who can earn time off of their prison sentences by completing missions of such insane risk that they are effectively suicide missions. The comics are, well, just that, comic and ridiculously over the top.

The 2016 film was meant to provide an opportunity to expand the DCEU, introduce some new villains, and create something of Deadpool-level irreverence mixed with a super powered version of The Dirty Dozen. Instead, writer/director David Ayer seemed to think he was making a sensible and gritty film with humorous moments. He thought he was making a film which was dark and full of character development. He thought he was making The Dirty Dozen without having to bother with the middle bit. What was released was a pretty poor blockbuster, with boring characters, incompetently directed action sequences, a terribly miscast Will Smith (who were they kidding, Will doesn't want to kill anyone!), and a script devoid of any fun or wit. It was a embarrassment.

Somehow it still made some money and Warner Bros. decided to keep a sequel on the roster. At the very least, Margot Robbie's excellent take of Harley Quinn was successful and did lead to the perfectly fine Birds of Prey film. Jump in time two years to find James Gunn, the director who took a strange Marvel property and turned it into one of the MCU's most successful titles, Guardians of the Galaxy. As you may recall, ancient tweets of an inappropriate nature reared their ugly heads and Disney, trying to seem like they were doing the right thing, sacked him from Guardians 3. Warner Bros. swept in like a beady, if particularly conservatory-window-bound, hawk and hired him for a Suicide Squad sequel.

For once, Warner Bros. have made a good decision for the DCEU, for Gunn brings to a project the right level of fun, comedy, action, and music that a project like Suicide Squad is screaming out for. A film about a bunch of villains doing a crazy mission needs to be off the wall and Gunn made sure it happened. All this with a title that makes it seem like 2016 never happened...

The concept of the piece implies a certain level of high stakes, that the characters could die. In fact, Gunn promised in publicity for the film that no one was safe. Apparently he contractually ensured that Wartner Bros. would give him carte-blanche to kill any character. The opening sequence, a master class in timing, action, and separating oneself from the previous film, opens with 90% of 'The Suicide Squad' being annihilated on a beach. The violence is cartoonish, adding to the pure spectacle. Faces are blown off, helicopters explode whilst being manhandled by aliens, a man with detachable arms weeps as they are shot to pieces whilst floating in mid-air, and the character with the narrative thread has his head remotely exploded. Stunning.

This strain of Looney Tunes-esque hilarity continues throughout the picture and most of the characters end up dead. All of this is carried of to a fantastic suite of pop tunes. We've seen with Guardians what Gunn can achieve with music, though here he is not restricted to the 70s/80s mixtape format and can pick appropriate accompaniments from across the last fifty years. As ever, the soundtrack works in bringing a smile to the face as the action unfolds. The cast is second to none, with great turns from Idris Elba (a solid half-replacement for Smith), Margot Robbie, and John Cena, alongside lesser known performers holding their own such as David Dastmalchian and the film standout, Daniela Melchior. As ever, Gunn manages to bring in a host of big names as cameos (Nathan Fillion, Michael Rooker, Taika Waititi) which adds to the joyous nonsense.

Where the previous entry missed on comedy, action, and plot, this well crafted film succeeds. It knows it is an absurd film based on an absurd premise. Gunn added in the Stallone voiced character of King Shark purely because he thought it was ridiculous. Every aspect of the film shows it is self aware and oh so happy to be so. The ghost of 2016 has been laid to rest and maybe the DCEU has found a second alternative route forward in 2021.

The Suicide Squad, 2021

Director: James Gunn

Writer: James Gunn

Composer: John Murphy

Starring: Idris Elba, Margot Robbie, John Cena, David Dastmalchian, Daniela Melchior, Peter Capaldi, Joel Kinnaman, & Viola Davis

Currently showing in major U.K. cinemas

Jungle Cruise

3/5

The 1980s, cinematically, was the quintessential decade for the Summer Blockbuster. In many ways, the 1980s defined what the Summer Blockbuster is. Big franchise films, towering leading men, directors who guarantee greatness, John Williams. In the glittering crown of that decade's oeuvre, shining brighter than most, is the Indiana Jones trilogy (we'll park the 2008 edition for the purposes of this review). A glorious homage to 1930s movie serials, the swashbuckling adventures of the rather destructive archaeologist Dr. Henry 'Indiana' Jones Jr. are almost perfect blockbuster films.

For the past forty years, these films have become the model that many other summer blockbusters strive to emulate. Very few succeed. For every film that almost reaches Spielberg's dizzying heights, like Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, you get a dozen others that fall to the grounds in flame, Icarus like. See (or perhaps don't) Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End or Pirates of the Caribbean: Our Other Original Films Failed, Please Give Us More Money, Go On, You Know You Want To, You Still Like Johnny Depp Right? Right...?. These films come yearly but do ebb and flow with how close to the model they strive to be.

This year's entry is Jungle Cruise. Based on a similar premise to the aforementioned Pirates franchise, by being inspired by a theme part ride from Disneyland, this definitely is trying to find some of the Indiana Jones magic by taking a similar premise. Emily Blunt's Dr. Lily Houghton is attempting to find a mystical plant deep in the Amazon Rainforest that has healing properties so she can save the world. Although a doctor of botany and not archaeology, we are in similar territory already.

The film itself is fine. As summer blockbusters go, it was an enjoyable ride (pun intended). I would happily see another instalment, though I wouldn't be first in the queue on opening night. At the core of the film's success lie its leads actors. Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson are two of the most charismatic leads in Hollywood and deftly carry the film between them. They have a good back and forth, work well in action sequences, and always bring a welcome bit of warmth to their performances. Although not to everyone's cup of tea, Jack Whitehall was also quite amusing as a stereotypical Brit in the heat, although the 'coming-out' section was a bit weak and oddly handled.

Set around the Amazon during WWI, the film makes good use of two other stereotypes. Johnson's Wolff uses a tribe of locals to put on a show for his Amazonian jungle cruises. This does lead to an amusing scene which begins with the tribe dressed in almost 1920s movie style 'tribal clothes', something that should make anyone watching go "Oh my goodness, I thought we were passed all this." The masks and 'tribal clothing' are revealed to be part of the con with the locals saying they feel silly and chastising Wolff. A nice twist on expectations. On the other hand, we get the Pantomime villain of the piece, Jesse Plemons as Kaiser Wilhelm's youngest son. It has become tiring to see Nazis repeatedly used as the comedy bad guys in films, especially when National Socialism was not very funny. What was once a cutting send up by the unbeatable Mel Brooks has become a lazy cliché. The German military of WWI, though, has a similar amusingness to sending up Edwardian Brits with less of the attached horrors (Empires aside...). This created a welcome villain and welcome change.

This film though does fail in its attempts to recreate the magic of Indiana Jones. The dialogue is often too dense, obsessed with giving all three characters lots of time to discuss their feelings and pout at each other. The love story is rather over egged, slowing large sections to a crawl. The serial nature of the Indy plots mean that he moves from one ridiculous adventure to another with little chat. Here, we get less action sequences than it deserved with lots of padding, and hence a long runtime.

When we do get action, it falls into a terrible recent trend of being hard to follow. The supernatural villains, working with Plemons' Prince Joachim, are at times unwatchable. They have powers of transformation, utilising trees, mud, snakes, and bees, but these elements whizz passed the eyes before one can actually see what is going on. Everything is too frenzied with little though of craft, purpose, or wit.

The shadow of Spielberg looms large over the film, never quite allowing the cast a chance to walk in their own sunshine. James Newton Howard provides a fun Williams-esque score. Though it never quite finds its catchy theme, the full orchestra with detailed writing provided a counterpoint to the majority of films released in the last five years. It is an enjoyable enough film, one families can enjoy. As a friend of mine described, the target audience of thirteen year olds will have loved it.

Jungle Cruise, 2021

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra

Writer: Michael Green, Glenn Ficarra, & John Requa

Composer: James Newton Howard

Starring: Emily Blunt, Dwayne Johnson, Jack Whitehall, Jesse Plemons, Édgar Ramírez, & Paul Giamatti

Currently showing across the U.K. in major cinemas