So I think this is technically a sequel to Suicide Squad (2016), but it doesn’t really matter — I haven’t seen that one, and didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything. I think arguably it might be more of a sequel to the Harley Quinn movie, really.

Either way, the basic premise is that there are a bunch of third-rate DC villains who are forced to do missions for the US government. But since this is James Gunn directing, it ends up feeling like “what if Guardians of the Galaxy, but on Earth and 60% more amoral?” Like, you’ve even got John Cena playing the Drax-like hyper-literal character that Dave Bautista played in Guardians.

The movie is enjoyable, finally succeeding in aping the serious-but-funny tone that so many Marvel movies manage effortlessly, and generally made with skill and craft. And the humor defangs (at least for me) a lot of the ugh of the amoral shitty antihero premise, because you’re so obviously not supposed to take the characters seriously.

Presumably you’re also not supposed to take the violence seriously; because yeah, it’s just incredibly graphically violent for no apparent reason. At one point, my wife was like, “I don’t think I’ve said ‘wow’ this much at a movie in a long time.” I guess that’s just kind of the DC Cinematic Universe thing?

Really, the main downsides for me were that a) the trailers stepped on a lot of the jokes, so the funniest moments of the movie were “oh yeah, I remember that from the trailer” bits; and b) the DC Universe continues to be deeply intrinsically uninteresting to me. Like, I’m sure every character here has a ton of backstory and depth from the comics, and if I’d read them, I’d bring that into the movie.

But I haven’t, and I didn’t, and so all I know about any of these characters is what they could get into their allotted two minutes of character development exposition. It’s not really the movie’s fault that I haven’t spent too much of my life reading DC comics, but it’s the reality.

Still, if you’re into DC, this is definitely one of the better entries in their cinematic canon. Recommended to anyone who likes DC superhero movies and is okay with over-the-top gory violence.