Story

Suicide Squad begins with Gotham City once more under siege. In desperation, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) presents a radical solution to the secret government department she works for. She wants to recruit all the worst, most violent criminals currently in custody to defeat the enemy. If they survive, their reward will be a reduced sentence.

The Suicide Squad consists of Deadshot Floyd Lawton (Will Smith); Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), a former psychiatrist turned psychopath by lover the Joker (Jared Leto); Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), who is deadly with a boomerang; Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuove-Agbaje), who looks like a monster and has been treated like one; and El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), a man who can make fire with his fingers.

The Suicide Squad’s mission is to destroy the Enchantress (Cara Delevingne), who has possessed the body of June Moone. Together with her ‘Brother’ Incubus (Alain Chanoine), the Enchantress wants to destroy the world. Even with all the squad members’ skills, it is still an almost unwinnable fight for them to defeat the Enchantress’s supernatural evil forces.

Themes

Fantasy; supernatural forces; conflict

Violence

Suicide Squad has a lot of violence, including shootouts with assault rifles and many other guns, and fights with swords, knives, boomerangs and baseball bats. Most of the fights are quite stylised and there is no blood or gore. For example:

• Prison guards beat up Deadshot with a bat. They taser Harley, who goes flying across her cage.
• Batman beats up Deadshot, who gets up and is about to shoot Batman when his 11-year-old daughter intervenes and begs him not to.
• Several of the shootouts include a man dressed in a Panda outfit shooting with an assault rifle.
• The Joker says he’s going to hurt Harley ‘really bad’ and puts electrodes into her brain. This changes her personality completely.
• Brother transforms into an electronic, giant monster, which goes on a rampage. He kills people indiscriminately and causes chaos.
• All the characters in the Squad have electronic tags injected into their necks. They’re also strapped to chairs.
• The Joker leaves a flower basket with an explosive device, which goes off. He then attacks a facility with his followers, and fighting breaks out.
• An army helicopter is shot down and crashes to the ground. No-one is killed.
• Several characters appear to be killed but are seen alive later.
• The Enchantress turns people into men of iron who attack other people. These men disintegrate when attacked with swords and so on.
• El Diablo sets a building on fire, and a man falls from the top. El Diablo tells how he’s remorseful about killing his wife and two children.
• Amanda Waller kills all of the workers in her office.
• The Squad members all try to kill Brother in their own ways. El Diablo almost succeeds with fire, but then the army detonate a bomb underneath him, killing him.
• The Squad members all try to kill the Enchantress. She’s destroying everything in her power. They decide the only way to stop her is to cut her heart out. Harley does this with a sword.

Sexual references

Suicide Squad has some sexual references. For example, Harley Quinn is a very provocative character who wears very skimpy, revealing outfits. She pole dances and seductively licks a pole. She says that she sleeps with ‘who she wants to’.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

Suicide Squad shows some use of substances. For example, characters drink alcohol at a meeting and other places.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in Suicide Squad. For example, the Joker and Harley kiss very passionately, as do Flag and June.

Product placement

None of concern

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in Suicide Squad.

Ideas to discuss with your children

Suicide Squad is a fantasy, action, adventure movie. It’s based on antihero characters from the DC Comics series. It’s fast paced and full of action and will appeal to teenagers. Because of its violence and supernatural content, however, it isn’t suitable for younger viewers.

The main messages from this movie are that even the worse criminals can have some good in them and can come together as a positive force for the greater good.

Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include:

• the bonds between parents and their children
• remorse
• teamwork.

This movie could also give you the chance to talk with your children about real-life issues like sexism. For example, some of the male characters are quite insulting and sexist towards the female characters.