The Suicide Squad a non-stop tornado of craft, wit and craziness

No, your eyes are not deceiving you, this is indeed the second Suicide Squad movie in five years. But unlike its predecessor this one is actually good.

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. This is indeed the second Suicide Squad movie of the past five years.

However, there are significant differences in play this time around. Semi-importantly, there is a “The” bolted on to the front of the title.

Quite importantly, unlike its predecessor, The Suicide Squad is a good movie.

Better still, there are several extended stretches where it is a very good movie. Even better than that, there are at least half a dozen fleeting moments where The Suicide Squad is a great movie.

So what has been retained from the 2016 misfire of Suicide Squad, a hyper-naff blockbuster that went from hotly anticipated to barely tolerated to roundly hated, seemingly in a matter of minutes?

Idris Elba is the acting anchor in the new Suicide Squad movie.

Well, the same DC Comics-generated concept remains the key storytelling blueprint: a motley crew of jailed supervillains must undertake a top-secret, life-and-death mission on behalf of a sinister US surveillance agency.

Margot Robbie’s delightfully demented psychopath Harley Quinn is still on the team sheet, as are Joel Kinnaman as the Squad’s moral conscience Rick Flag, and Viola Davis as their conscience-free handler Amanda Waller.

The rest of the movie, however, doesn’t just settle for emitting the occasional breath of fresh air.

Nope, The Suicide Squad is a non-stop tornado of ideas, energy, imagination, craziness, craft and wit that leaves quite an awesome trail of destruction in its wake.

As for the new recruits drafted to the cast, every single choice is a winner. Idris Elba makes a brilliant and telling contribution as the true acting anchor of the production. He plays Bloodsport, a hyper-skilled assassin who is the Squad’s reluctant new figurehead.

Margot Robbie’s delightfully demented psychopath Harley Quinn is back.

En route to an epic end-of-movie smackdown with a self-duplicating creature that defies all description (except that it is a distant cousin of the starfish), Bloodsport will be aided in his quest by a mixed bag of misfits, to say the very least.

In no particular order, there is a fellow assassin in a shiny metal hat (John Cena), a young woman with a mystical command of rats (Daniela Melchior), a young man with a mystical command of polka dots (David Dastmalchian), and, umm, a walking, talking shark that sounds exactly like Sylvester Stallone (voiced by the man himself).

While The Suicide Squad is perhaps more aggressively violent than any recent entry in the action genre, it is definitely funnier than most films calling themselves comedies in recent times.

The Suicide Squad is now showing in cinemas

THE SUICIDE SQUAD (MA15+)

★★★★

A second try upgrades everything to first-class

Director: James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy)

Starring: Idris Elba, Margot Robbie, John Cena, Viola Davis and the voice of Sylvester Stallone