Warner Bros. Entertainment’s new superhero, or supervillain, movie “The Suicide Squad” was recently released on HBO Max and in theaters across the country. “The Suicide Squad” is a sequel to 2016’s “Suicide Squad”. The film follows a team of DC Comics’ most notorious villains as they attempt a mission to protect the United States from new enemies.

The movie’s cast is full of well-known, established actors including Viola Davis, Margot Robbie, Sylvester Stallone, Idris Elba and more. In his first debut after being fired by Marvel Studios, writer/director James Gunn has shown why “Guardians of the Galaxy” was so popular.  “The Suicide Squad” does perfectly what all superhero movies have attempted to do recently: blend both action and comedy.

The script does a great job of mixing the high-intensity fight scenes we all love and expect in superhero movies while also breaking up the action with well-placed humor. While the humor may be on the darker side, what do you expect from supervillains?

Because of who these characters are, there isn’t the need to maintain a reputation. It would really leave a bad taste in your mouth if Superman were to joke about the graphic nature of someone’s death, but when Harley Quinn does you can’t help but laugh with her.

If you’ve heard the phrase “flirting with death”, well “The Suicide Squad” doesn’t just flirt with death. It has married it and let me tell you that relationship is very healthy. The first 15 minutes of the movie will have your bottom jaw on the floor. No one ever wants to see a superhero die. But supervillains, on the other hand, are highly expendable. That’s the whole point behind the Suicide Squad.

Unlike Marvel movies, DC has no problem with gruesome deaths either. If you get squeamish about fake blood in movies, I’m going to tell you now to never watch this movie. You won’t have more than about 10 to 15 minutes of peace.

The growing relationships between the team keep you invested throughout the film. Every character has their own chance to shine and develop. This is one of my favorite things about “The Suicide Squad”. So often in superhero movies with a team, only one or two characters get the spotlight and the rest just feel like background characters.

Along with a great script, the music, film techniques and makeup and costumes were impeccable. Every song, shot, and look took the movie over the edge for me. You don’t really notice how important those pieces are until they are done exceptionally well or exceptionally bad.

There are a few things I did have a problem with about the film. It mostly came down to scene transitions. A lot of the transitions seemed very harsh and as a viewer, seemed like an afterthought. Some scenes would be at night and then immediately transition to day or from a jungle to a city. The transitions didn’t ruin the film but felt awkward watching.

There are also transitions through time. The film includes these transitions within the scene. For example, using soap bubbles in the scene to say, “Three Days Earlier”. When I first saw these transitions, I thought they were a cool way to clue in viewers without interrupting the scene. However, it is overdone in the movie and by the end I hated it.

Overall, the movie was great. Coming in at just over two hours, it’s a great way to scratch your itch for both an action and comedy movie. But if you do see “The Suicide Squad”, make sure to stay for the end credits.