 Lock and load, the Suicide Squad is back. Hey everybody, welcome to a, I guess I should say, podcast edition of A Week in Geek, this time we're reviewing the latest journey into the DC animated universe standalone movies or whatever you want to call them. It's Suicide Squad, Hell to Pay. Now in previous movies I have complained at length about running time, about the plot and all that stuff, and I truly believe that this might be one of the best animated features that I have ever seen when it comes to superheroes. This is, wow guys, this is so bloody violent. It is one of the most glorious animated movies I have ever seen. It's rated R and it's done in this sort of Grindhouse B movie style that I really appreciated and it's the perfect team, it's the Suicide Squad that you can use to make this sort of movie. You've got the character of Deadshot, Killer Frost, Captain Boomerang and Harley Quinn and they're joined by Copperhead and finally Bronze Tiger. None of the new incarnations of Suicide Squad use Bronze Tiger, the Assault on Arkham, the movies, the live action movie and all that stuff, so I was really missing the character of Bronze Tiger. He's pretty freaking badass. Now in this movie it's sort of a little bit of a multi-layered heist adventure flick. Basically at the beginning of the movie Amanda Waller tasks the Suicide Squad to retrieve this jump drive with a lot of sensitive information that the character of Tobias Whale has in his possession on a moving train. Now the first iteration I guess, it's slight spoilers by the way, the first iteration of the Suicide Squad is led of course by Deadshot, Vertigo and other characters. It quickly goes south and just the limbs start flying off. People are getting shot. There's a huge amount of blood being spilled. People are cursing left and right. It took me by surprise. I was not expecting this. I was like you know what it's probably going to be like a PG-13 thing with a couple like maybe one F-bomb Nope. This is clearly R rated material here folks for strong blood, sexual content, drug references and even some brief graphic nudity I should say. So yeah after all that stuff I'm not going to spoil the whole thing but the characters move on to a second mission or at least our main lead which is always Deadshot when it comes to Suicide Squad and he is tasked to retrieve this mystical fabled item called this sort of card it's like a get out of free jail card for the afterlife that a certain mystical character has in the DC universe. Amanda Waller wants it because she is ill and then then then we get the the team that I mentioned earlier with Killer Frost and all that stuff and that is where the fun really begins because first off Christian Slater voicing Deadshot that is a strange but awesome casting choice in my opinion and he really brings a sort of trashy yet simplistic and relatable version of Deadshot. I don't know I really like this take on it. You've got returning veteran Tara Strong voicing Harley Quinn which I gotta say was a little bit subdued it wasn't exactly my favorite part of the movie I thought the whole time I was hearing like a it was an R rated Harley but she sounded like like a Xanax Harley for some reason I don't know I expected something completely different. I won't get into spoilers with the movie I've already said way too much I'll just say this the characters are spectacular they interact beautifully with each other and you really get the sense that this squad doesn't really belong together but they work really well together for some reason. You also get a wide arrangement of characters from the DC universe that I was not expecting to find in this movie. When you find out who the main antagonist in this is you're gonna be blown away because the movie does something really cool it's not or at least to my knowledge it's not adapting it's not adapting I should say sorry a particular story it's doing its own original thing and it's a very cool story that relates to this DC animated universe that started with Justice League War and all those other movies it interconnects with all the stories that have come so far and I gotta respect it for that and usually with the uh with these animated movies they're adapting famous storylines from the comic books and you're always gonna have haters you're always gonna have people complaining hell I've complained in the past because they don't adapt it faithfully or they uh edited a certain way and they leave a lot of stuff and they get too creative with it where you don't uh where you have people that don't like it and other people that are a little bit iffy I'm usually in the crowd where I welcome change but it's you're limited because most of these movies are like 70 minutes and I don't think that's enough to cover the whole story now with this you're getting an 86 minute long movie I think it's one of the longer ones in the uh animated verse uh if I'm not mistaken this is the 31st animated standalone movie and that is really really impressive most of them have been great some of them have been they're okay and others have been horrible but for the most part this movie gets it great character interactions great voiceover work just a fun compelling original story that it's all about the bad guys when it comes to DC comics they've got one of the best villain rosters around and they fully utilize it now the action is intense the language is strong and it is bloody as hell I cannot please I cannot recommend this for uh younger audiences please don't be that douchey parent that goes oh it's an animated movie what could go wrong I'll let my kids see it don't please have them understand the difference between what's happening here and real life please I know it's silly because it's an animated thing but it's not for kids this is on a league of its own it's set within that continuity and when it comes to the art style in this it's uh it's serviceable it's not the best looking animated feature some of the art could be a little bit better especially when characters are in motion there's a scene in a strip joint if you will where the dancing can look a little bit awkward and the action sequences for the most part they look good but I don't know the color palette could have been a little bit cleaner or brighter and the fluidity could have been just a tiny little bit better but that's just nitpicking on my part as for the running time I usually criticize them for being too short but on this occasion at 86 minutes it's just bright I wish it could have been just a tiny little bit longer so it was the actual 90 minute movie but it's cool it maybe if you would have added a couple more scenes it would have lasted a little bit too long it's not too short nor too long and I think that is what makes it special because of these characters interacting with each other you get enough scenes to fully grasp the dynamic of this team you know one of the best dynamics in the hell to pay a movie is having a moral compass in the character of bronze tiger this is a guy that is an expert martial artist but he's in it for the wrong reasons and got recruited to the suicide squad and I think he plays off really well with a character like deadshot that isn't that is a little bit unhinged and is willing to go the extra mile bronze can go as well but for totally different reasons meanwhile you've got killer frost which she is just a delight and is actually pretty hilarious I found myself laughing the most with that character instead of the go-to cliched humor character which is Harley Quinn I thought she really brought it to the film in copperhead too copperhead was pretty awesome to see especially because he is a contortionist and seeing his snake-like body and stuff really awesome stuff so yeah suicide squad hell to pay I don't really rate movies or anything like that I just I approve of it it's it's pretty it's pretty damn fun pretty damn gory and you will probably enjoy the hell out of it plus there is a favorite character of mine that shows up one of the classic heroes if you will I won't spoil it but I was very taken aback by the character selection if you know what I mean guys thank you so much this is a weird addition I'm not used to doing podcast versions of my show channel here on YouTube but thank you thank you as always for liking commenting and subscribing find me on your favorite social media platform and we'll talk about this movie and then some all right I've got to go I will catch all of you on our next episode