There’s one thing that the DC Cinematic Universe isn’t willing to give up on just yet: Superman paranoia. This new trailer for the upcoming Suicide Squad movie — a film that continues to look bonkers — begins with a bunch of Pentagon suits talking about who would be able to stop Superman if he turned on humanity. Give it a rest, will ya? The entire DC Cinematic Universe does not need to be about a complete misread of 75 years of Superman character building.
The good news is that the trailer quickly gets past this Superman obsession and into the real fun of the Suicide Squad: bad people, doing bad things for all the right reasons. It’s very Joker-heavy, has plenty more Batman involvement and spins itself (and eventually its audience) right around the finger of Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn. Prepare yourself to accept Margot Robbie, massive movie star, into your hearts.
We’ll do a little breakdown. But first, the trailer:
It’s not something I talk about a lot, but I love playful studio logo stuff. It’s silly and all a sign that I can be lured in by the trappings of major corporation branding, but it’s more interesting than just dropping the logo in at the beginning of the trailer. In this one, we get The Joker’s laugh and some janky logo movement. It’s a nice, patient touch to start off what becomes a very frenetic and bombastic trailer.
Some other moments that stick out. Let’s just say that Harley Quinn steals the entire trailer with this shot:
There’s also quite a bit of Batman in this trailer. Are these flashbacks that help set up the relationship between Harley and The Joker? There have also been rumblings of reshoots and possibly adding in more Batman stuff to flesh out Suicide Squad‘s place in the larger universe. Considering Affleck’s Batman was the best part of Batman v Superman, that’s not such a bad thing.
Enchantress (Cara Delevingne) is still hanging out in what appears to be the White House.
There’s Deadshot (Will Smith) with his mask on.
And Kitana slicing up what appears to be some kind of multi-eyed monster. If anyone recognizes this kind of villain from DC lore, let me know in the comments. I can’t place it.
If we’re honest, it’s these two who are stealing this thing.
The other quality element of this trailer is that it’s beginning to show us some of the other characters within the titular squad. Kitana in action above, more Deadshot, some Rick Flagg leadership, plus El Diablo and his anger management issues.
And the effects of Killer Croc looking the best they’ve looked yet.
Overall, we’ve got plenty of reason to be excited about Suicide Squad. Even if you found Batman v Superman to be a letdown — which I did — this looks like a complete tonal shift. There’s still plenty of the grimdark that will permeate all of the DC Cinematic Universe, but there are also splashes of neon and wild character designs. Plus director David Ayer is great at framing, choreographing and editing kinetic action. This trailer indicates that there’s a lot of it in Suicide Squad, so that should be a good thing. If you’re about to get excited, that seems like a pretty good idea…
Suicide Squad is in theaters August 5, 2016.