I think there is not a single fan of DC comics who would not be familiar with the name and work of the eminent director Sam Lew. After all, it was from under the wing of this director that such wonderful works as Batman: Year One, Supernova Superman, Superman / Batman: Enemies of Society, as well as an excellent animated series about Green Lantern appeared. The same year was extremely fruitful for his work. Allowing Lew to take the helm of Gotham in Gaslight and The Death of Superman. The cherry on the cake can be safely considered this film director.
The plot of this tape develops around the next task of the Suicide Squad. Deadly and terminally ill Amanda Waller reunites her Task Force X as Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Bronze Tiger, Killer Frost and Copper Snake. To find and possess a mystical playing card that provides its owner with a free exit from hell.
Events on the screen are developing very quickly. One villain willingly steps into the position of another. Thus, there are plenty of potential desires to possess a mystical map, and their incessant hunt for it gives the history of density and dynamism. Moreover, the further the plot develops, the more members of the Suicide Squad and other iconic characters of the DC comics are being "expended." Which is certainly the main advantage of the picture, refers viewers to the canons of the original comics about the team, and also allows the debut of the Suicide Squad in the DC animated universe exactly as they certainly deserve. Moreover, none of the members of the squad does not put on the mantle of a positive character and to the last is a scum and a villain. This is what David Eyre’s full-length film was missing. Separately, I want to note the magnificent scene with Batman from Flashpoint, which not only explains the motivation of the Reverse Flash. But at the same time, it makes it clear that both films exist in the same universe.
The director of this film Sam Lew made a very not bad and worthy film. On the one hand, he loses a lot to the great Assault on Arkham. On the other hand, it turned out to be a dark, hard and brutal film. Adult R rating is perfectly implemented on the wide screen. The abundance of blood, violence, corpses and obscene language fully reveals the potential of the source and allows you not to regret the time spent watching the tape.
Amanda Waller, Deadshot, Bronze Tiger, and Killer Frost all got a great screenplay. Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang and suddenly turned from woman to man Copper snake turned out to be very inconspicuous and strongly held in the background. Separately, I want to note the Reverse Flash (Zoom), Silver Banshee, Vandal Savage, Scandal Savage, Vertigo and Two-Face, each of which equally successfully “maligned” on the screen. Separately, I want to say thank you for a small cameo of Batman from Flashpoint.
7 out of 10
Suicide Squad: Strict punishment is more than a worthy debut of the eminent Suicide Squad in the DC animated universe. If you do not compare with the magnificent “Attack on Arkham”, it turned out to be a dark, spectacular, brutal, bloody and cruel film in which each of the members of the Squad can and willingly put into the expense, which is exactly what you expect from the adventures of Task Force X Amanda Waller.
As bad as Suicide Squad is, so good is this cartoon. This sentence can end the entire review, but I will still try to explain what is so good cartoon “Suicide Squad: Strict Punishment”.
It’s a pity that most moviegoers who talk to geek culture about “You” only know about the “suicide squad” from an incredibly bad movie in which exactly everything you can do was done badly or didn’t work. It is doubly unfortunate that a significant part of this very audience liked the film. If you consider yourself in this part, please watch this cartoon. And you will understand how David Eyre and Warner Brothers raped your eyes, your brain, and just good taste.
Representatives of the geek community do not need to read this paragraph. Suffice the phrase that this is an extremely canonical embodiment of the detachment, albeit on small, but screens.
"Strict Punishment" is not the first attempt to show a suicide squad in cartoons. There was also "Attack on Arkham", which, by the way, is also an extremely worthy work. But it doesn't belong to the DC New52 multiverse. This cartoon was a kind of spin-off for games from Rocksteady (the very magnificent games about the Dark Knight). Strict Punishment is a full-fledged cartoon of the New52 universe, and a direct sequel to Flashpoint. Although, you understand, fit in one application "direct continuation" and "Flash" is not very correct.
I won't spoil the story. Moreover, in the text it looks extremely boring. But that’s not true – the movie has to be watched. It will surprise and a few plot twists, and the pursuit of the local McGuffin looks extremely successful decision. In short, the genre of the film can even be described as a Buddy movie. Most of the time, a team of DC supervillains, along with a couple of antiheroes, travel in a natural house on wheels. About the same as Heisenberg created his art.
The cartoon is incredibly driving. It has everything for DC fans, and maybe even for casual viewers, tired of watching pictures of knights in shining armor and dull, correct to the point of the Avengers. The characters here are villains – they are cruel, do not shy away from victims among those who stand in the way, pursue their own interests, but sometimes can afford some manifestations of humanity. These characters are much more interesting to watch. Also in the film a huge concentration of Mexican duels on one square centimeter and several opposing sides, arranging on the screen colorful mixes.
Rating "R" in the picture on the spot: there are scenes of creative and colorful dismemberment, and black humor, and glimpsed maiden breasts. But, unlike the same movie Deadpool, the screenwriters use the possibilities of adult rating of the picture to the fullest.
Oh, yeah, it's worth celebrating the humor. He is, as I said, black and witty. There were a few jokes in my voice.
All the above advantages are accompanied by a dynamic musical accompaniment that adjusts to the atmosphere of a breakaway and crazy adventure.
But it wasn't without the minuses. It seems that the animators lacked either money, or time, or experience, or all of the above – the schedule in the cartoon, frankly, is a bit weak. Characters periodically move extremely strangely, it is not always possible to transfer the dynamics to the film. The drawing itself remained as in the previous cartoons of the franchise - pseudo anime style.
To sum up, Strict Punishment is one of DC’s best feature-length animated films and the best incarnation of Suicide Squad outside the pages of comics. This cartoon is a great compensation for a terrible feature film. Which, unlike this comic book masterpiece, was played in theaters for some reason. Watch all fans of comics, as well as casual viewers tired of stagnation in the genre and the absence of 18+. Once again, watching DC cartoons catches myself from the feeling of hard dissonance: how can the studio give the green light to such great cartoons, and shoot for the big screen such outright horror, tastelessness and hack. I wish it was the opposite.
Probably still not without reason, DC still entrusts the adaptation of most of its major TV adaptations of comics to Sam Lew. Unfortunately for Lew in recent years, everything is not moving too well, and also smoothly. There may be a certain fatigue of working on similar works on the same subject. Although this is certainly not a fact, because if a person has been working on something for a year in a row, it just means that for him it is one of his favorite activities. It’s a pity, but this of course can not be said for mediocre ' Young Titans' or even at least ambiguous ' Gods and monsters', but with the last work of Lew came the minimum number of problems.
The notorious Amanda Waller is once again gathering a squad of cold-blooded criminals, who are not at all sorry to be allowed to be killed and thrown into the toughest meat grinder. The most interesting thing is that for each such task, the members of the squad are counted in a matter of years, while the minimum term for each is probably a couple of decades. So this time bloodthirsty murderers in the past, and now bloodthirsty murderers in the service of the government, are obliged to carry out literally suicidal orders.
In general, it turned out to be quite decent and probably even to some extent somewhat unconventional, since not in every such work you will see exactly the level of cruelty that is present here. Members of the detachment are very hard to deal with their enemies, and literally the very beginning of the picture immediately sets in the mood that everything will be really serious here. And it may be a little pity that in the future all this cruelty is not as pronounced as in the beginning, but still implemented in fact at the proper level. Characters within the framework of the local plot are written in principle well, it is also important that there are many different types of characters here. The creators did not use completely worn-out heroes and for the most part pushed here a lot of newcomers, who probably know only regulars of comics. The action is kept at the proper level and I have no complaints about it. Not that it is something quite out of the ordinary, but the irritating attitude is clearly not traced.
And everything would be fine, but there are things that seemed to me a little superfluous here, namely the notorious emphasis on family values, which annoyed me while watching the original film. But come on, otherwise it was quite rough and I would like to believe that Sam Lew will draw his inspiration from such things, and not some level of shame ' Young Titans' In my opinion ' The attack on Arkham' could not be surpassed, but in any case it turned out more or less firmly. So fans will almost certainly spend time for good.
They say that good intentions pave the way to hell. With Suicide Squad, it really was. However, if we are talking about the film adaptation, where the desire to smooth the corners to please the young audience turned into a box office failure, and the studio released not quite what was expected. As for the DC animated universe, every year there are projects that are definitely older than the cinematic universe. “Strict Punishment” does not lag behind both previous animated films (“Suicide Squad: Attack on Arkham”, although it is difficult to call it a prequel), and from full-fledged parts of a single official animated “timeline” like “The Conflict Source Paradox”.
Strict Punishment claims that life is the most precious thing in the universe. It’s a little ironic that Suicide Squad lives up to its name and the characters go to waste. The plot revolves around a certain artifact, whose nature is a frank spoiler. Suffice it to say that it wants to possess not only the ubiquitous Amanda Waller and probably every member of the suicide squad, but also such heavyweights of the DC underworld as Vandal Savage and Professor Zoom.
As for the suicide squad itself, only Deadshot, Boomerang, Harley Queen and Killer Frost remained from the old lineup. In the squad added Copperhead (Copperhead), a human snake, and the righteous Bronze Tiger. If the former is added only for the background, the latter is a hero with an interesting past who also believes in higher powers and divine justice. Not the best replenishment of the company of notorious scoundrels from the moral side.
The rest of the characters of the squad except Deadshot and Killer Frost somehow do not show themselves. Harley Queen is added again for fan service, Boomerang remains Boomerang. However, in terms of being filled with heroes (or rather, I would say villains), Strict Punishment is a real treasure trove for a DC fan. “Punishment” is populated by many familiar characters for fans of comics of varying degrees of importance: Vandal’s daughter, Knockout, Professor Pig, Banshee, Blockbuster, Count Vertigo and even a small appearance was awarded to Tobias Vale. Two-Face was noted in cameo and the mention of the Ten-Eyed Man. Screenwriters without conscience send heroes to the next world and you should guess who will live to the end. The deaths of the characters give the story weight, as their perspectives and, again, the main plot element are cleverly built into the narrative and play on each other.
According to Alan Barnett, one of the authors of the legendary BTAS, this is his last script work before retirement, so he had to give everything from the conceptual side. “Punishment,” of course, is far from childish because of violence, blood, and questionable sexuality, but humor is in order. "Strict punishment" is characterized by dark wit. Jokes in the subject, they never stoop to primitive, aiming gags work, and the overall gloomy tone is not diluted as intended. The dramatic moments from this are even more tangible.
“Nobody wants to die, not even people who want to go to heaven.” After all, who knows how severe punishment awaits us, and especially such unpleasant personalities as the Suicide Squad. These scumbags remain themselves, regardless of the circumstances, and this is probably what I would like to see in the live action format. And in the meantime, you have to be content with a vicious “work for your own”, where “theirs” are understood as obnoxious comic geeks and DC fans. Not everything in Strict Punishment works, but what works does it perfectly: references not for the sake of references, unkind comic humor and, finally, the sultry taste of the grindhouse.