The Suicide Squad review roundup: Critics can't stop singing the R-rated film's praises

The film review aggregation site, Rotten Tomatoes, is full of superhero movies with at least 90% approval scores, but only two DC live-action films have a score of more than 90%. James Gunn's DCEU directorial debut is looking to be the third DC film to join that list.

The Suicide Squad is blasting past even the loftiest of expectations.

What are the critics saying about The Suicide Squad?

The Suicide Squad isn't just James Gunn's best reviewed film. It's the best reviewed superhero film ever.

Previous DCEU films have been notoriously panned by critics. The biggest of them all, Zack Snyder's Justice League, only holds a 71% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Meanwhile, the highest percentage that a DCEU film has gotten on the same website is 93%, with 2017's Wonder Woman. Technically, 2008's Dark Knight by Christopher Nolan has a higher score at 94%, but it is not part of the DCEU film universe.

At the moment, the soft reboot of the 2006 movie, Suicide Squad, isn't just set to make it a trio of highly reviewed DC films on Rotten Tomatoes - it's poised to make history as the best-reviewed superhero film ever released.

As of July 29, 2021, The Suicide Squad has a near-perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes.

With a 98% rating, this means that nearly every single review of James Gunn's take on the live-action adaptation revolving around the exploits of Task Force X has been overwhelmingly positive. It also displaces 2018's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse and its 97% rating from the #1 spot.

The critic's consensus on Rotten Tomatoes describes 2021's The Suicide Squad as "enlivened by writer-director James Gunn's singularly skewed vision, The Suicide Squad marks a funny, fast-paced rebound that plays to the source material's violent, anarchic strengths."

Here is a summary of everything that critics have to say about The Suicide Squad:

Financial Times

"A film considerably more entertaining than its predecessor, retaining the cold draught of bleakness that blows through the best of the DC Universe but with the visual brightness and romantic yearning that makes Gunn's work pop." - Leslie Felperin

Times

"Now that's how you do it." - Ed Potton

Time Out

"Gunn gels it together with a wicked sense of humour and an evident affection for his characters who, though not so endearing as his Guardians of the Galaxy, are a hoot to hang around with." - Dan Jolin

IGN

"Gunn is Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka, manic gleam in his eye, taking us on a perverse and strangely emotional rollercoaster ride with a surprise around every corner." - Joshua Yehl

Los Angeles Times

"Less a sequel than a do-over, ‘The Suicide Squad’ is the latest film written and directed by James Gunn, crossing over to the DC side of the superhero cosmos after having churned out two ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ movies for Marvel. Those pictures, with their trippy colors, surreal misadventures and goofy intergalactic misfits, turned out to be a useful warm-up for a story about a much more unruly and murderous band of outsiders." - Justin Chang

Will The Suicide Squad get a sequel?

A sequel to The Suicide Squad is all but guaranteed at this point.

Technically, The Suicide Squad already has a sequel. The Peacemaker TV show is set to premiere in January 2022. Of course, we don't know if the TV series is going to be a prequel or a sequel though. Having said that, a sequel in one form or another seems more likely, now that the critical success of The Suicide Squad is guaranteed.

In comparison, 2016's Suicide Squad by David Ayer only got a 26% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is literally a little less than one-third of the current score of 2021's The Suicide Squad on Rotten Tomatoes.

Even if positive critical reviews are not a guarantee of commercial success, this does help improve The Suicide Squad's chances of beating out the MCU's Black Widow film in the box office.