Written by Alan Burnett
Directed by Sam Liu
Bronze Tiger: "You joke about heaven and hell, Deadshot. But trust me, they exist. There's not a moment that goes by I don't end up wondering: If this will be my judgment day."
I was a big fan of the DCAU's 2014 effort with this particular crew with Assault On Arkham, so it was nice to see another movie come out, albeit with a slightly altered line up but I got to admit that this animated movie kind of has a lot going against it if I'm being honest.
First of all, we've got our main crew here as Amanda Waller (Vanessa William) orders Deadshot (Christian Slater), Boomerang (Liam McIntyre), Harley Quinn (Tara Strong), Bronze Tiger (Billy Brown), Copperhead (Gideon Emery) and Killer Frost (Kristin Bauer Van Straten) to retrieve a little card that gives it's owner a free pass out of hell.
Of course the idea of this card meant that we would encounter several different characters throughout this slightly overlong animated movie and that the team's loyalty to one another would be tested at varying points in this one.
Character wise, a down on his luck Doctor Fate (Greg Grunberg) has lost his powers, due to Scandal Savage (Dania Ramirez) and Knockout (Cissy Jones) originally swiping the card from him, so he was relegated into become a stripper called Steel Maxum. He spends a good portion of this movie in his undies, but ultimately is a mere pit stop before Reverse Flash (C. Thomas Howell) catches up with him and the rest is unknown from there on in.
Needless to say, along with Waller, both Reverse Flash and Vandal Savage (Jim Pirri) are desperate to get their hands on the hell pass card and both of them resort to rather desperate measures in order to get it. When Savage himself emerged as the victor at first, it was up to Professor Pyg (James Urbaniak) to insert the card into Savage before being disposed off in a rather grim manner.
However, Savage himself didn't get to keep the card and it was then down to both Zoom/Reverse Flash and Killer Frost to fight over the bloody thing before Bronze Tiger and Copperhead got their heroic moments to save the day while Deadshot managed to fool Waller before earning his own freedom.
Overall, it's a fairly straightforward enough adventure and given that the 2016 movie had a magical foe with Enchantress, this movie certainly seemed to enjoy dipping it's toes into that as well, even if it doesn't really utilise the concept so well.
The team itself though are a disappointment. I liked Bronze Tiger but saw his sacrifice coming a mile off as well as Copperhead being a casualty (though he lasted a bit longer than I expected him too). Deadshot got a fairly boring subplot part way through the movie and both Harley and Boomerang could've sat this one out for all the good they actually contributed to it.
The baddies were a bit more successful though I would've liked a fairly even fight between Reverse Flash and Vandal Savage as I felt the former took the latter down a little too easily. Killer Frost worked reasonably well as a final-ish baddie and I didn't mind the uses of Silver Banshee (Julie Nathanson) and Blockbuster (Dave Fennoy). Still this movie did seem determined to kill off as many characters as it could get away with and I'm not sure it needed to.
- Other characters that appeared in the movie included Black Manta, Two Face, Punch & Jewelee, Count Vertigo and Tobias Whale.
- I thought Magic Mike during Doctor Fate's routine and clearly so did the writers as Kent was referred to by that movie as well.
- I assume we're going to maybe get a third movie with another altered cast again. We also had a mention of Waller's weight loss.
- There's a direct reference to The Flashpoint Paradox in this one.
Suicide Squad: Hell To Pay had a few bright spots here and there, but overall, it was a bit too long, didn't utilise either Harley/Boomerang well, had a few subplots that we didn't need and seemingly left a certain character's Fate unknown. Other than that, it's entertaining enough I guess.
Rating: 6 out of 10
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