Film / The Suicide Squad

Don't get too attached.

"You know the deal: Successfully complete the mission, you get 10 years off your sentence. You fail to follow my orders in any way, and I detonate the explosive device in the base of your skull."

— Amanda Waller

The Suicide Squad is a 2021 ensemble superhero Science Fiction war Black Comedy film written and directed by James Gunn, based on the DC Comics title of the same name. It is the tenth installment of the DC Extended Universe, serving as a standalone sequel and Soft Reboot to 2016's Suicide Squad.

Set after the events of the first film and Birds of Prey, the plot follows a new iteration of Task Force X / "The Suicide Squad", a collection of Boxed Crook Supervillains offered a simple deal by high-ranking government official Amanda Waller (Viola Davis): have a bomb temporarily placed in the base of their skull to assure they don't try to escape and take on an increasingly deadly series of Suicide Missions in return for having their prison sentence reduced after each success. Their mission today? Survive being dropped onto Corto Maltese, a remote island filled with criminals and soldiers all guarding a massive secret that could spell doom for the entire world. Also, don't get too attached, because not everyone's gonna make it.

Reprising their roles are Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) and Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman). They are joined by newcomers Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), Ratcatcher II (Daniela Melchior) and her lead rat Sebastian (rat actors Jaws and Crisp Ratt / voice actor Dee Bradley Baker), King Shark (body actor Steve Agee / voice actor Sylvester Stallone), Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Peacemaker (John Cena), Savant (Michael Rooker), T.D.K./The Detachable Kid (Nathan Fillion), Mongal (Mayling Ng), Blackguard (Pete Davidson), Javelin (Flula Borg), and Weasel (Sean Gunn). Storm Reid, Taika Waititi, Joaquín Cosío, Alice Braga, Peter Capaldi, Juan Diego Botto, Jennifer Holland, Tinashe Kajese, Pom Klementieff and Julio Ruiz also appear in other roles.

The film was released on August 5, 2021. Like its predecessor Wonder Woman 1984, it (along with the rest of Warner Bros.'s slate for 2021) received a same-day release on HBO Max and theatrically where available.

Ahead of release, in September 2020, it was announced that Cena's Peacemaker would be starring in a spin-off series on HBO Max, also written and directed by Gunn. Gunn later confirmed that he was developing another spin-off for HBO Max near the end of the first season of Peacemaker.

Previews: Cast Roll Call. DC FanDome Sneak Peek. Red Band Trailer. Official Trailer #2. Official Trailer #3.

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The Suicide Squad provides the following examples:

Tropes A to F

• Actor Allusion:
  • Peacemaker's street clothes in Corto Maltese include denim shorts.
  • Idris Elba infiltrating a location known as Jotunheim. What could that be a reference to?
• Adaptational Backstory Change: Polka-Dot Man is given an entirely new backstory, his mother being a S.T.A.R. Labs scientist who was driven by her obsession with superheroes to experiment on her own children. Abner is the only of his siblings to survive the interdimensional virus he was infected with.
• Adaptational Location Change: In the comics, Jotunheim was located in the fictional Middle Eastern nation of Qurac. In the film, it's instead in the (also fictional) Banana Republic of Corto Maltese.
• Adaptational Nationality:
  • In the comics, Bloodsport was an African-American Vietnam vet. Here, he's presumably Black British, as he speaks with Idris Elba's natural London accent.
  • Similarly, despite being depicted as American in the comics, The Thinker speaks in Peter Capaldi's own accent.
  • The original Ratcatcher was an Irish-American from Gotham City in the comics, but in the film, he hails from Portugal. This may also entail a bit of an Adaptation Name Change, as Ratcatcher's surname was Flannegan in the comics, while here, his real name isn't mentioned and his daughter's last name is Cazo. The change neatly lines up with Ratcatcher II's actor, as she is Portuguese.
• Adaptational Wimp: Being an alien warlord, the comics counterpart of Mongal would never allow herself to be locked in a prison on Earth. To make matters worse, she is Too Dumb to Live and dies in a pretty lame way, also causing the death of Captain Boomerang in the process.
• Advertised Extra: All of the characters featured in the film were given equally prominent coverage in the promotional campaign, including individual character logos and posters. Most of them are killed before the opening credits. This is in contrast to Slipknot in the first film, who is not mentioned once until he appears on screen.
• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • Starro's last words (through Mateo Suarez) are a lamentation about how it was happy floating in space, looking at the stars.
  • The first squad's casualties elicit sympathy on account of being downright pathetic. The only exceptions to this are Blackguard, who clearly deserved what came to him. Captain Boomerang is one of the worst considering his sad final smile to Harley as he accepts his fate, as well as her anguished reaction to his death. Similarly, Javelin is given a rather somber sendoff as well, resigning himself to his death and passing on his weapon to Harley.
• Alien Abduction: Inverted example, with US astronauts abducting Starro who was merely floating around peacefully in Earth's orbit, and then was taken to Corto Maltese to be experimented on for 30 years.
• All for Nothing: Rick Flag dies because of his uncompromising morality, not being able to let the USA's involvement with Project: Starfish be covered up. At the end of the movie, the remaining members of the Squad strike up a deal with Waller, covering up the USA involvement with Starro with the condition she lets them go without repercussions.
• Anachronic Order: Multiple times in the film, characters appear and events suddenly occur without explanation in the main narrative. These scenes are then followed with detailed flashbacks explaining the context behind these events.
  • Immediately after Flag's first Squad are ambushed and mostly massacred, Bloodsport's group are introduced out of nowhere as they arrive on the other side of the island. The film then cuts to three days earlier, showing how Bloodsport's team was assembled, ultimately culminating in their arrival at Corto Maltese.
  • When Peacemaker tries to stop Flag from exposing Project Starfish, the entire lab suddenly begins collapsing on top of them, and the scene ends just as Peacemaker is about to execute Ratcatcher II. The film then cuts to eight minutes earlier, showing how the other Squad members accidentally set off the bombs too early, causing Jotunheim to collapse and allowing Bloodsport to land on the bottom floor just in time to save Ratcatcher II.
• Answer Cut: When Luna asks the Thinker where Project Starfish is, the movie cuts to Jötunheim.
• Anti-Hero: All of our protagonists except Flag are criminals trying to work off their punishments.
• Anyone Can Die: It comes with the premise, but delivers well beyond expectation — by the climax, the death count of Squad members is, in order: Blackguard, Mongal, Captain Boomerang, T.D.K., Javelin, Savant, Rick Flag and Polka-Dot Man. The Thinker and Starro the Conqueror also die, and President Luna is fatally shot shockingly early on by Harley. Flag and Boomerang are particularly noticeable, both being major characters of the Suicide Squad franchise and the latter usually being depicted as one of the core three members of the Squad in most media, alongside Deadshot and Harley Quinn.
• Apologetic Attacker: Harley apologizes after shooting Luna.
• Argentina Is Nazi-Land: Like Argentina in the real world, Corto Maltese was a Latin American haven for Nazis after the war. They constructed Jotunheim to continue their experiments, however the trope is subverted because the government of the time decided to hand them over for the bounty instead.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • While recounting her terrible past romances, Harley references a type of man who would slash her tires, kill her dogs and insult her taste in music.
  • When the Squad are threatening The Thinker with what will happen if he tries to double-cross him, Harley adds that he'll also die for having personalised number plates or failing to cover his mouth while coughing.
• Artistic License – Biology:
  • Rats only squeak when there's danger coming, they're in danger, or when they're being injured. Sebastian's squeaks were voiced by Dee Bradley Baker however, so he got to be a bit more expressive than most other rats.
  • Severed heads are not able to move eyes or make expressions, unlike the one that is shown up close between King Shark's teeth after he beheads a soldier.
  • At one point, Bloodsport, a Badass Normal, lands on his feet after falling quite a distance and is perfectly fine. Bones are strong, but not that strong.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: The ornamental guns stored in decorative display cases in the presidential palace were apparently stored while loaded. Harley actually lampshades this after using one to kill President Luna.
  Harley: I can't believe that had a bullet.
• Artistic License – Physics: In the real world, there is no gun able to give a bullet enough kinetic energy to go through a bigger bullet (even if both bullets were shaped exactly like the ones used by Bloodsport and Peacemaker), let alone doing that and also going through the other shooter's gun and hitting them.^note Even if this was possible, both shooters would have to shoot at the exact same time and in a perfect straight line between them, which would be extremely unlikely, especially in the heat of battle.
• Asshole Victim:
  • No one's too upset when Starro takes over General Suarez and turns him into a mindless Mouth of Sauron.
  • Blackguard spends all of his screentime being a jerkass and betrays the team, so it's no tragedy when his face is shot off by the Corto Maltese military.
  • While the Herrera children most probably didn't deserve getting executed, the adults certainly did, being the heads of an oppressive regime and handing not just political dissidents, but their loved ones as well, over to Jotunheim to be assimilated/killed by Starro and become part of the Thinker's depraved "experiments".
• Awesome, but Impractical: Peacemaker's arsenal includes custom-made bullets that are larger than average ammo and explode into fragments on impact. Though an impressive weapon in concept, the explosive function proves to be a major disadvantage when Peacemaker and Bloodsport fire at each other, as Bloodsport's smaller, sturdier bullet tears straight through Peacemaker's and hits the latter in the throat, while Bloodsport is completely unscathed.
• Ax-Crazy: General Suarez is a violent sadist with a penchant for brutal torture. After becoming President, he immediately starts making plans to use Starro to destroy countless nations as a show of force.
• Back for the Dead: Rick Flag and Captain Boomerang return from previous installments to die. The former at least gets to stick around for awhile.
• Bad People Abuse Animals:
  • While both are members of a military dictatorship, Suarez establishes himself as more pragmatic and less romantic than Luna by setting the latter's pet birds on fire after Luna's death.
  • The United States government's reprehensible experiments on the sentient alien starfish Starro is the catalyst for the entire film.
  • An interesting variation when it comes to Savant. He's shown to be needlessly cruel and kills a bird in his introduction scene. However, later on he also saves Weasel from drowning even though he hardly got to know Weasel and indeed for all he knew, Weasel was just some dumb, mutated animal.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • We're introduced to the first Squad only to find they're actually expendable Red Shirts for the real protagonists.
  • When Javelin dies, Harley slowly reaches her hand towards his face, apparently to tenderly stroke it. Instead, she starts frantically trying to slap him awake, because he died mid-sentence and didn't finish his attempt at an inspiring speech.
  • Because All Girls Want Bad Boys it looks like Harley will hook up with President Luna, only changing back to the right side at the last moment. Nope—she's learnt from the Joker and just shoots him right off.
• Barefoot Captives: Harley when detained by Suarez’s army after Harley killed Luna. She later nabs a pair of boots from her deceased guard upon escape. It's implied that being barefoot in the first place was her choice as an earlier scene shows her playing hopscotch while a guard holds her heels.
• Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me: Happens to Harley at the behest of Presidente Luna, who turns out to be a fan. Due to Harley being...well Harley, she quite enjoys being wined and dined by a sexy Latino dictator until he lets slip that he's going to continue human experiments on the families of dissidents, including children.
• Beauty Is Bad: Good looks overlap with a a knack for violence at best, full-on villainy at worst.
  • Bloodsport, a violent killer with very few morals, is played by the immensely handsome and charming Idris Elba.
  • Sure, Captain Boomerang's looks are played down, but not enough to disguise that Jai Courtney is one hunky dude.
  • Javelin's flowing hair and form fitting costume makes him apply as well. And as the film notes, the accent helps.
  • Peacemaker is portrayed by the handsome John Cena, who gets to show off his muscular physique with a rather tight shirt, and has an entire scene where he stands in his underwear. Even his spin-off series set shortly after this film lampshades this: "Just because you're handsome doesn't mean you're not a piece of shit murderer!"
  • Silvio Luna is a rather hot dictator, and his introduction to Harley is clearly banking on her liking his state of undress. She does.
• BFG: Bloodsport assembles one from the various guns he is equipped with in the climax. Starro shrugs it off.
• Big Bad: Starro the Conqueror is the main antagonist of the film. It is an alien entity contained in Corto Maltese but intends to destroy the Earth. There is, however, some Big Bad Ensemble and Big Bad Shuffle going on, since Starro only gets free in the final act of the movie, and up until that point the main antagonists are the Corto Maltese military (who have Starro imprisoned and believe they can control it) and, more subtly, Amanda Waller and Peacemaker (who are trying to execute a cover-up of the whole thing and are more than willing to sacrifice the Squad to do so).
• Big Bad Wannabe: The film establishes early on that the ruling regime of Corto Maltese has been recently overthrown and replaced with a military dictatorship, but these human generals predictably prove to be significantly less of a threat than a giant alien starfish.
  • General Presidente Silvio Luna seeks to use Starro as a weapon against the US and his other enemies, not even caring if children are among those killed. As soon as he says this, Harley decides that this is a major step too far and shoots him dead.
  • Mateo Suarez is much more openly sadistic than Luna, and the film seems set to take a darker turn when he takes over after Luna's death. This ultimately doesn't prove to be the case, as Suarez doesn't fare any better than Luna and is rendered utterly helpless when Starro escapes, becoming one of its mindless hosts and dying as a result.
  • And then finally after Suarez's death the remaining generals are about to choose a new leader when the Resistance guns them down and reclaims the government.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Mocked when the team goes to "rescue" Harley from the Palace. By the time they're already halfway-up to bust in, she's noticed them... as she's getting into a taxi after murdering most of the Palace guards.
  • By complete coincidence, Bloodsport falls through the building after the Squad blow up Jotunheim, and lands on the bottom floor at the exact moment Peacemaker is about to kill Ratcatcher II.
• Bigger Is Better in Bed: After Harley shoots Luna, she makes sure to compliment "the absolutely beautiful monster between your legs."
• Bittersweet Ending: Starro is killed and Corto Maltese is saved by the Suicide Squad, and the guerillas succeed in overthrowing the government and installing a democracy. However, most of the Squad is killed in the process, Rick Flag and Polka-Dot Man included. Bloodsport is forced to use the hard drive proving the U.S. government's complicity in the Jotunheim experiments as blackmail against Waller to guarantee she won't kill any of the survivors in retaliation for defying her orders and stopping Starro, saving their lives at the cost of the truth being kept under wraps. Also, a lot of innocent Corto Maltesians died.
• Black-and-Grey Morality: Our protagonists are criminals working time off their prison sentences, our villains include a ruthless dictator and his subordinates, a Mad Scientist who performs unethical experiments on people, and an alien starfish Kaiju who wants to destroy the world for what humans did to it.
• Black Comedy: All over the place.
  • Most of King Shark's moments are this, such as when he tries to eat Ratcatcher II (who does not even wake up), or when he chews on a human skull as if it was a chicken bone.
  • The entire Action Prologue is nothing but black, mean-spirited humor, essentially setting up the tone for the rest of the film. Everyone in Team A (save for Rick and Harley) die brutal, agonizing deaths before the opening credits roll (hell, the first of the credits actually materialize from Savant's freshly-spilled blood).
  • The scene where Team B attacks an enemy camp to save Rick. People are shot, immolated, killed with darts, and even chopped up by Peacemaker while bedridden. At one point, Bloodsport and Peacemaker even compete to see who can dish out the coolest kills. But it's the end of the scene that really delves into Black Comedy, when it's revealed that the Squad just slaughtered an entire camp full of innocent freedom fighters.
• Black Site: Subverted this time with Belle Reve. In the previous film it was established as a black site named Belle Reve Special Security Barracks used to exclusively house villains and metahumans. However, in this iteration it has been renamed Belle Reve Correctional Center and appears to have been absorbed into the official US prison system. Waller even tells Bloodsport that if his daughter is tried and convicted as an adult she could be sent to Belle Reve, even for something as minor as theft.
• Blade Brake: As Jotunheim is crumbling around them, Harley uses her javelin to stab a concrete wall and spare herself from falling.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Being R-rated, the film's action scenes are significantly more visceral and bloody than the previous Suicide Squad film.
• Body and Host: Starro possesses human bodies in order to speak to the members of the squad.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Suarez's torturer, left alone with Harley after she's finally put out by the cattle prod, doesn't step back a little but actually turns his back to her and starts texting. He pays for it dearly.
• Bookends: There are two scenes involving Amanda Waller threatening to activate the explosive in a team member's head for disobeying orders: the first is at the end of the Cold Open, when Savant flees the beachhead in a panic and results in his splattery death; the second comes when Team 2 defies Waller's command to withdraw and set off to defend Corto Maltese from Starro's rampage — before a clearly unhinged Waller can activate Bloodsport's device, one of her underlings knocks her unconscious with one of her own golfclubs.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Bloodsport's most low-tech weapon is a couple of spring-loaded catapults in his forearm guards. They're surprisingly fast and effective, especially at short range.
  • What weapon is used to Attack Its Weak Point on Starro and pivotal to saving the day? A javelin.
• Brick Joke:
  • While she's imprisoned, Harley wonders how the inhabitants of Corto Maltese are named. When Luna offhandedly mentions the term later, she scowls as she realises it's the one she missed.
  • Waller's employees are seen betting on who among the squad will survive at the beginning of the film. Once the first squad is slaughtered, they are seen exchanging money from the bets.
  • A braggart argument between Bloodsport and Peacemaker has the latter arguing that even if both hit right in the center, his would be more precise for "bullets that go right into your bullet holes!" So of course he's defeated because Bloodsport fires smaller bullets that go through the ones fired by Peacekeeper and right into his throat.
• The Cameo:
  • Taika Waititi appears in two small scenes as Ratcatcher I. He has one line.
  • Pom Klementieff, Mantis in Gunn's previous film, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, appears briefly as a Corto Maltese nightclub dancer.^note (the redhead leading the dancers on stage)
  • Gunn's mentor Lloyd Kaufman also shows up as a nightclub patron.^note (the elderly man holding a woman behind Peacemaker's dancing)
  • A few obscure DC supervillains like Calendar Man, Double Down and Kaleidoscope make cameo appearances as Belle Reve inmates.
• Canon Foreigner:
  • Ratcatcher II was created exclusively for the film, as Ratcatcher I never had a daughter in the comics.
  • Likewise, Bloodsport's daughter Tyla does not exist in the comics, and was seemingly created as an Expy of Deadshot's daughter Zoe from back when Elba was to play Deadshot instead.
• Casting Gag: Sean Gunn has been cast in a wacky superhero movie directed by his brother James, where he plays a performance-captured humanoid pest and part of a group of near-psychotic criminals who are trying to redeem themselves. Did someone say Guardians of the Galaxy?
  • For that matter, did someone say The Specials?
  • Joaquín Cosío as a brutal and ruthless Latin American general with ambitions of becoming dictator of a South American country. Did someone say Quantum of Solace?
  • Akio Ōtsuka, Peacemaker's Japanese dub actor, had previously voiced some roles related in one way or another with him, mainly, Anavel Gato, an ultra-patriotic soldier fanatically loyal to his country, and Solid Snake, an excentric American Super-Soldier who, at least at first, is also willing to do anything for saving his country.
• The Cavalry Arrives Late: Played for Laughs. When the Squad find out Harley is alive and has been captured by Suarez, they prepare to stage a rescue, only to find that Harley has already freed herself in a Curb-Stomp Battle with the guards.
• Central Theme: What is the cost of peace and prosperity?
• Cerebus Callback: Peacemaker declares that he's willing to kill men, women, and children to maintain peace, in one of the film's more notable moments of Black Comedy. It comes back in a much darker context when he reveals he's ordered by Waller to retrieve information of the US government's involvement in Project Starfish and doesn't budge when Flag furiously reminds him that the program experimented on children. He also has little hesitation when deciding to kill Ratcatcher II.
• Character Development: Harley's time away from the Joker has clearly done her some good. She rejects Luna's plan for his similarity to her murderous ex, shows genuine affection for Captain Boomerang, Javelin, and Flag, and shows genuine gratefulness for the Squad's attempt to rescue her.
• Chekhov's Gag: Peacemaker bragging to use smaller bullets than Bloodsport comes into play when the latter manages to shoot the former's bullet mid flight and hit him.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • An almost literal example with the gun Harley kills Luna with. During the preceding Destructo-Nookie, the gun, which appears to be a heavily ornate decorative piece, can be seen lying around the wreckage. Harley even expresses surprise that it was actually loaded.
  • In his dying moments, Javelin bequeaths his weapon to Harley, but dies before he can tell her what to use it for, only letting out a long drawn-out "ssss" sound. It becomes a Running Gag for Harley to ask what she's supposed to use it for (not that it prevents her from using very effectively in combat). She eventually pierces Starro's giant eye with it, allowing Starro to be defeated.
  • The golf club Waller is using to practice her putting while preparing for a round of golf is used by one of her subordinates to knock her out in the movie's climax.
  • King Shark's immunity to bullets is demonstrated early on when Bloodsport's souped-up weaponry proves to be unable to do more than push him backwards. This comes into play during the climax, where he takes a nasty fall off of Jotenheim and is subsequently surrounded and fired on by a squad of commandos. As before, he proves to be Not Quite Dead and rises to his feet to chow down on an unlucky soldier. If you look closely as he's being shot at, one can see that the bullets are merely bouncing off of him rather than penetrating.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
  • With The Suicide Squad being intended as a Soft Reboot, only four characters introduced in the first film appear here. The other members of the previous lineup, such as Deadshot and Killer Croc, are completely absent without explanation, though several were genuinely happy with their situations at the end of the first and likely wouldn't be as desperate this time around.
  • Birds of Prey ends with Harley taking Cassandra Cain under her wing and the two driving away together. In The Suicide Squad, Harley is back in Belle Reve again and doesn't mention Cass at all.
• Clothing Combat: During her Kicking Ass in All Her Finery scene, Harley rips the hem of her fancy red ball gown and uses it to garotte one of the soldiers.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Harley (unsurprisingly), especially where Milton is concerned.
• Cluster F-Bomb: The entire phone call between Bloodsport and his daughter has a ton of f-words exchanged back and forth.
• Comedic Work, Serious Scene: For all the darkly hilarious moments in this film, the fight between Peacemaker and Rick Flagg is Played for Drama, and the former threatening to kill Cleo is Played for Horror.
• Comically Missing the Point: General Suarez demands to know how many people has infiltrated his country with Harley, and Harley shoots back "69." An alarmed Suarez shouts back, "Sixty-nine?! How could you get sixty-nine troops into—" before an aide explains the joke to him.
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Played with for most characters, who are identified by their codenames only intermittently and their real names the rest of the time. Played straight with King Shark, who is identified as such only twice, once by Amanda Waller and once mockingly, by Peacemaker, and is addressed as Nanaue otherwise, and Starro the Conqueror, who is called that only twice by Dr. Grieves and Ratcatcher II.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Waller's support team are rather blasé about the lives of the various Task Force X members that get sent into the field. At the beginning of the movie, we see them betting money amongst themselves about which members will die, and in the opening credits we see the winners of the bets laughing it up and in some cases displaying contempt for the members of Team 1 who died. However, even they have their limits: John Enconomos is clearly disturbed by Waller's methods and willingness to blackmail and cajole the various squad members into obedience, such as threatening to have Bloodsport's daughter thrown in jail on a trumped up charge and where she will likely die — if Bloodsport doesn't accept the current mission. And when Waller plans to execute the surviving Team 2 members for defying her order to leave Starro to its rampage, one of the support team knocks her out with her own golf club, at which point everyone else moves to support the team in stopping Starro.
• Continuity Nod:
  • While the film is mostly standalone and not heavily tied to any prior DCEU film, there are a few scattered allusions to the events of the first Suicide Squad. For instance, it's established in the opening scene that Harley, Boomerang and Flag all already know one another, and Boomerang is even surprised to see Harley back in prison after her escape at the end of the previous film. She's also distraught when both of them are killed, screaming Boomerang's name just before he's engulfed by an explosion.
  • Though not referred to by name, Harley mentions a horribly abusive and obsessive ex-boyfriend when talking about how she's trying to avoid toxic relationships.
  • There's a rare Chekhov's Skill that goes across movies, when Harley being able to perform acrobatics while hanging from the ceiling in the first movie proves helpful in freeing herself from Unwilling Suspension.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Bloodsport is essentially this to Deadshot. Both men are elite level assassins and Notorious Parents with hidden hearts of gold who end up being dragged into Waller's suicide mission for the sake of their children. But where as Deadshot is the doting father of a cheerful young girl who loves him despite of his career as a hired gun, Bloodsport is a terrible father to a juvenile delinquent who are both constantly at each other's throats. Whereas Deadshot is motivated into joining the Squad by his need to be back in his daughter's life, Bloodsport personally wants nothing to do with his kid but is coerced into joining the team's roster or else his daughter will intentionally be sent to Belle Reve by Waller to die. Where Deadshot was consistently at odds with Rick Flag during their mission in Midway City and had to overcome their grievances with one another to get the job done, Bloodsport and Flag are old war buddies who are far more cordial to one another during their operation in Corto Maltese. And where Deadshot's skillset is defined by his Improbable Aiming Skills, Bloodsport's skillset showcases a bigger emphasis on him being both a Walking Armory and a Multi-Melee Master who's capable of mowing down entire armies with his superior firepower. And more strikingly, Where Deadshot completed his mission but is still entrapped as Waller's asset, Bloodsport succeeded in obtaining freedom for both himself and the surviving members of his squad via blackmailing Waller with the data collected from Jotunheim. Even their superhero adversaries are contrasting, with Deadshot being a Batman villain who was eventually appended by the Dark Knight during a night out with his daughter while Bloodsport is a Superman villain who put the Man of Steel in the ICU before he was arrested.
• Cool Plane: This time the team is deployed from an Osprey V-22 tilt-rotor.
• Costume Porn: Every member of the Squad gets a colorful costume that's almost lifted from the comics. Harley spends her time in Corto Maltese wearing a Spanish flamenco dress.
• Covers Always Lie: One of the main posters◊ shows all the characters, from both Squad A and B, charging into battle together amidst a shower of rain and falling Starros. Most of the members of Squad A are killed before Squad B are even introduced, long before the climactic battle with Starro takes place. This poster also indicates that The Thinker is a member of the Squad and fights alongside them. He's actually a target that the Squad has to capture.
• Creator Cameo: The technician who injects Savant with his neck explosive is played by John Ostrander, the writer who created Amanda Waller and the modern incarnation of the Suicide Squad.
• Cruel and Unusual Death:
  • Captain Boomerang is torn apart by the blades of a helicopter Mongal rather foolishly tries to bring down.
  • Mongal herself is caught in the wreckage of the helicopter, and is shown burning alive in agony while desperately trying to crawl out.
  • The Thinker has his limbs ripped off by Starro and is then smashed into bloody paste.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • The opening scene isn't completely one-sided as the team gets some kills in, but by the end most of Team A is slaughtered due to Blackguard's betrayal and their own incompetence.
  • The Squad slaughtering their way through the freedom fighters camp where Flag is kept prisoner (or so they think), which also allows to showcase each of the Squad's abilities.
  • Harley mowing through Suarez's men as she escapes.
• Cursed with Awesome: Polka-Dot Man was given a superpower that causes him to grow glowing polka-dots under his flesh that he has to expel at least twice a day. He's incredibly depressed.
• Cute Creature, Creepy Mouth: The Clyrax are small, brightly colored creatures that have a ring of sharp teeth for a mouth.
• Damsel in Distress: Ratcatcher II is helplessly pleading for her life and just about to be executed when Bloodsport finds and rescues her. This is after Bloodsport promised he'd get her out of the mission alive.
• Damsel out of Distress: After being tortured, Harley frees herself from captivity and massacres most of Suárez's men during her escape. As she's leaving the building, she spots Flag and the rest of the Squad, who were just about to infiltrate the building and rescue her.
• Dance Battler: Harley engages in dance-fighting when things get up close and personal.
• Dark and Troubled Past:
  • Ratcatcher II grew up homeless with her father in Portugal, the two relying on the rats he controlled with his equipment to provide them with food and money.
  • Polka-Dot Man and his siblings were subjected to cruel experiments by their own mother, who wanted to create her own superheroes. He is one of the few test subjects who survived the process. Not only is he Cursed with Awesome by the interdimensional virus inside him, but the experience left him so traumatized that he has frequent hallucinations of his mother.
  • Peacemaker and Bloodsport were both raised by their abusive fathers, mercenaries who trained and beat them as children to shape them into super soldiers. Bloodsport's father would put him in a box full of rats as punishment.
• Darker and Edgier: Zig-zagged. While this movie embraces its comic book roots far more than its predecessor, the stakes and dark themes featured here are actually more in line with the source material with its ramped up gore, the higher emphasis on covert military operations and the true cost of war, and firmly sticking to its Anyone Can Die precedent. By the time the credits roll, only Bloodsport, Harley, Ratcatcher, and King Shark are still standing, which starkly contrasts to the previous Squad movie seeing a large majority of its cast surviving to the end.
• Data Drive MacGuffin: Upon entering the Lab to destroy any traces of Project Starfish, the Thinker reveals they were merely sent to cover up America's part in it. Flag becomes disturbed at being used like a pawn, before ripping out the hard drive and proposing they expose it to the public. Peacemaker kills him for this, before eventually being killed himself, allowing the Suicide Squad to use the hard drive as blackmail to be let free from prison.
• Dead Foot Leadfoot: When Bloodsport, Flag and Peacemaker stage their escape from the army transport, Peacemaker uses a shotgun to shot the driver through the wall of the cab. He slides forward in the seat and his knee plants on the accelerator, causing the vehicle to careen out of control.
• Death by Adaptation: In DC comics featuring Starro, Starro's victims are usually fine after its tiny clones are removed from the victims' faces. Here the victims are dead the moment Starro's clones latch on to their faces, with the parasites permanently in control of the bodies. Any attempt at trying to remove it will result in Facial Horror.
• Death Glare: Right after Peacemaker kills Flag, he looks up to see that Ratcatcher II—who was crawling through the rubble of the collapsing building to escape Starro—has just arrived on the scene. She gives him a long, cold, hurt, disappointed glare as she sees Peacemaker kneeling over Flag's dead body and realizes what he did, before grabbing the hard drive and fleeing.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: Starro is defeated when a swarm of rats assault it and gnaw at everything they find, including the nerves inside its eye once Harley pierces it.
• Death Seeker: Polka-Dot Man is one due to his horrific disease. When Bloodsport grouses, "We're all gonna die," Polka-Dot Man moans, "I hope so..." He begins to turn around in the climax, finding a new purpose in life as a superhero... only for Starro to crush him.
• Deconstruction: A frequent criticism of the first movie was that the core premise strained believability, as most of the characters (e.g. Harley, Captain Boomerang, Slipknot and Katana) lacked abilities that would actually be useful in the sorts of Superman-level situations the team was supposedly formed to deal with. We see this on full display in the opening battle, where the initial strike team, which mostly consists of Badass Normals (with a few exceptions like Mongal and TDK, the latter of whom is quickly established as a Joke Character) is quickly massacred when faced with superior numbers. It later turns out that this team was intentionally chosen to serve as a distraction for Bloodsport's group, who were the ones Waller trusted to actually get the job done.
• Decoy Protagonist: The opening scene introduces and names several new members of Flag's Squad, particularly focusing on Savant, who is implied to be the film's Audience Surrogate. With the exceptions of Harley and Flag, everyone on this first Squad, including Savant, are killed as soon as they arrive at Corto Maltese (though Weasel is revealed to be alive in The Stinger). It's then revealed that Waller was using them as a distraction for a second Squad led by Bloodsport, who arrive on the other side of the island and become the film's primary focus.
• Denser and Wackier: The previous Suicide Squad attempted to be gritty and grounded, closer to the franchise's established tone at the time. In comparison, The Suicide Squad aims for a more intentionally cartoony tone, with a lineup comprised of ridiculous characters in colorful outfits, and the Black Humor is significantly dialed up. Even the threat the Squad has to face, Starro, is a much more outlandish adversary than the previous film's more standard and straightforward villain. Even Amanda Waller gets her own moment of silliness when she's shown trying (and failing) to play office golf.
• Despair Event Horizon: Mateo Suarez silently goes into despair as he watches his soldiers get assimilated by Starro as they try to kill it to no avail, before he himself gets assimilated as well.
• Destroy the Evidence: The Squad's ultimate goal is actually to destroy the records for Project Starfish, which prove that the American government was backing the experiments. This ultimately ends up causing Peacemaker to turn against his teammates.
• Destructo-Nookie: Harley and Luna destroy a good part of the priceless artifacts in the room where they have sex. They also set the floor on fire thanks to a carelessly knocked-over candelabra.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • It is shown that Waller and her staff apparently didn't do a thorough enough background check on all of the Squad members, leading to a few embarrassing moments on the mission. This includes Weasel apparently drowning as soon as Squad A arrives at their drop-off point, because nobody checked if he knew how to swim beforehand, and putting Bloodsport on a team with a person who can control rats, without knowing he has musophobia (phobia of rats).
  • Mongal's fate shows that even with superpowers, it's important to think things through; she tries to take down the attack helicopter by leaping onto the landing skids, the type of move you'd expect Wonder Woman would effortlessly carry off — except here it promptly causes it to go out of control through her extra weight and momentum and crash before she can try to escape, detonating its payload and horrifically burning her to death.
• Disapproving Look: When Rick Flag asks Mission Control if anybody thought to check whether Weasel could swim, Amanda Waller gives her right-hand man John Economos a rather annoyed glance.
• Diving Save: At the climax, when Ratcatcher II climbs on a car carcass and begins calling rats with her power, Bloodsport has to get away from the Starro zombies to jump on Cleo and push her out of the way right as a Starro appendage nearly crush them.
• The Dog Bites Back: The first thing that Starro does after getting free is to kill Grieves for experimenting on it for 30 years.
• Double Take: Just as the Squad is about to raid the presidential palace to free the captured Harley Quinn, Rick Flag hears "What are you guys doing?" and does a double take upon seeing... Harley Quinn, free as a bird.
• Doves Mean Peace: Subverted in promo material for Evil Hero Peacemaker, where he is shown surrounded by doves but there's also blood in the background.
• Do Wrong, Right: Robert's only advice to his daughter telling him she got charged with theft is to bring a lookout next time.
• Dragon Ascendant: Suarez takes over as dictator of Corto Maltese after Harley kills Luna. This is later subverted after Mateo himself is killed, as the remaining generals begin arguing over which of them will take command next, only for Soria and her freedom fighters to barge in and gun them all down.
• Dramatic Ammo Depletion: Just about every pocket on Bloodsport's suit contains some kind of gun or ammo, and he always has a weapon handy even after being disarmed mid-fight. When the Squad faces Starro in the climax, Bloodsport finally runs out of weapons after using them all over two days spent on Corto Maltese, and can only take cover while the rest of the Squad finish Starro off.
• Dumb Muscle: King Shark is established as the Squad's strongest member, able to tear a man in half down the middle, survive falling several stories, and even endure being caught in at least two collapsing buildings without any issues, but always speaks in short sentences and is introduced trying to read a book upside-down.
• Dwindling Party: Ultimately, barring The Stinger survivors of Weasel and Peacemaker, the only survivors of the initial 14-man Corto Maltese mission are Harley Quinn, Bloodsport, Ratcatcher II, and King Shark/Nanaue.
• Eagleland: Definitely 'Murica the Boorish. American astronauts captured Starro in space and brought it to Earth to weaponise it. The American government sanctioned experiments on it for 30 years in Corto Maltese, resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent dissidents and journalists, and the motivation for the mission is actually to destroy proof of their involvement. It's bad enough that Flag is moved to go rogue.
• The Eeyore: Polka-Dot Man. For example, when Peacemaker mentions at the bar that "A little drink never hurt nobody", he immediately brings up the number of drunk driving deaths each year.
• Electric Torture: Harley Quinn is tortured by being electrocuted with a cattle prod.
• Electrified Bathtub: During the Squad's rampage in the Resistance camp, Bloodsport kills a man by shooting at an electric fan that falls into his bathtub.
• Enemy Mine: A short-lived one happens when the Squad and the Corto Maltese army join forces against Starro when it breaks out of its imprisonment. Despite Ratcatcher II's warning that covering their faces should be their priority, the Corto Maltese Army ignore her and instead just try shooting down Starro's extensions to no avail getting them all parasitized while Suarez mournfully surrenders himself to be taken.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: For the army of a bloody-minded dictatorship, the Corto Maltese army is remarkably egalitarian when it comes to women serving in it.
• Even Evil Has Standards: While everyone in the movie is morally gray at best, the movie consistently draws a moral line at Would Hurt a Child. Harley immediately shoots and kills Luna despite being incredibly drawn to him when he notes he's willing to hurt his enemies' families. Waller's support staff can't even comprehend the idea that Waller would intentionally endanger Bloodsport's daughter just to coerce him onto the team. Rick’s decision to turn rogue and try to expose the US’s involvement in Project Starfish is explicitly based in how they hurt children along with adults, something even Peacemaker, despite trying to cover it up, is disgusted by. Flow's decision to knock out Waller and coerce the support staff to assist the team in stopping Starro's rampage is explicitly reasoned by how all the kids on Corto Maltese will be killed. The easiest way in the movie to determine which villain is sympathetic and which isn't is based on whether they're okay with hurting children.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Peacemaker is a brutal murderer, but is disgusted by the fact that Bloodsport kills people for money rather than out of a sense of duty. He's also clearly shaken by having to kill Flag, whom he considers an American hero, to to keep America's involvement in Project Starfish a secret. When he tries to execute Ratcatcher II for the same reason, he's on the verge of tears and genuinely apologizes for what he's about to do to her. And despite being willing to cover up the Project Starfish experiments for the U.S. government's sake, he still is repulsed by the experiments themselves and calls the Thinker out for making himself out as the victim for losing his research.
  • Harley shoots Luna after learning that he plans to feed the children of his enemies to Starro, saying that killing kids is "kind of a red flag."
  • Upon seeing that she fully intends to let Starro slaughter the entire population of the capital city of Corto Maltese, the Task Force X mission control staff turn on Waller, with Flo knocking her out with her own golf club when she tries to stop the Squad from taking down Starro by activating the bombs in their necks, before giving the Squad updates on Starro's locations.
  • Prior to this, Economos is clearly disgusted when Waller implicitly threatens to have Bloodsport's daughter killed if he doesn't agree to join Task Force X.
  • Ratcatcher II is overcome with emotion after seeing the throngs of people that the Thinker has been torturing and experimenting on for decades. Flag is outright sickened by what he sees, and becomes enraged when the Thinker reveals that the U.S. government was involved in the project.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Rat, rather. While Bloodsport isn't thrilled, Cleo says that Sebastian, her main rat, likes him and he's a good judge of character. Her faith is rewarded when Bloodsport won't turn his back on innocent people as Starro is rampaging through the city. Cleo says with a smile, as she follows him into battle and certain death, that she knew Sebastian saw good in him. It also freaks out when entering the basement of Jotunheim, where Project Starfish is being kept.
• Evil Hero: Peacemaker is dedicated to peace at any cost, whether that be justice or even innocent lives. He’s still delusional that he’s a hero even after being thrown in jail and put on the titular Squad with other homicidal maniacs, and even they are disgusted by his behavior.
• Explosive Leash: Like the first film, every member of Task Force X has a bomb implanted in the base of their neck to keep them from turning tail, which ultimately gets deployed against Savant in the opening. Notably, this time it's Waller holding the trigger, not Flag, since this time Waller is able to observe remotely. She nearly uses it against all the remaining members after they defy her orders to fight Starro, until she's knocked out by her own horrified underlings.
• Eye Awaken: A heroic (well...) example with Harley once her torturer turns his back on her after she passes out from an extended torture session.
• Eyeball-Plucking Birds: The film begins with one of the decoy suicide squad members killing a bird by crushing it. When the character dies much later, a bird of the same type plucks his eye out and consumes it.
• Eye Scream: Starro is killed when Harley dives into its eye with Javelin's weapon, piercing the eye and allowing Ratcatcher II's rats to attack it from the inside.
• Facepalm: Bloodsport starts rubbing his brow while Harley is arguing that she'd have noticed if some guy named Milton was with them all along....
• Facial Horror:
  • Blackguard, who betrayed Squad Team A, gets shot in the face.
  • At least one attempt to remove a Starro spore from a subject is shown, and the part of the face that was covered has clearly been torn away with the starfish.
• Failed a Spot Check: Despite carefully analyzing each Squad member's unique physical strengths and weaknesses, Waller and her aides make a few unfortunate oversights.
  • The Squad's infiltration route into Corto Maltese is to be dropped into the sea so they can swim to shore. It never occurs to those organizing the mission that some of the Squad members may not even be able to swim. Turns out Weasel is not, and he (apparently) drowns.
  • Waller never considers the fact that any of the recruits may have musophobia, a fear of rodents, before teaming them up with Ratcatcher II. It's revealed early on in the mission that Bloodsport has a particularly strong phobia of rats due to a bad childhood experience with them, and he's visibly terrified when Ratcatcher summons a swarm of them at the campsite.
  • Unrelated to Waller's choices, the second Squad doesn't notice that the people they're currently slaughtering under the assumption that they're the enemy aren't dressed as Corto Maltese soldiers and appear to be living in the forest. Sure enough, they're actually freedom fighters who saved Flagg. On the other end, Flagg and Soria don't hear the carnage going on outside.
• Fake Faint: Harley passes out after an extended torture session, only to wake up as soon as she is alone with her torturer and he is distracted.
• Falling-in-Love Montage: Harley has one with President Luna. It's completely over-the-top and overuses tropes of the genre like warm colors lighting, romantic music, long stares and pretty birds making Harley looks like a Disney princess, making blindingly obvious how much of a parody the whole thing is. Then it segues into a hilarious Destructo-Nookie. And then Harley kills him one scene later when she learns how far he's willing to go to hold onto power.
• Fan Disservice:
  • Weasel's genitals can be seen in a few scenes.
  • One of the freedom fighters that the Squad slaughters on their way to free Flag is naked. Since he's an overweight male and his junk visibly wobbles as he collapses after getting shot, this is definitely not attractive.
  • Polka-Dot Man is enjoying himself dancing with the bar girls, then we see they all look like his mother to him.
• Fanservice Extra:
  • There's a rather buxom secretary prone to bouncing in the office of the Corto Maltese generals. She becomes a blood-splattered innocent.
  • One scene takes place in the stripper joint the Thinker frequents, so we get a whole bunch of these.
• Fantastically Challenging Patient: It's not seen, but Bloodsport is mentioned to be in prison for putting Superman in the ICU with a Kryptonite bullet.
• Felony Misdemeanor:
  • As Flag is listing all the ways that Thinker could be killed for doing the wrong thing, Harley cuts in with "having vanity license plates" "mismatching blacks" and "coughing without covering your mouth."
    Flag: Harley. [to Thinker] Those last three aren't things. [beat] Although, probably don't need to say this, but that isn't an open invitation for you to cough without covering your mouth.
  • Exploited and Played for Drama with Bloodsport's teen daughter. It's mentioned that she has an upcoming court date for stealing a watch, and Waller threatens to have her tried as an adult and sent to Belle Reeve, specifically pointing out that it has the highest mortality rate in the American prison system, to blackmail her father into taking the mission.
• Floorboard Failure: After the top part of the Jotunheim tower crumble, Bloodsport manages to break his fall with his Grappling-Hook Pistol and then lands on his feet a few meters down, unharmed. Except the weakened floor give way around him, sending him down on the level below where another piece of floor cracks underneath and send him down another level, and again, and again, until he reaches the bottom of the tower.
• Foil: Peacemaker ultimately serves as one to Flag and Bloodsport in different ways; Peacemaker presents himself as a defender of "peace" but ultimately proves so patriotic that he's willing to "protect" America by preventing the government's role in Project Starfish being exposed, whereas Flag and Bloodsport each in their own way ultimately prioritize true freedom over political issues, with Flag willing to release the information to the public and Bloodsport ultimately choosing to defy orders to retreat to protect innocent civilians from Starro despite the odds against him.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Waller tells Bloodsport that each of the team is chosen for their unique skills, but she immediately introduces him to Peacemaker who Bloodsport points out has the exact type of skills he has. Peacemaker also seems at odds with the rests of the Squad, as an overly patriotic individual who expresses a strong moral code and insists he fights for peace. This sets up that he's really there as The Mole for Waller to prevent people like Flag or Ratcatcher II from revealing the secrets behind their mission.
  • When Flag is fleeing the Corto Maltese army early in the film, the group that captures him isn't wearing military uniforms. Turns out, they're actually La Résistance.
  • Similarly, Peacemaker states seriously to his teammates that he would kill anyone—man, woman, or child—for the sake of peace. This turns out to include his teammates; he kills Flag, the most heroic and altruistic member of the Squad and someone he truly sees as a hero, and almost kills Ratcatcher II, who is both a woman and the youngest member of the team.
  • After Ratcatcher II and Bloodsport share their backstories with the Squad, Bloodsport vows that he's going to make sure Ratcatcher II gets out of their mission alive, and she responds with a smile that she's going to get him out alive. They do indeed end up saving each other in the climax; he rescues her just before Peacemaker can murder her, and she ultimately saves them all from Starro when the latter has them cornered by summoning her rats to attack Starro, successfully killing it with help from Harley.
  • Ratcatcher II threatens to have dozens of rats crawl up Thinker's ass. In the climax, she summons hundreds of rats who then crawl inside of Starro, a giant starfish. "Starfish" is often used as slang for a butthole. Think there's a connection?
  • When Bloodsport and Peacemaker have their impromptu Body-Count Competition in the rebel camp, paying attention will yield that Bloodsport is the winner with twelve kills to Peacemaker's seven, foreshadowing Bloodsport coming out on top when they fight.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Played for Laughs. Milton the bus driver accompanies the Squad into Jotunheim, and is gunned down when they're ambushed. Polka-Dot Man mourns his death, but Bloodsport casually shrugs it off, having not even realized Milton was still with them. Harley doesn't even know who Milton is, having joined the group after they met him, and later mistakenly assumes that Milton is Bloodsport's real name.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The four human members of Team B. Bloodsport is sanguine, Peacemaker is choleric, Ratcatcher II is phlegmatic and Polka-Dot Man is melancholic.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: Luna proposes to Harley after only knowing her for an afternoon. She accepts, and then kills him after he reveals that he sees nothing wrong with murdering the children of political opponents to stay in power.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • Savant's criminal record shows that he has also been incarcerated in Iron Heights Penetentiary, last seen in Justice League.
  • Just before Harcourt and Economos tell Flagg to dispatch TDK, Harcourt's computer screen shows a red circle emitting from TDK's position, implied to be either the effective or maximum range of his powers.
  • The Alphabet News Network channel GBS that reports on the events in Corto Maltese at the end of the film is briefly shown to stand for Galaxy Broadcast System. This is a reference to Galaxy Communications, a multinational corporation led by crime lord Morgan Edge that appears in several DC Comics.
  • While the team discusses their plan to break into Jotunheim, Ratcatcher II can be seen in one shot holding a drinking cup that Sebastian is sipping out of.
• Full-Circle Revolution: The only explicitly named crime of the previous ruling dictatorship was using political dissidents as guinea pigs for Project Starfish. The new revolutionary junta quickly decides to do the same thing once they know about it. However the revolution that follows by La Résistance is much more benevolent, though it should be noted that by the time they've secured their hold on the government, Starro is dead, making feeding people to him impossible.
• Full-Frontal Assault: When the Squad goes to rescue Flag, one of the people they kill is pantsless and showing off his dick.

Tropes G to M

• The Generalissimo: Corto Maltese goes through several of them over the course of the movie before the country is taken over by pro-democracy rebels taking advantage of the Suicide Squad's attack on Jotunheim drawing away troops to take down the junta.
• General Ripper: Suarez is a sadistic brute who loves torture a little too much.
• Giant Woman: Invoked and Played for Laughs. In a payoff to the Running Gag of Abner seeing his mom's face on everyone, Bloodsport gets him to attack Starro by telling him that the giant alien is his mother. Sure enough, when Abner looks back at Starro, he has now taken the form of a kaiju-sized Mrs. Krill.
• Gone Horribly Right: Amanda Waller recruited Bloodsport thinking he had the potential to be a great leader. She was right. Too bad for her that meant that he'd turn his back on the mission she sent him and leading the Squad to try and save millions of innocent lives to take down Starro, eventually leading him to blackmail her for his and the Squad's freedom.
• Go Out with a Smile:
  • Captain Boomerang in the beginning.
  • Polka-Dot Man in the climax.
• Gorn: This is easily one of the goriest comic book movies ever made, on par with Punisher: War Zone and Logan. The violence is much more graphic than even Birds of Prey, and somehow even manages to top Justice League Dark: Apokolips War. At one point, King Shark rips a soldier in half vertically with all his guts spilling out, and the opening scene has Blackguard's face being literally shot off.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: Bloodsport's bracers include an extensible cable apparatus that he uses to help climbing, notably when trying to infiltrate the palace. He also uses it when Jotunheim is crumbling around the Squad to break his fall, although he still gets slammed into a wall, and the steel tip embedded in concrete can't support his weight for long.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The ultimate bad guys behind everything in the film turn out to be the United States government, who kidnapped Starro, brought them to Earth, hired the Thinker to spend decades subjecting them to abusive experiments until they snapped, and then had Amanda Waller send in the Suicide Squad to cover up their crimes by destroying the facility — which, predictably, only results in in the vengeful Starro being unleashed on a city full of innocent humans. However, the contained nature of the story means that whatever government schemers are responsible for it all do not show up and remain The Unfought, and still enjoy Karma Houdini status by the end of the movie (although Amanda Waller and Peacemaker function as their de facto representatives in the story, and both get at least a little comeuppance for it).
• Green-Skinned Space Babe: Mongal has bright orange skin and wears a revealing outfit.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: Even though they're currently on high alert, the guards let The Thinker back to Jotunheim without bothering to check his van, even though he's currently being held hostage by the Squad inside it and are forcing him to get them inside. This is explained in a deleted scene where the guards are planning to search the van even though Thinker knows the squad leader by name and he's known to pop in at odd hours, but thanks to him suggesting that the cargo he's carrying is "not exactly from this world", which Polka-Dot Man takes as a cue to use some of his dots to burn away a part of the van door to make it seem like the "cargo" is leaking, the guards get second thoughts about searching it and allow Thinker to go on his merry way.
• Guns Akimbo: Twice in quick succession during Harley's escape from the Corto Maltese prison. Notable for being about as realistic as the trope can be. The first instance, Harley grabs two handguns and takes rapid but aimed single shots while spinning, managing to avert A-Team Firing and Bottomless Magazines at the same time. The second time, she grabs two M16s and cuts loose on full auto. Also managed to avert both common pitfalls of the trope; she dumps both magazines in 2-3 seconds and her targets are all clustered in a hallway, negating the need for precision.
• Half the Man He Used to Be:
  • King Shark rips a person in half vertically.
  • This is the ultimate fate of Dr. Grieves, courtesy of Starro.
  • One of Grieves's Starro-controlled test subjects has been bisected but is still kept alive by the parasite.
• Hand Cannon: Peacemaker's pistol is an already-massive Desert Eagle... with a barrel extension; on top of this, during one sequence, he attaches a silencer to it, making it appear almost as long as John Cena's leg.
• Handy Feet: Harley escapes from captivity by using her toes to pick up a key and to unlock her restraints. Margot Robbie performed the entire scene herself.
• Happy Ending Override: In the first film, Rick Flag managed to release his love interest June from the control of Enchantress and the movie ends with them happily together. In this film, Rick is killed by Peacemaker, ensuring that a knife is permanently driven through his happily-ever-after ending with June.
• The Heart: Ratcatcher II is the most soft-hearted and moral member of the group.
• Heartbeat Soundtrack: Heartbeat sounds are layered over the score after Peacemaker stabs Flag and pierces him right in his heart.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Okay, but how useful is the ability to control rats anyway? Enough to defeat an alien kaiju.
• Heavy Sleeper: Ratcatcher II, as part of her Millennial Running Gag. King Shark attempting to eat her while she sleeps is not enough to wake her up.
• Helicopter Blender: When the first team is ambushed on the beach, Mongal grabs hold of the army helicopter and causes it to slue out of control and through the Corto Maltese army; slicing them to pieces. It them crashes and explodes killing her and Captain Boomerang.
• Heroic Build: Peacemaker, TDK, and Rick Flag wear outfits that show off their muscular physiques in the Roll Call.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Peacemaker outright says it doesn't matter how many men, women and children he has to kill so long as it brings peace. That's more than enough to disturb Ratcatcher II, who thought Polka-Dot Man was the craziest of the bunch.
• Hollywood Tactics: Horribly punished in the opening scene as things go pear-shaped due to Blackguard's betrayal and everyone begins doing the stupidest things possible. Boomer and Mongal go off on their own, TDK's powers are swiftly neutralized, Savant cracks under pressure and deserts, and no-one has the common sense to retreat or take an alternate route. It leads to everyone but Flag and Harley getting killed or incapacitated due to their previous experience. Justified in this case, since that team was meant as a diversion for Bloodsport's.
• Homage Shot: The way Harley frees herself from captivity via Murderous Thighs on her guard then snatching the keys with her bare foot then reaching to the shackles with said foot is remarkably similar to a similar scene involving Mystique in X-Men: The Last Stand.
• Hurt Foot Hop: Starro's Puppeteer Parasites are an extension of it, so when Polka-Dot Man slices a limb off its giant Kaiju form, hundreds of people who have been taken over by Starro stand on one leg and clutch the other while screaming in agony.
• Hyper-Destructive Bouncing Ball: The film opens with Savant in his bare concrete cell in Belle Reve staring emptily at the wall, listening to "Folsom Prison Blues" while bouncing a ball off the floor. When he sees a small bird land in the cell, he throws the ball at the wall, where upon it bounces off the other walls before killing the bird. One can understand his frustration, but let's just say the bird gets the last word.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming: Bloodsport's parental skills are lacking at best — his only on-screen interaction with his daughter is a screaming match where they both yell at each other to fuck off. When Waller uses her as a bargaining chip to coerce Bloodsport into joining Task Force X by threatening to send her to Belle Reve he's so enraged that he holds the sharp edge of a pen to Waller's throat.
• Hypocritical Humor: In her thick New York accent, Harley blithely states that Americans don't have accents.
• Idiot Ball: Instead of immediately pumping Harley full of lead after she killed Silvio Luna (y'know, the leader of the country she's in), his men instead opt to chain her up in a room with only one guard keeping watch. Naturally, she kills him (and many other soldiers) and escapes.
• I Have Your Wife: Waller tells Bloodsport that if he doesn't go on the mission to Corto Maltese, she'll arrange for his daughter to be tried as an adult and sentenced to a supermax prison — for shoplifting a smartwatch.
• I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin: Played for Laughs. With his dying breath, Javelin bestows his namesake weapon to Harley, but he croaks mid-sentence, leaving Harley confused what she's supposed to use it for. Nonetheless, Harley carries it with her through the rest of the film, using it to land a crucial blow in the fight against Starro.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Zigzagged with the Corto Maltese army. They often miss their shots when aiming and firing at Task Force X but they are able to gun down Blackguard, Javelin, TDK, and Milton. King Shark in particular does get hit with bullets but his skin is so thick that the bullets just bounce off of him. In one case during the Jotunheim entrance fight scene, rain is falling down so heavily that it negatively affects the accuracy of the soldiers, as Bloodsport lampshades.
• Implied Rape: Some of the Starro subjects yell that the Thinker "had his way with me!" in the finale, on top of The Thinker being known to prey on strippers and sex workers.
• In-Scene Title Text: The film is essentially divided into chapters like a comic book. Each new chapter is introduced with a unique title card that usually appears somewhere in the environment (for example, one chapter title, "Dirty Little Secrets", appears as text on an elevator button).
• Institutional Apparel: Imprisoned Squad members are wearing identical orange prison jumpsuits and matching orange Crocs.
• Ironic Echo: When introduced, Peacemaker begins immediately taunting Bloodsport, telling him that he's an even better shot than Bloodsport, that he can hit targets even more perfectly than Bloodsport, using "Smaller bullets, which go through your holes without touching the sides". During the Climax, when Bloodsport sees Peacemaker about to kill Ratcatcher II, they shoot at each other, with Bloodsport's smaller bullet shattering Peacemaker's in mid-air and travelling on to hit him in the neck. Before he passes out, he asks Bloodsport how, and he replies "Smaller bullets".
• I Surrender, Suckers: In order to escape the bar when the Corto Maltese army show up, Bloodsport, Flag and Peacemaker (the latter reluctantly) make a show of surrendering so Ratcatcher and Polka-Dot Man can sneak out the back with the Thinker in tow; being trained soldiers, they escape captivity with little effort and regroup with the others shortly thereafter.
• Joke Character: While the Polka-Dot Man's powers are far more powerful than they might first seem, TDK (The Detachable Kid)'s abilities to detach his arms and float them slowly towards enemies is exactly as useless as it seems.
• Karmic Jackpot: Bloodsport realizes that in good conscience, he can't leave Starro to eat Corto Maltese. Instead, he and the squad unanimously agree to defy orders, stop Starro, and minimize the casualties. This gets them labeled on international news as heroes, and Tyla proudly says that's her dad on television. What's more, there is too much heat on them for the Wall to make them disappear but for extra insurance, Bloodsport uses evidence of American crimes to secure everyone's freedom and their lives.
• Keystone Army: All of Starro's infected instantly collapse and die once Starro is killed.
• Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Luna gives Harley a ball gown for his date with her, which she proceeds to wear for the rest of the movie.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Savant is introduced killing a small bird out of sheer malice, establishing him as a creep. It might have something to do with Black Canary being the one to send him to jail.
  • The first thing Suarez does once Luna is killed by Harley, leaving him in charge? Burn down the former's birds. Alive.
  • Waller's support team is shown repeatedly as being uncomfortable with the lengths that Waller will go to for her missions. This sets up them rebelling on her when she tries to detonate Bloodsport's bomb and then assisting the Squad against Starro.
• Killer Rabbit: While infiltrating Jotunheim, King Shark is distracted by an aquarium filled with colorful jellyfish-like creatures who follow his movements and copy his outline. King Shark is overjoyed by his new friends, but when an explosion breaks the aquarium and frees the creatures, they reveal rings of ridiculously sharp teeth on their undersides and swarm over King Shark like piranhas, almost killing him.
• Large Ham: That one woman assimilated by Starro in the climax.
  Assimilated woman: THIS! CITY! IS! MIIINE!
• Laser-Guided Karma: At the beginning of the film, Savant kills a harmless bird that wandered in his cell. Once his head is detonated by Waller after he tries to abandon his mission, a bird of the same species lands on his corpse and eats a chunk of flesh from it.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • When the team finally gets to Jotunheim, it's raining heavily and Bloodsport points out that it "makes excellent cover". As if to prove his point, we immediately see all of them do a Team Power Walk through the rain.
  • When Amanda Waller's team first meets with Robert DuBois, one of them asks "Who the fuck is Bloodsport?" Considering what a minor villain he is in the comics, the audience probably has the same question.
• Leave No Witnesses: After learning of the American government's involvement in Project Starfish, Peacemaker kills Flag, and later attempts to kill Cleo, to prevent them from exposing it.
• Lethal Joke Character: Both Polka-Dot Man and Ratcatcher II's powers and abilities are mocked throughout the film compared to the more impressive Bloodsport, Peacemaker and King Shark. However during the climactic battle against Starro, the pair are the only ones to inflict any serious damage on the creature, with Polka-Dot Man severing one limb and Ratcatcher II's swarm of rats being the things that take it down.
• A Lighter Shade of Grey: In a squad full of Anti-Hero murderers, Ratcatcher II is a street urchin whose greatest crime was stealing. She serves as The Heart of the group.
• Literal Metaphor: The red band trailer's punny tagline "They're Dying to Save the World" plays off the fact the Suicide Squad is quite literally a group of super-villains assembled by Amanda Waller to Save the World by going on deadly missions where Anyone Can Die.
• Logo Joke: The Warner Bros. logo sequence features one of Task Force X's choppers hovering above the studio lot.
• LOL, 69: General Suarez is torturing Harley Quinn to find out how many other members of the Suicide Squad have landed on the island. Harley replies "Sixty-nine", and the General is quite alarmed until his torturer Silent Whispers an explanation in his ear; he's not amused and shock-prods Harley until she passes out.
• Losing Your Head: When King Shark bites one of the soldiers' head off, the soldier's head still moves his eyes and changes expressions while wedged in King Shark's jaw.
• Ludicrous Gibs: The movie milks the R-rating for all it's worth so seeing people burst into chunks is common.
• Mad Scientist: Dr. Grieves is quite enthusiastic about his work, which include experimenting on an alien life form for 30 years by providing it with hundreds of people, including children, to possess and performing gruesome experiments on the results.
• Mathematician's Answer: The less than helpful response to what TDK stands for.
  TDK: It stands for me. It's what a name is.
  Javelin: Your name is letters?
  Captain Boomerang: All names are letters, dickhead.
• Meaningful Background Event: As Ratcatcher starts reminiscing about her father, Polka-Dot Man's cheeks start glowing different colors.
• Military Coup: The plot is kickstarted when a military junta overthrows the hereditary dictatorship of Corto Maltese.
• Misplaced Wildlife: Golden lion tamarins are native to a tiny part of southern Brazil and would be unlikely to be found in the island nation of Corto Maltese.
• Mood Whiplash: TDK's power is hilarious. But when he's completely helpless, writhing and screaming, it's very upsetting.
• Moody Trailer Cover Song: A hilarious inversion of this trope is James Gunn insisting on using the Steely Dan song "Dirty Work" for the first official trailer, leading to the creation of an actionized Autobots, Rock Out! remix of what was originally a mellow song about a man's ambivalent feelings about being used for sex.
• Moral Pragmatist: Rather than leak the evidence to the American people about what happened with Starro, Bloodsport uploads the hard drive contents to a remote secure server and promises Amanda Waller that it will remain confidential, unless she kills them, threatens their families, or fails to secure their releases. If they die or his daughter ends up in jail, the server is set to release all of the information. His reasoning is that the Wall will go after them and their families if they try to honor Flag's wishes, and otherwise they have no leverage over the American government. Harley isn't thrilled about this, because Flag was her friend, but she agrees that being a martyr is not worth it when they have living people who need them.
• Morton's Fork: In the opening fight, Savant can either stay at the beach and face almost certain death or flee and be killed by the bomb in his head.
• Mundane Solution:
  • Polka-Dot Man needs a special collar to keep the constantly growing polka dots under control, but when out in the field he can simply expel them (if they weren't used up in combat), in a simple process akin to taking a dump.
  • Starro spores can be prevented from bonding to a person's face just by covering the face; Ratcatcher II and Polka-Dot Man use their existing masks, Bloodsport and Harley hold up their arms, and King Shark's face is just too big for a spore to attach itself to him.
• Murder by Mistake: The squad issue a brutal Curb-Stomp Battle to what they think is a Corto Maltese military camp holding Flag prisoner, but only when they reach Flag do they find out that they were actually La Résistance.
• Murderous Thighs: Harley kills her torturer by strangling him between her thighs.
• Mythology Gag:
  • After Captain Boomerang dies there's a shot of his arm holding up a boomerang, with it appearing to be glowing white from reflected light. In the comics, Boomerang was resurrected as a Black Lantern who then used spectral white boomerang constructs.
  • After being found by the rebels, Rick Flag changes from his military garb into a yellow t-shirt, which his counterpart in the comics wore during the original run of Suicide Squad comics.
  • Harley's new look (seen in both the Roll Call and the Sneak Peek) is similar to the way she appears in Sam Humphries' run as well as Batman: Arkham City and Injustice 2. Gunn himself confirmed the Injustice connection on Twitter.
  • Bloodsport is in prison for shooting Superman with a Kryptonite bullet. This is taken directly from Bloodsport's first appearance in John Byrne's Post-Crisis Superman run back in 1987.
  • Waller mentions Flag and DuBois being on the Special Forces team that took down Avral Kaddam, a Deathstroke villain, also mentioning Qurac.
  • Rick Flag died in Jotunheim in the Suicide Squad comics. There it was an explosion, while in the film it's in a fight with Peacemaker.
  • Waller mentions a Senator Cray. This character actually appeared in the Suicide Squad comics, and his son Adam served in the Squad as the third Atom.
  • Calendar Man makes a brief appearance to antagonize Polka-Dot Man; David Dastmalchian also voiced Calendar Man in Batman: The Long Halloween.
  • In the opening scene, Savant is shown killing a canary with implied Tranquil Fury. He was created as an antagonist of the Birds of Prey, a team that Black Canary is a member of.
  • During Rick Flag's death scene, he utters the line "'Peacemaker'... What a joke." It's not hard to see this as an allusion to Watchmen, in which the Comedian was explicitly a Captain Ersatz to Peacemaker. And on that note during the scene where the Squad goes to rescue Harley, the bloodstain on Bloodsport's shirt looks suspiciously similar to the iconic bloodstain on the Comedian's button.
  • Corto Maltese originated as a location in The Dark Knight Returns, where, like The Suicide Squad, it was the site of conflict due to a rebellion against the U.S.-backed government. However, unlike Returns, here the government actually was toppled, leading to a counter-insurgency that the Squad teams up with. The island previously had been referenced in several other DC adaptations, such as Batman, where Vicki Vale had photographed the aftermath of a massacre prior to the film.
  • King Shark forms a close friendship with Ratcatcher II that's reminiscent of his unlikely bond with Killer Frost in Batman: Assault on Arkham, albeit minus any Ship Tease.

Tropes N to Z

• Naked First Impression: Harley first meets President Luna after he emerges from his hot tub in a speedo. She doesn't seem to mind much.
• Named by the Adaptation:
  • Though Thinker II hasn't been given a name in the comics yet, he's named here as Gaius Grieves.
  • Javelin's name was never revealed in the comics, but here his name is Gunter Braun.
• Nerves of Steel: Waller doesn't even flinch when Bloodsport grabs a pen and puts it to her neck, even ordering her guards to stand down as she knows Bloodsport can't afford to kill her.
• Never Trust a Trailer: A shot in the final trailer shows Ratcatcher II summoning her rats while covering Bloodsport's body with tears in her eyes, making it look like he's been killed and she's avenging him. In the actual film, Bloodsport is merely cowering due to his musophobia as Ratcatcher II summons the rats to attack Starro, crying Tears of Joy as her late father's work finally pays off.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Waller picked DuBois because she believed he had what it took to become a decent leader. He did which ultimately led to him going rogue in order to do what was right, and successfully marshalling the Squad to take down Starro.
• Non-Human Sidekick: Ratchatcher's pet rat Sebastian, who wears a backpack, attempts to befriend her squadmates (with varying success), and warns them when King Shark attempts to eat her.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Unlike the detailed flashbacks in the previous Suicide Squad film, the Squad members' reasons for being in Belle Reeve are only vaguely mentioned in passing in this film. Some characters have more specific details mentioned, such as Weasel killing 27 children, Bloodsport shooting Superman, and Ratcatcher II robbing a bank, but the wider contexts behind these events are not elaborated on.
  • When Boomerang expresses his surprise to see Harley back in prison and on the Squad, she pouts and mentions getting "road rage... in a bank". It looks a lot like bank robbery, but knowing Harley the actual circumstances could be significantly depraved.
• No-Sell:
  • Machine-gun fire visibly bounces off King Shark to no avail. Bloodsport's specialist heavy weaponry does knock him around somewhat but does no lasting harm.
  • Starro resists anything the military throws at him, and even Bloodsport's BFG does not seem to faze it a bit.
• Not His Sled: In the comics, Captain Boomerang is well-known for being one of the few Squad members to always survive the mission. Here he dies before the opening credits.
• Not Quite Dead:
  • The first post-credits scene confirms that Weasel didn't actually die, he was instead unconscious the entire movie.
  • The second post-credits scene shows that Peacemaker also survived his fight with Bloodsport and is comatose but recuperating in A.R.G.U.S.'s hospital.
  • A Freeze-Frame Bonus reveals that TDK is in critical condition, with Gunn confirming he isn't dead. Granted, his survival chances don't look too good, but neither did Weasel's or Peacemaker's.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: During the briefing, Peacemaker asks if Operation Starfish refers to assholes. Later, it's revealed that he knows all about Operation Starfish, having been sent by Waller to cover up America's involvement unbeknownst to the rest of the squad.
• Of Course I Smoke: After being arrested, Bloodsport bums a cigarette off one of his captors and leans forward for the man to light it because his hands are cuffed behind his back. While smoking, he gets into a conversation with the soldier. This is part of plan to stage an escape, and after the guards are neutralized, he spits out the cigarette with a disgusted look on his face and mutters "I don't smoke."
• One-Hit Kill: Bloodsport discusses this when captured. A soldier laughs it off, saying that doing so at will is impossible. How very wrong he is.
  Bloodsport: That's what they all say.
  Soldier: Who?
  Bloodsport: Amateurs.
  [Bloodsport, Peacemaker and Flag simultaneously one-hit-kill the men sitting across from them]
• One-Woman Army: Harley basically slaughters an entire barracks of soldiers all by herself. This occurs a short time after she suffered a long torture session.
• Operation: [Blank]: Project Starfish, the experiment being done to study and weaponize Starro.
• Overly Long Gag:
  • An explosion causes Bloodsport to make a "superhero landing" on a lower floor of the building. Said floor promptly breaks, dropping him into another superhero landing. This continues for the entire tower and precisely drops him in at the exact moment to save Ratcatcher II from Peacemaker.
  • During the final battle, Bloodsport begins fully assembling his Ikea Weaponry to its maximum size. It takes over 10 seconds of dramatic music as everyone else waits.
• Papa Wolf: Bloodsport tells Ratcatcher II she reminds him of his daughter. He catches Peacemaker trying to assassinate her. It doesn’t end well for Peacemaker.
• Parental Issues: Among his stew of emotional issues, The Polka-Dot Man harbors a homicidal resentment towards his mother for intentionally infecting him with an interdimensional virus which gives him his powers.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Ratcatcher II establishes herself as The Heart of the group when she offers to befriend King Shark.
  • Harley futilely tries to save Javelin from the beach attack. In a Please, Don't Leave Me moment, she keeps asking why she must carry his weapon per his dying wishes. Later, she gives Flag a tight hug on seeing that he's alive and came to rescue her from President Luna and General Suarte.
  • When Starro succeeds in disarming and surrounding the remaining Squad with Harley and Nanaue briefly incapacitated, he doesn't kill them though he has a clear shot to Zerg Rush them. Instead, it says that the city belongs to it after the government tortured it for decades. Bloodsport even looks sympathetic for Starro, while knowing that he is too hostile and broken to be allowed to live. Ratcatcher II in a Heroic Second Wind tells Starro she feels sorry for it, but the city belongs to the citizens. Then she unleashes an army of rats to Zerg Rush Starro proactively.
  • A Corto Maltese soldier expresses sympathy for the fate that awaits his captives and lights a cigarette for one of them. Which doesn't stop our heroes from killing him.
• Poor Communication Kills: The Squad discovers that Flag has been taken by a group of soldiers, and kill most of the men when infiltrating the camp to rescue him. When they find Flag, he reveals that these soldiers are actually freedom fighters who saved his life, meaning the Squad just killed a handful of their own allies.
• Posthumous Character:
  • The original Ratcatcher, Cleo's father, is long dead before the film's events, and appears in two flashbacks with his daughter.
  • Polka-Dot Man's mother is strongly implied to have been killed by her son, though she still gets appearances through his hallucinations.
• Product Placement: Characters are conspicuously shown drinking cans of Mr. Pibb and Coca Cola. James Gunn had previously worked Mr. Pibb into the plot of Slither.
• Psychopathic Manchild: King Shark is a big, clumsy, childlike guy who just wants to have friends and eat lots of people whole.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Starro the Conqueror says, through one of their meat puppets in a Large Ham fashion: "THIS! CITY! IS! MIIIIINE!"
• Punny Name: One of the rat actors playing Sebastian was named Crisp Ratt after actor Chris Pratt.
• Puppeteer Parasite: Starro the Conqueror, who turns people into meat puppets through the spores they spawn.
• Quick Draw: In the climax, Peacemaker is about to kill Ratcatcher II to keep the US government's crimes from getting out when Bloodsport literally drops in. It culminates in them firing simultaneously to the point where their bullets collide. Bloodsport wins due to his smaller-caliber bullet piercing and shattering Peacemaker's bigger one.
• Rage Helm: Bloodsport has one. It gets broken during the climax.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: John Ostrander, who didn't create the team but is probably the writer most synonymous with it, gets a decent little nugget of screentime — with lines! It didn't go without notice that this is in the wake of Winter Soldier creator Ed Brukaker criticising Disney for not paying the original writers of the comic stories they use, even mentioning that he's received far more money for his cameo in Captain America: The Winter Soldier than he got for writing its premise.
• Recycled Title: The Suicide Squad was initially brought up as a joke title for the new movie, but it eventually became real.
• Relative Button: This is how Amanda recruits Bloodsport. They allow his daughter Tyla to visit him, and she confesses that she got arrested for shoplifting a TV watch. Bloodsport tries to give her advice on how to steal better under the watchful eyes of the security guards, which leads to them having a shouting match because she wants him to be a better parent. Then Tyla's tough girl facade breaks; she begs Bloodsport for help because her court date is coming up, and the Wall has an interest in her. When Bloodsport confronts Amanda, she confirms that Tyla won't be going to juvie for a petty crime if he refuses to join the Task Force; she'll be tried as an adult and sent to Belle Rêve, a prison with the highest mortality rate in the country. This convinces him after Amanda shows him that killing her won't end the threat.
• Rent-a-Zilla: Starro is a hundred-metres-tall starfish and rampages through Corto Maltese in the climax.
  John Economos: Oh my God! We got a freakin' kaiju up in this shit!
• La Résistance: The Squad allies with local freedom fighters who are seeking to take down the military junta and bring democracy to Corto Maltese. They succeed when the Squad draws away most of the junta's forces to Jotunheim, giving them a chance to eliminate the ruling Generals.
• Resourceful Rodent: Sebastian. Ratcatcher II's lead rat warns the group that King Shark is about to eat Ratcatcher II, helps plan the heist to rescue Harley by counting guards through windows, and even finds a path for his master out of the Jotunheim rubble. And he has a cute little backpack on the whole time.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Blackguard apparently sold out Team A to the local military before the mission even began, and when he steps forward to identify himself as the source, he gets shot in the face.
• Right Through His Pants: In a rare inversion of the regular form of the trope, when Harley Quinn and Silvio Luna have sex, Luna is shown with a bare chest and even his boxers are off, while Harley is still completely covered by her long dress.
• Rodent Cellmates: Cleo Cazo's father, the Ratcatcher I, taught her how to befriend (and control) rats with various gadgetry. After his death Cleo was left to fend for herself with only the rats for company, committing thefts until she ended up in Belle Reve.
• Rousseau Was Right: Sebastian can apparently "sense" goodness within Bloodsport, which he adamantly believes is not the case. Then when their mission is over, but Starro is rampaging and killing innocent people, Bloodsport goes back and the rest of the Squad follows him, with Cleo even saying "I knew Sebastian sensed good in you for a reason!"
• Ruder and Cruder: The film is more profane than Birds of Prey.
• Rule of Cool: Invoked when Bloodsport and Peacemaker begin to one-up the other's attempts at stylish kills.
  Bloodsport: No one likes a show-off!
  Peacemaker: Unless what they're showing off is DOPE as FUCK!
  Bloodsport: [mutters] Fuck! That's true!
• Rule of Funny: Sol Soria and Rick Flag somehow don't hear the team slaughtering a camp of freedom fighters in increasingly over-the-top ways, even though they were only shielded by a tent. However, this makes Sol Soria's reaction to finding out about this all the more hilarious.
• Ruling Family Massacre: Done to the Hererra family by the new regime in Corto Maltese.
• Running Gag:
  • After Javelin gives her his eponymous weapon in his dying moments, telling her to use it for an unspecified great purpose (he dies mid-sentence), Harley spends most of the film openly questioning what this great purpose could possibly be. She ultimately uses it to cut into Starro, giving Ratcatcher II's army of rats the opportunity to kill him from the inside.
  • Polka-Dots Man keeps seeing everyone around him as his mother, including his squadmates, people in a night club, and Starro.
  • People wondering why Sebastian (Ratcatcher II's pet rat) is waving at them or offering them a leaf, and another character (usually Ratcatcher II, but not always) answering that he's trying to be friendly.
  • Ratcatcher II's youth is a frequent source of comedy. She's frequently sleepy and a Heavy Sleeper. During her briefing, she doesn't recognize what an overhead projector is.
• Sacrificial Lamb: Almost all of Team A is killed in the beginning to demonstrate that Anyone Can Die.
• Sacrificial Lion: After seeing how horrific the experiments on Starro and its slaves are in Jotunheim, Flag grabs a hard drive to expose the American involvement. Peacemaker was put on the squad for that exact reason, and in a protracted fight kills Flag.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: King Shark loudly declares "NOM NOM" right before eating a guy.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!:
  • After learning the sheer enormity of the horrors committed during the course of Project Starfish, as well as the U.S. government's involvement in it, Rick Flag decides to defy Amanda Waller and release all of the evidence to the media. Unfortunately, this gets him killed by Peacemaker.
  • When Starro rampages on Corto Maltese, Waller insists that the Squad's mission to destroy evidence of America's involvement is complete, and they must abort. Starting with Bloodsport, the remaining members begin charging towards Starro to save the city. This also extends to the aides in Waller's office, one of whom knocks Waller unconscious with a golf club to prevent her from activating the Squad's neck explosives.
• Screw the War, We're Partying: When the Squad arrives at Thinker's preferred nightclub to intercept him, Flag has the idea of just one drink as they could all be killed during the mission; the Squad accept and from there they mellow out considerably — Flag and Bloodsport reminisce about old times and Ratcatcher II and Polka-Dot Man dance where Peacemaker has an attempt. Unusually, nobody gets out of control and when Thinker arrives the gang intercept him as planned, but have to split up when the Army shows up.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After witnessing the slaughtering of his entire squad, Savant, who until now had seemed to be one of the more level-headed and professional team members, completely loses it and paddles away, screaming in terror. It does not last long however since Waller does not hesitate to activate his exploding collar.
• Sequel Goes Foreign: The bulk of the movie takes place in a South-American Banana Republic (although it's an utter Wretched Hive unlike the normally glamorous use of this trope).
• Seinfeldian Conversation: Members Of Task Force X frequently indulge in these, predominantly in the Cold Open aboard the helicopter on the way to the mission, where topics range from what TDK's codename actually means, Javelin's accent, and whether Weasel is some sort of dog/werewolf.
• Sequel Non-Entity: About half the characters from the first movie don't return for this one, most notably Will Smith as Deadshot, Karen Fukuhara as Katana, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Killer Croc, Cara Delevingne as June Moone and Jared Leto as the Joker. They aren't even mentioned (though the Joker is at least alluded to when Harley talks about her sordid romantic history), which is especially odd since Deadshot has most of the same skills that Waller so badly needed from Bloodsport. Griggs, the abusive security officer who tormented the Squad at Belle Reve in the first film, also doesn't show up during any of the scenes set in the prison. Flag's relationship to June was integral to the first film's plot so seeing him return as if she never existed is somewhat noticable.
• Shirtless Scene:
  • Peacemaker spends a scene in just his tighty whitey underwear — this is apparently all he wears whilst sleeping.
  • Flag is shirtless during the scene where the Squad discovers he is in the jungle and during the scene the next morning where they make their plan.
  • President Luna is only wearing speedos when he first meets Harley.
  • One of the Corto Maltese citizens attacked by a Starro spore is shirtless.
• Shock Stick: Suarez's Torture Technician uses a cattle prod to torture Harley Quinn.
• Shoot the Bullet: When Bloodsport and Peacemaker shoot at each other, Bloodsport's smaller bullet destroys Peacemarker's larger one before hitting Peacemaker in the neck.
• Shout-Out:
  • The main poster of the film (pictured above on this page) is a riff on the poster◊ for The Dirty Dozen, one of the main inspirations for both the film and the comic it is based on.
  • The island where the action takes place is named Corto Maltese.
  • Bloodsport casually brings up the martial arts concept of "Dim Mak" or "death touch" to Flag and Peacemaker when they're in a paddy wagon, right before using it to break themselves out. It's actually from an older movie also named Bloodsport.
  • What the Thinker is doing with the infected humans is very similar to the treatment of the zombies in the lab in Day of The Dead.
  • As they're about to raid the presidential palace, Rick Flag calls Ratcatcher "Ratatouille".
  • The design of the Thinker's head electrodes strongly resembles the logo/mascot of Geniol, a pain medication brand very successful in Argentina that uses the image of a bald man with many nails hammered into his head. Given that many aspects of the fictional country it's set in are based on Argentina, it's likely that this is intentional.
  • A guy named Milton, who's mostly ignored by his colleagues, gets killed in an Office Space.
  • The way King Shark rips a soldier in half is reminiscent of a Fatality from the Mortal Kombat games (which are also a Warner property, by the way).
• Side Bet: Several of the employees on mission control are seen gambling behind Amanda Waller's back as they make bets on which members of Team 1 live or die. These employees are seen giving the prize money to the winners during the title intro.
• Sidetracked by the Analogy: After Bloodsport retorts at him to eat a big bag of dicks, Peacemaker makes a truly out-there claim that if "this entire beach" was covered in dicks and he was forced to eat every single one "for liberty", he'd gladly do it. Ratcatcher II, and Peacemaker himself, soon get hung up on the repulsive hypothetical of a severed-penis beach and why it would ever exist.
• Single-Stroke Battle: Peacemaker and Bloodsport have a version with guns, making it more of a single-shot battle.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Having just escaped while undercover in civilian clothing, Bloodsport takes part in the attempt to rescue Harley in jeans and a tank top, while still wearing his helmet and gear.
• The Smurfette Principle: Initially, Bloodsport's Squad team has just one female member, Ratcatcher II, though this changes once they meet up with Soria and the rebels, and again when Harley joins them.
• Soft Reboot: The film does not mention the events of the first Suicide Squad film and only features four returning characters, one of whom is immediately killed. Instead, it follows a completely different story with a mostly new cast.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Harley carving a bloody path through the prison guards to the accompaniment of Louis Prima's upbeat "Just a Gigolo".
• Spoiler Cover: Certain posters, like the current page image, reveal everyone that's still around at the start of the third act.
• The Stinger:
  • Just after the Close on Title, we see Weasel's body still on the beach from the opening scene, just as he wakes up and wanders off into the jungle.
  • After the credits, Economos is taken to the hospital wing, where it's revealed that Peacemaker survived and Waller had his body recovered for a new mission, setting up the Peacemaker series.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: After a prominent role in the first Suicide Squad, Captain Boomerang is one of the first characters to die in the opening battle.
• Superhero Speciation:
  • Waller claims that each member of the Squad is chosen for their unique abilities, yet Bloodsport complains that he and Peacemaker have the same skills, to the point where Waller even uses the exact same phrase to describe them ("in his hands, anything can be a deadly weapon"). Peacemaker argues that his Improbable Aiming Skills are better, but this is later proven wrong when they go up against each other.
    Bloodsport: You just said each member of the team is chosen for their unique abilities. He does exactly what I do.
    Peacemaker: But better.
  • The team's failure in this regard is exaggerated even further when Rick Flag joins up, giving them three members who have the same primary skill. To the point that when captured together they all escape simultaneously using the same technique.
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham: When Starro rampages through the city during the finale, the possibility of the Justice League or any other superheroes showing up to stop it is never once raised. Though this can be justified by the fact that the whole mission is clandestine and Starro was contained at a secret facility that is unknown to the League and the public. In addition, Corto Maltese isn't close to any of the League's normal stomping grounds, and the whole incident comes up and is resolved in maybe an hour or two, so even if they did try to save the day, the issue was handled before they got there.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Bloodsport is a highly competent assassin (who specializes in cool guns and wears a Cool Helmet) of African descent with a complicated relationship with his daughter, and serves as an Only Sane Man on the Squad, just like Deadshot. The character was allegedly planned to actually be Deadshot in earlier drafts, but was changed to a different character to allow Will Smith the chance to return in the future.
• Swarm of Rats: When pushed, Ratcatcher II is capable of summoning a veritable army of rats to do her bidding. She first does it during a standoff with the rest of the team in the jungle, then during the climax: after Harley impales Starro's eye, the rats are able to eat Starro from the inside.
  Ratcatcher II: This city is not yours. This city is not ours. This city is theirs!
• Synchronization: Starro's Puppeteer Parasite's are an extension of him, so when his giant kaiju form gives a Mighty Roar they mimic it, and when Polka-Dot Man slices a limb off, everyone taken over by him stands on one leg and clutches the other while screaming in pain.
• Synchronized Swarming: The weird, multicolored jellyfish-like aliens from an aquarium in Jotunheim copy the outline of King Shark's body through the glass, to the latter's great amusement.
• Tae Kwon Door: During her escape from the presidential palace, Harley slams a steel grille door into the face of one of the soldiers more than a dozen times.
• Tamer and Chaster: The film largely abandons the heavy Male Gaze on Harley for which the first film became notorious, and her costumes are significantly less revealing.
• Team Power Walk: The team gets one (set to Pixies' "Hey") as they walk through the heavy rain toward Jotunheim to start the climax.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Deconstructed for laughs, when Task Force X finds out that Rick Flag is being held in a militia camp, the team starts brutally slaughtering everyone at the camp. ^note Bloodsport and Peacemaker even have a competition which gets increasingly more elaborate. When they find Flag, it turns out he's having tea with the leader and it was a camp of good guys.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Bloodsport gets this when Ratcatcher II summons an army of rats to kill Starro, considering his fear of rats.
  Bloodsport: Aw, hell.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: While Heart Is an Awesome Power is certainly at play, Ratcatcher II's powers are significantly enhanced by the fact the Squad is operating in a Wretched Hive Banana Republic, the exact kind of place that would have a ridiculous rat problem. Were they in somewhere cleaner, she may well have been considerably less useful.
• Three-Point Landing: Bloodsport executes a "superhero landing" to his surprise and relief... right before the floor caves in under him, forcing him to ride the scree of destroyed floors down to the ground floor.
• Toilet Paper Trail: Happens to Blackguard towards the beginning of the film.
• Token Evil Teammate: While almost every member of the squad is comprised of crooks, assassins, sadists and human-eating monsters, King Shark is difficult to keep from eating his own teammates and Peacemaker is a zealot who glories in the killing he does for peace and liberty, which contrasts many of the other members who are not very excited to be on the mission. Peacemaker turns out to be The Mole to make sure the evidence the Starro and Jotunheim experiments has American origins remains a secret, he kills Flag when he sought to retrieve a hard drive and nearly kills Ratcatcher II before Bloodsport stops him.
• Token Good Teammate: Flag is the only member who isn't coerced into the team as a Boxed Crook, but is a career soldier trying to do the right thing. Ratcatcher II also implies that her imprisonment was a frame job by Waller of her robbing a bank, while at worst she was guilty of petty theft. Indeed, she proves to be quite affable and the rest of the team genuinely likes her, even if they find her Rat theme offputting.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • The American astronauts who initially found and captured Starro only restrained him with zip-ties and then pose for pictures next to him. General Suarez lampshades how utterly shortsighted they were to bring an unknown alien life-form aboard their space station without any protective measures. They ended up becoming Starro's first victims.
  • When Harley seemingly passes out while being tortured, her torturer proceeds to start playing on his phone, while standing right next to her, with his back turned. Cue the Murderous Thighs.
  • When La Résistance has the generals of Corto Maltese dead to rights with automatic rifles trained on them, one of them is still foolish enough to go for his sidearm, getting all of them killed.
• Too Kinky to Torture:
  • When Ratcatcher II tells The Thinker he wouldn't like half a dozen rats shoved up his ass, he's inclined to disagree.
  • If not kinky, then Harley is implied to be Too Crazy to Torture, as being zapped by a shockprod has little effect.
• Too Powerful to Live: Polka-Dot Man can summon an endless stream of dots from his arms that can instantly disintegrate any matter, including Starro, who had been unaffected by any weapon up to that point. No wonder he ends up being killed quickly in the Final Battle, in order to keep the dramatic tension going.
• Touch of Death: While Bloodsport, Flag, and Peacemaker are handcuffed inside an armored transport, Bloodsport begins talking with their captors about the ability to kill a man with one strike. The lead captor admits to knowing about such a thing, but how it's so unlikely to work as to be effectively impossible. "That's what [...] amateurs say." Cue Bloodsport, Flag, and Peacemaker all striking their captors at the same time, and instantly killing them. They each also use different methods (kneeing, kicking, headbutting) all with the same result.
• Two Girls to a Team:
  • Flag's initial distraction team of the Squad consists of two female members, Harley Quinn and Mongal. It doesn't last very long before most of this group, including Mongal, is killed, and Harley is captured.
  • Later on, Bloodsport's expanded seven-member Squad (or eight members, if you count Milton) includes two women: Ratcatcher II and Harley.
• Uncool Undies: During a rest period for a mission, the team is suddenly woken up during the night and it's revealed that Peacemaker sleeps only in his tighty-whiteys. Bloodsport is incredulous and calls the briefs by the "tighty-whiteys" moniker, to which Peacemaker says it's a "racist" term. Downplayed in that Peacemaker is not embarrassed at all to be seen in them, and the whole moment appears to just be a fanservice moment to get the attractive and muscular John Cena in as little clothes as possible, as there's a close-up of his crotch in the underwear.
• Undignified Death: None of the casualties from the opening battle go out looking good. It says a lot that Captain Boomerang (kills a few guys, then gets crushed by a burning helicopter) and Javelin (gets shot without making a single kill, passes his javelin to Harley, and fails to finish his dying speech) are probably the most favorable. The Detachable Kid is shot without accomplishing anything, Mongal is the one who crashed the helicopter to begin with, because it turns out she overestimated how well she could survive a crash, Blackguard is shot in the face by the enemy while trying to rat his team out, Savant turns into a blubbering mess and flees from the battlefield before his head explodes, and Weasel seemingly drowns because nobody checked if he could swim.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The waitress at the bar seems unfazed to get a drink order for a rat.
• Unwilling Suspension: Harley is suspended by the wrists when she is tortured by Suarez.
• Unwitting Instigatorof Doom: The American astronauts that initially captured Starro had no idea their rash actions would result in their own deaths, Starro's torture for 30 years, and climax in utter catastrophe for the people of Corto Maltese.
• Uriah Gambit: It's heavily implied that Waller intended everyone on the first team to die in the firefight on the beach, and the team is therefore filled with people she either considers completely useless to her or actively wants dead. It's likely that Harley and Boomerang in particular are in the latter category, considering how much of a pain in her ass they were in the first movie. What's especially notable, however, is that she puts Rick Flag on the team she intends to die, and when he survives partially by being rescued by freedom fighters she then orders Bloodsport's squad to attack their camp in a "rescue" mission, quite possibly in the hope of getting Flag killed in the crossfire. We find out at least part of why she wanted Flagg dead much later — the true purpose of the mission is to cover up decades of human experimentation by the US Government, and Flag is principled enough to start making plans to reveal it to the press the moment he finds out, making him a major threat to Waller's plans.
• Vasquez Always Dies: The single toughest woman on the field is the alien warrior Mongal... who gets herself killed in a botched attack on a chopper.
• Versus Character Splash: At the start of the final battle, when Starro emerges from the ruins of Jotunheim, we get: "Suicide Squad vs. Starro the Conqueror".
• Villainous Breakdown: Waller explodes in a blind rage when the Squad disobeys her order to ignore Starro near the end to and screams at them furiously, barely able to contain herself.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: King Shark. Sharks can't really wear shirts due to their body types and fins.
• We Need a Distraction:
  • Lampshaded when Bloodsport's team come ashore unopposed, and Waller notes it's because the Corto Maltese military were "distracted" killing off the first Suicide Squad.
  • Although it's not part of their mission, Flag points out to the Rebel Leader that the Squad — whether they succeed or get captured — will draw the soldiers away from the Palace clearing the way for La Résistance to attack.
  • When soldiers enter the strip club looking for "Americans", Bloodsport has the others hustle The Thinker out the back door, then loudly surrenders along with Flag and Peacemaker.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Due to being a Soft Reboot, some notable characters/arcs from the first film and Birds of Prey are quietly dropped.
  • Despite Rick Flag returning, no reference is made to his relationship with Dr. June Moone, or why he's no longer working with his personal bodyguard Katana.
  • It's not clear what happened to Cassandra Cain when Harley was recaptured.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?:
  • When initially introduced to Polka-Dot Man, Peacemaker asks what kind of power throwing polka dots at people actually is. Polka-Dot Man's powers ultimately proves the only thing able to directly injure Starro in the final battle, where Bloodsport and King Shark caused minimal damage and Ratcatcher II needed overwhelming numbers of rats and a lucky shot from Harley (using a weapon she'd only just acquired hours ago) to take him down.
  • This is played more straight with The Detachable Kid whose power is that he can... detach his arms and float them really slowly. He proves to be absolutely useless because all he can do is meekly slap the armed soldiers attacking him, who are more confused than anything.
• What You Are in the Dark: When ordered to ignore Starro's rampage and head for the exfil point, everyone in the Squad knows that if they obey orders (that they could be killed for disobeying) nobody outside the Task Force X project would ever know that they were the ones who accidentally set him loose, and potentially could have stopped him before he destroyed Corto Maltese, and none of them could tell the world about it without confessing to being involved themselves. They all decide to turn around and fight.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Bloodsport is disgusted and afraid when Ratcatcher II summons thousands of rats to corner King Shark, having suffered a traumatic experience with rats in his youth. Ratcatcher II is sympathetic to this though, and even shields Bloodsport during the final fight.
• Wicked Weasel: Double Subverted by Weasel.
  Flag: Don't worry, he's harmless. Well, he's not harmless, he's killed 27 children but... I think he's agreed to do this.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Judging from his last spoken sentence, Starro was quite content to drift in space and would have never come to Earth on his own, and did not seem intent on conquering anything (his surname of the Conqueror is given to him by Dr. Gaius Grieves to mock his captivity), at least not before being experimented upon for 30 years.
• Would Hit a Girl: Peacemaker is shown shooting a harmless washer-woman in the Corto Maltese rebel camp. Later, he announces that he's spotted a target in the presidential palace where Harley was being held. It turns out he's got his crosshairs on a random maid making a phone call. He also would have killed Ratcatcher II if Bloodsport hadn't intervened.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • Flag claims that Weasel has killed 27 children.
  • At the beginning of the film, Bloodsport's daughter Tyla says she was arrested for stealing a smartwatch and has an upcoming juvie hearing. Waller strongarms him into joining the mission by telling him she'll have Tyla tried as an adult and thrown into Bell Reve, which she says has the highest mortality rate in the Federal prison system, if he doesn't comply.
  • Peacemaker openly states that he's willing to kill children in the name of peace. He's certainly willing to cover their deaths up.
  • Dr. Gaius Grieves's horrific Project Starfish experiments are stated to have included many children among their victims.
  • General Silvio Luna tells Harley, who has just become his fiancée, that he's going to have his political enemies and their families used as Starfish test subjects, children included. On hearing this, Harley kills him without hesitation, saying that hurting children is a blatant red flag for her.
  • During the mission briefing, the previous dictator of Corto Maltese is shown in a family portrait with his wife and three young children. Then when Waller explains that the government was overthrown by a coup, she shows a press photo of the president and his family, all with bags over their heads, all hung in a row, including the youngest children.
• You Dirty Rat!: Played with. Bloodsport is disgusted at Ratcatcher II's ability to summon and control rats, while Ratcatcher herself sees nothing wrong with it (she even has an adorable rat sidekick). While she is later able to use said power to beat Starro, it's likely that the fight taking place in the sort of place to have a big rat problem she could take advantage of helped a lot.
• Zerg Rush: Starro is defeated when Ratcatcher II summons an absolutely massive Swarm of Rats which clamber all over his body and then inside his eyeball thanks to an assist from Harley, gnawing his soft innards and blood vessels apart.

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♫ I'm a fool to do your dirty work, oh yeah... ♫

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