Suicide Squad: Hell To Pay - One Hell Of A Bloody Brilliant DC Animation Film

Certificate – 15

Directed By – Sam Liu

Starring (Voiced By) – Christian Slater, Vanessa Williams, Billy Brown, Tara Strong, Liam McIntyre, Kristin Bauer van Straten, C. Thomas Howell, Gideon Emery.

Running Time – 91 Minutes (1 Hour 31 Minutes)

★★★★✩

IMAGE VIA WARNER BROS

Following the success of the previous Suicide Squad animated film that was used as a template for the live-action film, but now Suicide Squad: Hell To Pay has blown both those films away and hopefully the execs and Gavin O’Connor will use this animated feature as a template once again.

Suicide Squad: Hell To Pay finds Amanda Waller’s (Williams) top secret ‘Task Force X’ – formed of Deadshot (Slater), Bronze Tiger (Brown), Killer Frost (Straten), Captain Boomerang (McIntyre), Harley Quinn (Strong) and Copperhead (Emery) – on a mission to retrieve a mystical object so powerful that they’re willing to risk their own lives to steal it.

IMAGE VIA WARNER BROS

Ever since Warner Bros and DC Entertainment decided to make some of their animated films more adult, they’re all up their game with positive (Justice League Dark, The Dark Knight Part 1&2) and negatives (Batman: The Killing Joke), but you have never seen anything like Hell to Pay.

This is brilliant in many ways, firstly this is the bloodiest in the history of the DCA and the grindhouse style suits these characters and property perfectly and hopefully this is something O’Connor is thinking about. Furthermore, no one is safe and that’s how it should be because every character (especially in the Squad) should be willing to be killed off at a drop of a hat.

Elsewhere, the road trip aspect worked really well too and the use of humour was well worked from Boomerang and Killer Frost. The inclusion of a rival team of Professor Zoom (Howell), Silver Banshee (Julie Nathanson) and Blockbuster Dave Fennoy) brings a fun rat race style to finding this mystical object.

IMAGE VIA WARNER  BROS

Additionally, it’s exactly what it should be! The DCA/DCU’s bloody, violent, seedy underbelly, for every Flash quip you have Boomerang joking at Deadshot telling him he’s a shit dad because his daughter hates him.

There are always two things WB and DC will get beautiful solid and that’s their animation and voice casting. Firstly, it’s a testament to everyone who works within the DCA that they create A* animation because this was truly beautiful to watch, even you saw blood and body parts flying.

IMAGE VIA WARNER BROS

As always, the voice cast to the DCA is solid with Howell, McIntyre, Straten and James Urbaniak as Professor Pyg then you have the star power of Williams and Slater. All I want now is Slater in the DCU now and even in the 90s all I can think of is him as Floyd Lawton against Michael Keaton’s Batman.

Watching I thought it was a spiritual to Assault on Arkham or just a singular story, but it was a genuine surprise it was a continuity of a previous DCA feature.

Verdict

A shocking, surprising, funny, Grindhouse film, Suicide Squad is best R-rated DC Animation yet. Hopefully, O’Connor and the WB Exec will see what worked and bring it to the big screen.