I neither loved nor hated the first trailer for The Suicide Squad, DC’s mulligan on their villain team-up movie, but the second trailer is definitely winning me over. I wasn’t super sold on Idris Elba in that first trailer, but this new trailer focuses on his character, Bloodsport, and we get more of a sense of who he is and what Elba is doing. He’s joining the squad to help his daughter get out of trouble, and while the family-oriented motivation feels a bit like a repeat of Will Smith’s Deadshot in the first movie, I LOVE the tidbit that Bloodsport hospitalized Superman with a Kryptonite bullet. It does kind of feel like we should be watching an entire movie just about that confrontation, but WHAT a fun character detail.
The rest of the trailer around Elba remains a mixed bag. I’m still not really feeling John Cena as Peacemaker, but they continue to tease me with glimpses of David Dastmalchian doing literally anything and I’m super into that. And they’re obviously cutting around Lewis Capaldi as The Thinker and Starro the Conqueror, the giant starfish monster that is definitely the subject of “Project Starfish”, which Amanda Waller mentions in ominous tones. I just feel like they’re sitting on SO much of this movie, and while that will undoubtedly make for a better viewing experience in the moment, it does make the marketing tricky. It feels like an undersell of what could end up being the coolest and/or most fun superhero movie of the year.
If they’re going to withhold, then the way to go is definitely leaning on Idris Elba. Just including more of him gives this trailer a big mark up from the last one. If they could do one with just him and Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, they won’t need to clue us into what this movie is about or what’s going on. Just sell it on the cool factor of those two, with maybe a dash of Dastmalchian thrown in for good measure, and people will show up. Or watch at home, this will be available on HBO Max, too. Oh, and we still don’t know what Taika Waititi is doing. Given the way they’re holding onto that, he’s either playing someone really fun and dumb, or someone really big and important. Which do you wager?