The Suicide Squad star says the movie is James Gunn's best

The Suicide Squad
(Image credit: Warner Bros./DC)

Joel Kinnaman, who plays Rick Flag in The Suicide Squad, has high praise for the movie.

"It's insane. It's by far James Gunn's best movie," he told Variety.

The actor elaborated: "It just takes it to another level. It's an insane film. At the same time, it was very much the movie that I thought it was going to be because the vision was so clear from the beginning, and the script was – while we were shooting it, it was so clear what we were doing... It's so entertaining. I'm of course hopelessly biased, but I found it to be one of the most entertaining films I've ever seen."

He continued to praise the pacing and comedy of the movie, describing it as "funny along the way the whole time, effortlessly," and also talked about "these little bubbles, these little moments of emotional depth and visual and emotional poetry."

Kinnaman added: "And I felt like it really transcended the genre, and it became something bigger. And then it's also very silly, and ridiculous in many ways and super violent. Just gory almost at times. And [it has] shocking moments, but that are very comedic. At the end of the movie, it's completely normal seeing this giant shark just standing gnawing on a person's head, and some of the people just having a conversation next [to it]. When you're one hour and 50 minutes into Suicide Squad, that's going to feel completely normal. It's so irreverent."

A soft-reboot/sequel to 2016's Suicide Squad, Gunn's movie will see the titular group of villains go up against the alien starfish Starro, who has the power to control minds. Gunn has already teased that no character was protected by DC, and that "almost all of them" will die – which fits with the "don't get too attached" tagline. There's a massive cast, which includes Kinnaman, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Idris Elba as Bloodsport, John Cena as Peacemaker, Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, and Sylvester Stallone as King Shark. Cena's Peacemaker already has a HBO Max spinoff in the works, too. 

The Suicide Squad releases this August 6 in theaters and on HBO Max. Until then, check out how to watch DC movies in order to get up to speed with the DCEU – and find the best HBO Max prices and deals.

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Molly Edwards
Senior Entertainment Writer

I'm a Senior Entertainment Writer here at 12DOVE, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English. 

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