Despite the flood of DC movies we’ve had over the past 13 years, The Dark Knight has remained unbeaten as the greatest DC film of all time, based on its continued popularity with both critics and the fans. But the DCEU’s latest entry is currently beating the Christopher Nolan classic on Rotten Tomatoes, and it stands a good chance of coming out on top in the long run, too. Yup, The Suicide Squad really could go down as DC’s greatest ever movie.
At the time of writing, James Gunn’s DC debut is sitting at a perfect 100% critics score on the review-aggregate site on the back of 47 reviews. As the critical consensus puts it, “Enlivened by writer-director James Gunn’s singularly skewed vision, The Suicide Squad marks a funny, fast-paced rebound that plays to the source material’s violent, anarchic strengths.”
At some point soon the odd negative review will inevitably arrive, but this unblemished opening RT score suggests TSS is going to remain comfortably in the region of 90%. As it stands, it’s rated higher than the joint two highest DC flicks – 2008’s The Dark Knight and 1978’s Superman: The Movie, from the much-missed Richard Donner, which both have 94%. The next one done is 2017’s Wonder Woman, at 93% and then Shazam! at 90%.
It would be ironic if The Suicide Squad ends up being the highest-rated DCEU film, which could easily happen, as its predecessor is the lowest. 2016’s Suicide Squad sits at a paltry 26% on RT, putting it below both Batman v Superman (28%) and Justice League (40%). It looks like Gunn’s decision to make a standalone sequel paid off, then. Although he did bring back some key players from the first film – including Viola Davis (Amanda Waller), Joel Kinnaman (Rick Flag) and, of course, Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn).
The Suicide Squad hits theaters and HBO Max from August 6th. A Peacemaker spinoff series, starring John Cena, is also on its way to streaming.
