Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for The Suicide Squad.
What are the biggest plot holes and headscratchers in The Suicide Squad? The long-awaited follow-up to the 2016 Suicide Squad movie has been met with rave reviews from fans and critics alike and is generally agreed to have improved upon the first movie centered around Task Force X immensely. Despite this, there are still some questions raised by the film's storyline.
It would be fair to say that the 2016 Suicide Squad movie directed by David Ayer was not well received for a variety of reasons. The film's haphazard nature resulted from conflicts between the director and Warner Bros. who reedited the movie into a lighter, more comedic film in the same vein as the similarly themed Guardians of the Galaxy. Fittingly, Warner Bros. recruited filmmaker James Gunn (who had co-written and directed Guardians of the Galaxy) after Ayer backed out of making a Suicide Squad sequel. This led to The Suicide Squad, a movie that refuses to be defined as a sequel or a reboot but is, by most accounts, a more enjoyable work than the first live-action Suicide Squad movie and far truer to the source material.
Granting that it is somewhat ridiculous to discuss matters of logic in regards to a movie whose protagonists include a man who can rip off his arms like he was an action figure, The Suicide Squad largely avoids the logical pitfalls that plagued the story of the first Suicide Squad. For instance, the first movie left many fans wondering like why the American government, reportedly terrified of Superman becoming evil and turning against them, decided that their best defense was a group of convicts largely composed of weapons experts without superpowers. Despite being a more logical film, there are still some questions raised over the course of The Suicide Squad that may leave fans wondering.
How Do They Implant Bombs In The Invulnerable Villains?
One of the first scenes in The Suicide Squad explains how they keep the supervillains recruited for Task Force X under control by implanting bombs in their heads, threatening to kill them if they disobey orders. It's unclear how they manage this procedure with invulnerable villains like King Shark or Mongal, whose super-dense skin would presumably be more powerful than any ordinary needle. It's possible that King Shark was tricked into eating an explosive device, as sharks are famous for having a lot of strange objects getting stuck in their stomachs. It should also be noted ingestible explosives were utilized by the Suicide Squad of the DC Animated Universe to plant explosives in its operatives, with Deadshot having special nanites hidden in his last meal before he was "saved" from a court-mandated execution and offered a place on Task Force X.
How Did Blackguard Contact Corto Maltese?
The mission to disrupt Project Starfish seems to go south almost immediately, when virtually the entire army of Corto Maltese is waiting for Task Force X as they make landfall. This is revealed to be the work of Blackguard (Pete Davidson) who tipped off the army in the hopes that they would let him walk free. Instead, he got a bullet to the face for his trouble. While this was a fitting punishment for a traitor, it was never revealed just how Blackguard had managed to learn the particulars of his upcoming mission or make contact with the Corto Maltese army from inside the maximum security area of Belle Reve Penitentiary.
Waller Wastes An Entire Task Force X Team As A Distraction
After most of the team led by Col. Rick Flag was killed by the army of Corto Maltese, it was revealed that they were meant to act as a distraction so that the Task Force X squad led by Bloodsport could safely infiltrate the jungle on the other side of the island nation. While this was typically callous of Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), it also seemed uncharacteristically wasteful of the shrewd political operative. The Wall could have easily accomplished the same end with a much smaller team and done so without risking a good commander like Rick Flag. This presumes, of course, that Waller was unaware of Blackguard's scheming and didn't allow the mission to go ahead as a way of getting rid of some of her more troublesome assets, while keeping her own hands relatively clean.
Bloodsport Is An Overrated Marksman
Bloodsport (Idris Elba) is introduced as a master marksman, comparable to Deadshot, who never misses his target. He manages several impressive feats over the course of The Suicide Squad, including sending a compact bullet through the space between the pieces of a fragmentary round. Despite this, he suddenly seems to lose his ability to shoot straight during the final battle with Starro The Conqueror, being unable to hit the large and incredibly vulnerable eye of a kaiju size starfish with his specialized rifle.
The Starro Drones Are Useless In The Final Fight
While there's something inherently horrific about the danger posed by an alien starfish who can transform anyone into its mindless servant, Starro the Conqueror's drones proved surprisingly ineffectual during the final battle of The Suicide Squad. The Starro Drones shuffled around like zombies, slowly advancing on the Squad when there was nothing to stop them from moving at a normal pace. Even the advantage of numbers didn't seem to aid the Starro Drones, as Bloodsport was able to wriggle free of six of them as they attempted to dogpile him when he saw that Ratcatcher was in danger of being stomped by Starro the Conqueror. It's also odd that, despite possessing several members of the Corto Maltese Army, none of the Starro Drones made use of their weapons, instead going after the Squad with their bare hands.
Why Did They Save Peacemaker?
The final post-credits scene of The Suicide Squad revealed that The Peacemaker (John Cena) was somehow able to survive the events of the movie, despite being shot in the neck by Bloodsport and having the Jotunheim complex collapse on top of him.One of The Suicide Squad's post-credits scenes showed a comatose Peacemaker being identified by two members of Amanda Waller's staff, who noted that they were probably being punished for aiding Task Force X in saving Corto Maltese while defying her orders and that she was "saddling us with this douchebag" who was needed to "save the f***ing world." It is unclear just why The Wall would go out of her way to save The Peacemaker, particularly given her indifference to so many members of Task Force X dying earlier in the movie, or why he specifically would be needed to save the world. Presumably an explanation will be offered in the upcoming HBO Max Peacekeeper series.
