Kevin Smith Weighs in on the Suicide Squad: “It Ruled”

Kevin Smith and Marc Bernardin’s podcast Fat Man Beyond returned this week after a hiatus due to the filming of Clerks III and the new episode gave the hosts a chance to catch up on sharing their thoughts about all sorts of entertainment and pop culture moments from recent weeks that they hadn’t yet had a chance to talk about. Among those items was James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad and Smith not only said that he loved the movie, but declared that the movie “ruled” as well.

Smith and Bernardin both gave their general assessments of The Suicide Squad with Smith saying that he loved and Bernardin simply saying he liked it, but then Smith went on to explain that he knew from the moment he found out that Starro was the villain that the movie would, in his words, rule.

“The moment I heard from [David] Dastmalchian years ago that Starro was the villain I was like, there’s no way this movie doesn’t f-cking rule and it ruled. It was wonderful. I was happy to see Starro bust out. I thought Taika Waititi was going to be the voice of Starro. I didn’t know he was just playing Rat Catcher’s dad. If it were me, I would have made him f-cking Starro like, ‘hey guys’, but yeah. I enjoyed the f-ck out of it.”

Starro – the huge, purple starfish-like alien with terrifying psychic powers – may have seemed like a bit of a curious choice of antagonist for some viewers, but ended up being very impressive on the screen, especially considering those frightening powers. Ahead of the release of The Suicide Squad, Gunn explained why he chose Starro as the film’s antagonist.

“Well I just, I wanted a major DC villain that is a major DC villain that people wouldn’t expect to be in a movie,” Gunn said during a press event attended by ComicBook. “And I’ve always loved Starro. I mean, as a kid, I found Starro completely terrifying. The idea of this giant starfish with one big guy that shoots these things out of him that take over people’s brains, like those old pictures with Superman with him on his face. Always scared the shit out of me. So, it was about taking something that was completely, mind you, ridiculous, that looks, putting him in a setting that is the gritty streets of Cologne, Panama, and then allowing him to do his scary business, but he’s also completely outrageous. And so, that mix of things appealed to my aesthetic.”

In The Suicide Squad, welcome to hell – a.k.a. Bell Reve, the prison with the highest mortality rate in the US of A. Where the worst Super-Villains are kept and where they will do anything to get out – even join the super-secret, super-shady Task Force X. Today’s do-or-die assignment? Assemble a collection of cons, including Bloodsport, Peacemaker, Captain Boomerang, Ratcatcher 2, Savant, King Shark, Blackguard, Javelin, and everyone’s favorite psycho, Harley Quinn. Then arm them heavily and drop them (literally) on the remote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese.

The Suicide Squad sees the return of Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Joel Kinnaman as Colonel Rick Flag, and Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang from 2016’s Suicide Squad. Joining them in the film are David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man, Steve Agee as King Shark, Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher 2, Idris Elba as Bloodsport, John Cena as Peacemaker, Nathan Fillion as T.D.K., Pete Davidson as Blackguard, Flula Borg as Javelin, Mayling Ng as Mongal, Peter Capaldi as The Thinker, Michael Rooker as Savant, Alice Braga as Sol Soria, and Sean Gunn as Weasel.

The Suicide Squad is being released on Blu-ray and DVD on October 26th.