A little less than a year after its release in the United States on HBO Max, it is finally available in Italy (and dubbed into Italian) on TimVision, arriving absolutely by surprise with very little notice. Peacemakers i.e. the spin-off series of The Suicide Squad written and directed by James Gunn starring the eponymous character played by John Cena who in the film was the protagonist of the incredible final twist with the killing of Rick Flag and the bullet from Bloodsport that had wounded him in the neck. If in The Suicide Squad, Gunn was trying to blend in with previous films, Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey and the Phantasmagoric Emancipation of Harley Quinn, while not renouncing certain exaggerations typical of his style, in Peacemakers all inhibitions are unhooked materializing in 8 funny episodes, always fast paced and characterized by a certain neurotic attitude that is well suited to the characters but also incredibly vacuous and formulaic due to an overly derivative plot and prosaic characterizations.
Peacemakers: the Butterfly Project and the price of peace
About five months have passed since the clash that took place on the island of Corto Maltese between the Suicide Squad and Starro. Peacemakers, or Christopher Smith, he is finally discharged from the hospital but immediately intercepted by a group of ARGUS agents obviously reporting directly to Amanda Waller. It’s about Clemson Murn, Emilia Harcourt, John Economos and Leota Adebayo. The four recruit Smith for the mysterious Butterfly Project. Despite some hesitation, Peacemaker accepts, also because his only purpose in life is to maintain peace at all costs, however a series of unlikely coincidences not only reveal the nature of the mission but risk compromising it with catastrophic results.
Christopher Smith is in fact attacked by a mysterious woman with superhuman strength who is killed, however, revealing her true nature. Obviously the clash arouses the attention of the local police and Economos to avoid blowing up the undercover mission frames Christopher’s father, Auggie, better known as the super-villain white dragon, close to white supremacist groups, who after discovering that he has been framed swears revenge against his son, guilty of collaborating with the government. When the team joins Vigilant, an unlikely masked vigilante friend of Smith’s, things come to a head. The Butterfly Project is in fact a mission to prevent an invasion by alien parasites that look like butterflies. With the invaders launching the final offensive, all the secrets come to light: Murn’s true identity, that of the shy Adebayo and above all the machinations of Waller who wants to frame Peacemaker. The final assault on the invaders’ hideout is as dramatic as its aftermath.
Peacemakers: between (gender) stereotypes and empty laughter
Peacemakers generates the right curiosity both because it operates on a fairly free canvas, having as its protagonist an almost unknown character who can be reworked to one’s liking, and because it is the first serial product connected directly to a film of the convulsive DC Cinematographic Universe. The initial curiosity, however, is dampened several times. The first factor contributing to this is the paucity of the plot: the alien invasion has been read and re-read over and over again within the same genre of cinecomics, just two examples above all Suicide Squad (the invasion there was not exactly alien to be honest) e The Suicide Squad, although here it is more inspired by the cult They live or Invasion of the Body Snatchers that at space opera another declination of superhero storytelling.
Go through the first two episodes however it becomes clear that the series is more character-driven that plot driven, a choice as courageous as it is interesting, especially in the superhero field. In the case, Gunn begins a slow and painstaking deconstruction of the protagonist also through interaction with a group of heterogeneous and interesting supporting actors, Adebayo one above all, who however it soon proves to be weighed down by a series of narrative choices that cannot fail to be framed within gender stereotypes in a certain way. On the one hand, the screenwriter insists on show the inherent fallacy of the protagonist’s moral code (one of the classics mice of the superhero storytelling especially to that linked to urban vigilantes) and therefore his increasingly growing doubts on the other, however, to do so he begins a sickly journey back to his childhood to show the fragility and emotional insecurities of the “contemporary” Caucasian white man, the one who, raised on 80’s heavy metal, must necessarily be a misogynist and lover of violence perfectly embodied by the idea of the white supremacist represented by the other antagonist of the series or the father in a sort of distorted Oedipal complex.
Gunn’s operation is very busy at times a constant tension between homage and parody, between the ability to create something really fresh within the genre – see for example the choice to minimize the use of CGI and an excellent direction that is always alert and punctual in enhancing the action scenes – and the verve irreverent that pervades the series between neurotic dialogues which, however, they do nothing but chisel the protagonists as overgrown teenagers who prefer to point fingers at each other rather than really tell something. Real traumas and fragilities faced in a world where violence is so exaggerated as to be emptied of its subversive charge (as in The Boys just to give a television comparison) ending up making everything a bit vacuous and childish.
With Peacemakers, James Gunn comes perhaps on top of the blandly pop approach with sprinkles of social commentary (on topics as mentioned not too current) that seems inspired by Batman with Adam West, but without his naive finesse, ending up packing a product that instead of opening up to the general public (like the great cinecomics: Batman by Tim Burtono or Superman by Richard Donner) it is deliberately radical chic in the continuous search forinside joke and the use of the grotesque in bad taste.
However, a note of merit must be given to John Cena who manages to perfectly impersonate and interpret the contradictions of this grotesque character. In fact, his physicality clashes with the continuous search to discover, and let emotions and feelings shine through. An apt casting without a shadow of a doubt, certainly it is legitimate to wonder if Gunn hadn’t already in mind to deconstruct the character in this sense by choosing another gender stereotype that of the ex-wrestler unable to go beyond action roles.
Reflection on the sidelines: leaving out the technical aspect which can be discussed relatively, if Peacemakers is indicative of what the creative direction that DC Studios will take could be, at least in terms of content, we are very far from penetrating the mythological-mythological character peculiar to DC characters by veering into “safe” and already beaten territories, i.e. those of action comedy in which the cinecomics unfortunately seems to have codified with very dangerous demented tendencies.
