Peacemaker TV Review

Plot: Peacemaker explores the continuing story of the character that John Cena reprises in the aftermath of executive producer James Gunn’s 2021 film The Suicide Squad – a compellingly vainglorious man who believes in peace at any cost, no matter how many people he has to kill to get it!

Review: James Gunn is a brilliant madman. Even before Guardians of the Galaxy, his work on Slither and Super showcased his genre sensibilities and made him the ideal person to direct comic book tales of misfits and off-kilter characters just outside of the mainstream. With 2021’s The Suicide Squad, Gunn delivered a mature, bloody and profane epic that introduced many new characters to the DCEU. While I wasn’t completely in love with The Suicide Squad, I was instantly a fan of John Cena as Peacemaker and have been looking forward to his HBO Max solo series since it was announced. I am very happy to say that not only is Peacemaker a hilariously brilliant and subversive superhero story but potentially the best work of James Gunn’s career.

Peacemaker picks up from the post-credit sequence of The Suicide Squad with Christopher Smith aka Peacemaker (John Cena) recuperating in the hospital after Task Force X’s mission in Corto Maltese. Despite killing Rick Flag, Peacemaker finds himself out of prison and back to his old life. Before long, Clemson Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji) recruits Peacemaker citing the bomb still in his head. Joined by John Economos (Steve Agee), Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), and newcomer Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), Peacemaker is tasked with a new mission involving targets code-named butterflies. Peacemaker is also joined by his friend and fellow crimefighter Vigilante aka Adrian Chase (Freddie Stroma) and Peacemaker’s father Auggie (Robert Patrick).

Within the first minutes of Peacemaker‘s first episode, I knew this series was going to be great. The opening titles are pitch-perfect for James Gunn’s sensibility and musical taste and could easily be the best series titles of all time. What works so well about this show is what made Deadpool work and that is the balance of humor and violence. Peacemaker is far funnier than The Suicide Squad and that is thanks primarily to John Cena. Often compared to Dwayne Johnson as a former wrestler turned actor, Cena embraces playing Peacemaker as a broken man-child who harbors deep-rooted daddy issues with a crippling amount of self-consciousness. While he appeared confident in his abilities in The Suicide Squad, this multi-episode look into the character shows so many sides to his psyche that are fascinating. Cena is so good in this role and manages to make Peacemaker a sympathetic antihero.

Gunn, who wrote all eight episodes of Peacemaker (seven of which were made available for this review), doesn’t just make this series a tangential addition to the DCEU. There are lots of references to characters from other DC movies like Harley Quinn and Aquaman as well as characters from the vast canon of DC Comics we have not yet seen on screen. There are also characters in this series who are not who I expected, some of whom have connections to familiar characters while others are actually new spins on heroes and villains from the annals of Suicide Squad comics and beyond. Much like how James Gunn brought characters to The Suicide Squad like Ratcatcher 2, TDK, and Polka Dot Man, he brings even more to life on Peacemaker. To spill anything more than that will ruin these reveals that will have some fans very excited and others fervently googling who these characters are.

While James Gunn directed more than half of Peacemaker, he has a solid team on the rest including Brad Anderson (Session 9), Rosemary Rodriguez (The Walking Dead), and Jody Hill (Eastbound & Down). All of the directors compliment Gunn’s style and allow the humor and action to balance nicely as the story unfolds. Also, in typical Gunn fashion, there is a killer soundtrack comprised primarily of 1980s rock and roll. Every episode is chock full of songs that are familiar and others that you may have completely forgotten about. The show is also busting with pop culture references beyond DC Comics ranging from jokes about the legalization of marijuana to Louis C.K. exposing his penis. I also cannot stress enough how good this entire cast is, especially Danielle Brooks, Jennifer Holland, and Steve Agee who hold their own opposite Cena.

Peacemaker could have been a cash grab for HBO Max to replicate Marvel Studios’ success on Disney+ but it is in every way a fully realized James Gunn project. This story would never have worked as a feature film and succeeds because the long form of a television series allows for so many jokes that would have been edited out of a film. There are scenes that are fully asides about random things the characters discuss that had me rolling with laughter and it never derails the pacing of the main story. Somehow, James Gunn has outdone his big-screen work with this profanely hilarious comic book story that is better than Deadpool, better than The Suicide Squad, and possibly better than anything else the DCEU has put out so far. I love Peacemaker so much and those opening credits so much and cannot wait for more.

Peacemaker premieres on January 13th on HBO Max.

Peacemaker (TV Series)

AMAZING

9