‘Creature Commandos’ Review: James Gunn’s New DC Universe Feels Awfully Familiar (but Not Awful)

2 weeks ago 4

If you’re going to reboot a universe, you may as well start with the basics. Keep it simple. Work within your established skillset, put the people first, and maybe start construction out of the spotlight — a soft launch, instead of something suped-up.

In its seven-episode first season, that’s the general vibe “Creature Commandos” gives out. The Max original animated series is billed as “the first title kicking off the new DC Universe,” but comes across awfully close to what creator James Gunn has already done, inside and outside the DC sandbox.

Back in 2021, after Gunn was temporarily exiled from Marvel and before he was named co-chairman and co-CEO of DC Studios (in charge of establishing a new era of interconnected superhero movies and TV shows), the fan-favorite writer-director rebooted a valuable DC property with “The Suicide Squad,” a misfits-on-a-mission superhero sequel not far removed from Gunn’s biggest hit, “Guardians of the Galaxy.” While his Idris Elba-led picture debuted to stronger reviews but lesser box office than 2016’s Will Smith-led “Suicide Squad” (no “the”), there was a pandemic going on and a streaming service to support, so the higher-ups at Warner Bros. Discovery didn’t blame Gunn for the diminished returns. In fact, he got to keep playing with his “Squad” via the charming Max spinoff series, “Peacemaker,” starring John Cena.

Michael Cole, Brandon Riegg, Bela Bajaria, Nick Khan, and Paul Levesque

Now he’s at it again with “Creature Commandos,” and while the third time isn’t exactly the charm — this is the least imaginative, least ambitious, and least integral of the three — its easy-going, character-first approach to another story about incarcerated criminals thrust together to save the world largely works to its advantage. Gunn’s action-adventure always keeps its core cast in focus and never feels like it’s putting the weight of a universe on its shoulders, which is probably for the best. If you’ve got Superman waiting in the wings, you may as well leave the heavy-lifting to him.

Still, there’s little to savor for anyone not already obsessed with the Squad, which is (rather generously) evident from the jump. The premiere cuts to the chase, as Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) walks the new Rick Flagg — Rick Flag Sr., as voiced by Frank Grillo, who replaces Rick Flagg Jr., played by Joel Kinnaman in both “Suicide Squad” movies — into a maximum security prison to meet his new team of literal monsters. Why monsters? Well, after the events of “The Suicide Squad,” Congress forbid using incarcerated human beings for government-sanctioned operations, but they didn’t explicitly prohibit deploying “beings that aren’t human.” (Are we sure Waller doesn’t have a law degree?)

So Flagg saddles up next to Weasel (Sean Gunn), a man-sized rodent who can’t speak but can lick his own privates (and boy does he); G.I. Robot (also Sean Gunn), a machine from the 1940s programmed to do one thing and one thing only: kill Nazis (which doesn’t come in as handy as you might think); Dr. Phosphorus (Alan Tudyk), a walking, talking, radioactive skeleton whose touch will melt your face off; Nina Mazursky (Zoë Chao), a fish-person who can breathe underwater (but can’t breathe without water); and The Bride (Indira Varma), as in The Bride of Frankenstein, but whose abbreviated name speaks to her disdain for the reanimated body of dead body parts known as Eric Frankenstein (David Harbour), who’s been trying to woo his made-to-order Bride for nearly two centuries.

'Creature Commandos,' the animated series on Max, features Frankenstein's monster and Rick Flagg Sr, shown here having coffee in a kitchen

Before you can clock all their names, Task Force M (for Monsters) is sent off with Papa Flagg to protect European royalty by the name of Princess Ilana (Maria Bakalova) from Circe (Anya Chalotra), a homicidal sorceress. That mission will last the full season, but episodes dedicate roughly half of their swift 25-minute runtimes to fleshing out the titular creatures. Such deference to character development over world-building — especially considering the series leads the charge into DC’s new universe — is even more endearing than Gunn’s clear compassion for his misunderstood monsters. If anything, he can be too sympathetic (as is the case with Eric Frankenstein, an obsessive, jealous, and violent stalker who’s still regularly framed as a sentimental goof).

But most of the flashbacks, while unsurprising, tend to be effective and affecting. Some delve deep into pitch-black seminal moments, like backstories for The Bride and Dr. Phosphorus (the former of which could’ve used a bit more time to flesh out its complicated relationships, and the latter of which feels oddly padded, like the scarring events on either side of one key scene were hurriedly tacked on). Others are memorably sweet, like with G.I. Robot and the Weasel, whose simple fundamental principles are heartbreakingly warped by time and circumstance. Every episode involves striking scenes of grisly violence, just as every episode relies on music to set the tone, move through time, or both. This is, after all, written entirely by James Gunn. (Gogol Bordello, a punk-rock group with a Ukrainian sound gets a handful of spins.)

By the end of the first season, you’ll certainly be more attached to these D-list DC antiheroes, which seems to be the point. Every universe needs a bevy of stars to fill out the constellations, not just your Supermans and Batmans, but your Guardians, Squads, and Creatures, too. The emphasis on getting to know each Commando should add a little extra sparkle to their inevitable cameos (Grillo’s Rick Flagg Sr. is already slated to appear in “Peacemaker” Season 2), and the colorful animation makes good use of its distinct sets, which in turn helps the tightly scripted episodes fly by with ease. For the first title out of the gate, I guess that’s enough. Clearly, most audiences liked what Gunn has done with “Suicide Squad” and the like, so producing a diverting, well-designed extension of that very property is as sound a way as any to get started on the DCEU overhaul. The undercard shouldn’t outshine the main event, although it also wouldn’t have hurt to try a little harder than this.