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Critic Reviews
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Peacemaker is just flat-out fun to watch.
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The series shows Gunn is invested in interrogating and investigating how people adopt extreme and harmful beliefs, and how they might change, not just on their own, but with other people’s help.
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By the seventh episode, you’ll be out of your seat, swinging your arms like they’re on hinges, trying to memorize every step. “Peacemaker” isn’t perfect, but it follows the beat of its own drum, and that’s enough.
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Expands on The Suicide Squad's foul-mouthed and unrepentantly trashy action with eight episodes of cursing, stadium rock and body horror all wrapped around a surprisingly affecting character-driven drama.
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James Gunn's first major TV project takes this blunt instrument of an anti-hero and uses him as the base for an at times strange, at times pretty fun action-horror adventure. (The term "superhero"... does not feel particularly applicable, in this case.)
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Christopher/Peacemaker’s un-PC humour and macho prowess often give way to a surprising soulfulness that’s beautifully played by the former wrestler, and while the swerves from mayhem into pathos are often breakneck, they’re always expertly steered. The same could be said for the show at large, which owes much of its addictiveness to Gunn and his cast’s commitment to keeping their audience off-guard.
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Gunn scores a bullseye with this series, blending vulgarity, heart and sheer insanity for a winning, killer combo – not to mention, an unskippable opening-credits sequence that you’ll never grow tired of watching.
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Cena makes all of this click, transforming the muscular manchild from a two-dimensional buffoon into a lost soul figuring discovering his purpose.
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Self-conscious but never smug, sociopathic and yet also sweet, and timely if never preachy, it’s the very sort of no-holds-barred, tongue-in-cheek endeavor that’s become Gunn’s specialty.
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There is a lot going on here. Yet the series functions as a sincere character study of its flawed hero — and the unfortunate souls who have to work alongside him — just enough for the joke to never quite wear thin. Even in a wildly oversaturated market for tales of hypermuscular men and women punching their way to justice, Peacemaker stands out.
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After a rocky beginning to the first episode, Peacemaker finds its groove when it has established its own world within Gunn's world. ... And once you're in that absurd, action-packed, NSFW world, it's hard to resist.
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“Peacemaker” is a good time and there’s so much to appreciate about Cena’s performance because there’s not a lot of movie star vanity getting in the way of things. He’s willing to look like a fool and happily so. You’ll develop a soft spot for Peacemaker because of course you will, that’s the power of good writing meeting a canny performance.
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There are times when the jokes seem stuck on repeat mode, but Cena and the terrific ensemble cast are real gamers who sink their teeth into the often absurd material, and we’re happy to ride along with them in their ridiculous undercover van that looks exactly like an undercover van.
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Peacemaker, if you can stomach the title character’s lunkheaded views (and temporarily forgive if not forget his actions in The Suicide Squad), is a lot of James Gunn fun.
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For as sharp as Cena’s comic timing generally is, his best moment in these three episodes nevertheless comes when Peacemaker collapses on his shitty bed after an exhausting, embarrassing night and lets his face collapse in self-loathing mewls of pain. And yet: the main reason I might keep up with “Peacemaker” isn’t Peacemaker himself, but an unexpected new member of his team [Danielle Brooks’ Leota Adebayo] who, despite her skeptical coworkers’ insistence otherwise, immediately proves her worth.
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Peacemaker will prove an acquired taste for many, if it’s acquired at all. Others will, of course, instantly take to the show’s brand of shock and rawness. ... But the more I pressed on, the more Peacemaker’s shaggy squalor started to endear. Because the performances are fluidly committed to the bit—and because Gunn pushes past the show’s initial burst of puerile provocation to interrogate the forces behind such impulses and inclinations.
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It’s intriguing enough to keep us watching. And, given the fact that the show gives a montage of Peacemaker’s story in The Suicide Squad, you shouldn’t need to see the film in order to get the series.
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Big, loud and sorta dumb but often fun.
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He’s locked on to a serviceable shtick, even if its pull-my-finger gags worked better alongside an ensemble of equally colorful wackos in film form. At his best, he wears down our grownup defenses and taps into the Mountain-Dew-chugging, loogie-hocking teenage dirtbag laying dormant within all of us.
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It’s an odd show in that it’s like a footnote to the film—less ambitious, less funny, less action-packed—but it’s also enjoyable episode to episode, scene to scene.
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Peacemaker makes the character more likable, at the cost of making him less interesting. ... For all the show’s feints toward edginess, it colors well within the lines laid out by its predecessors. That’s not entirely to its detriment — it makes Peacemaker a comfort rather than a challenge. Too much familiarity over the course of a season, however, leads to a series that’s easy not to mind watching instead of one that’s hard to quit watching.
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What makes Peacemaker such an interesting and compelling character is his unrepentant awfulness, and the series choosing to back-pedal on what could be considered his defining traits only makes for an aggressively fine follow-up.
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If only this HBO Max series spun out of "The Suicide Squad" was consistently as good, despite (and partly because of) the freedom afforded writer-director James Gunn to utterly cut loose.
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"Peacemaker" is guilty of taking itself not seriously enough. At least it has a sense of humor, too bad it's limited to the level of limericks scrawled on the inside of bathroom stalls.
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Gunn’s rude aesthetic is on full display throughout, which should please his fan cult but can wear a bit puerile for the rest of us.
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So far, many of the superhero shows invading TV (Marvel and DC) have been a be careful what you wish for propositions: want more character and less mindless action? Well, that only works when the characters are multi-dimensional and the writing is top-notch. Argue all you want, about what’s been seen on Disney+ so far (and the less said about the embarrassing DC/The CW, the better), but “Peacemaker” does not make a case for its main character’s existence beyond the big screen, let alone as the front and center lead.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 84 out of 104
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Mixed: 5 out of 104
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Negative: 15 out of 104
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Jan 14, 2022
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Jan 14, 2022
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Feb 8, 2022