Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Peacemaker’ On HBO Max, Where John Cena Plays The ‘Suicide Squad’ Superhero That Kills A Lot Of People

If there is anyone who is well suited to play a superhereo that isn’t exactly super, it’s John Cena. In his post-wrestling career, he’s made it a practice to skewer his persona at every turn, so the idea that he was going to play someone truly heroic seemed to be a longshot. So after being one of the breakout characters from last year’s DCEU film The Suicide Squad, James Gunn has given Peacemaker a series of his own.

PEACEMAKER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot:  After a montage that catches viewers up on Peacemaker’s story from The Suicide Squad, we see Peacemaker aka Chris Smith (John Cena) looking at an X-ray, wearing a hospital gown. The doctor describes that after being shot and having a building fall on him, all he needs replaced is a clavicle.

The Gist: After 4 years in prison and the hospital, Peacemaker is told he’s free to go, but he wonders if the government will be waiting for him to send him to prison for doing “superhero shit.” — in other words, killing villains. While he tries to get some intelligence from a janitor named Jamil (Rizwan Manji), he rips into Aquaman, saying that “fucking fish” is a step too far.

In the meantime, we see Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) moves into a residence hotel with her wife Keeya (Elizabeth Ludlow), about to start a new job that she hopes will take her out of the intelligence business for good so they can settle into a new life.

Peacemaker heads back to his trailer, where he has to break in, and he’s also shocked that his phone is still working; there’s a ton of messages by Vigilante aka Adrian Chase (Freddie Stroma), just begging Peacemaker to come hang out. He’s then greeted by a black ops team, sent by Suicide Squad director Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) to keep an eye on him and deploy him as needed. The team is led by a mercenary named Clemson Mun (Chukwudi Iwuji); Leota is a new member of that team, as is NSA agent Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and John Economos (Steve Agee). Waller’s deal: Help the team fight crime and stay out of prison. Also: Try not to kill people.

He goes to the house of his father Augie (Robert Patrick) to get a new uniform and helmet — he had to give the old helmet to a cab driver because he had no cash on him — and to reunite with his best buddy, his pet bald eagle Eagley (voice of Dee Bradley Baker). Augie, who was black ops himself, is about as racist and toxic as they come, laughing at Chris’ story about Bloodsport’s fear of rats.

After meeting the team at a diner — wearing his full uniform — and getting his first case file, he follows Harcourt to a bar, where he falls for her as she subdues drunken idiots who hit on her. She tells him in no uncertain terms that he has no chance, and she just wishes she could drink a beer without getting the male gaze on her. Peacemaker just wants sexual contact, and he finds a woman with ’80s heavy metal hair eyeing him at the bar. After going to her place and having wild sex, though, things take an unexpected turn.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Think of Deadpool (yes, I’m comparing a DCEU show with an MCU movie), mixed with a level of cursing only seen on the Harley Quinn animated series.

Our Take: Peacemaker is very much a continuation of The Suicide Squad, with James Gunn writing all the episodes and directing most of them, including the first episode. It’s definitely trying to take the same irreverent tone, positioning Chris aka Peacemaker as the worst superhero ever, one that wears a dove on his chest but can’t help but kill people who come after him.

The reason why the character works is wholly because of Cena. He plays Peacemaker as a only slightly self-aware lunk who seems to have good intentions, but his life has been so toxic that he lets his emotions get the better of him at pretty much every turn. Cena, who has been doing interviews for the series in the Peacemaker costume to extend the serious-but-not-really persona, comes off as a latter-day Leslie Nielsen in The Naked Gun, playing his role mostly straight in order to get laughs but with a wink and a nod that the character is ridiculous. It’s a performance we should have expected from someone with extensive WWE experience, but it’s still surprising in its nuance.

Once he gets started with the rest of the team around him, the show should definitely find its footing. We already see that he and Leota get along, and that he’s going to have a one-sided crush on Harcourt. Leota, played by the always-reliable Brooks, is the wild card, given that she’s been sent there by Waller (and, yes, Davis shows up in a cameo) specifically to keep an eye on the team and Peacemaker. She doesn’t want to be there, and wants to set up a life for her, Keeya and their dogs. Will that compromise her or make her the one person who can empathize with Peacemaker?

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.

Sex and Skin: Peacemaker and the soon-to-be-attacking mulletted woman from the bar are both naked, shown having some pretty spirited sex.

Parting Shot: After Peacemaker uses his helmet to literally blow the attacking woman to pieces, he sits in a crater he made in her parking lot. Eaglely brings him a rodent that he killed. We pan out to see him sitting in the crater in shock as police respond to the explosion.

Sleeper Star: We mentioned Brooks, so we’ll give this one to Holland, who is tough as nails as Harcourt and isn’t going to take any shit from Peacemaker.

Most Pilot-y Line: This is a good spot to mention that the show has one of the most frequent f-bomb rates of any show we’ve seen over the last few years. Gunn is making Peacemaker bombastic in that way on purpose, but sometimes we wonder if it’s being done at the sacrifice of character development.

Our Call: STREAM IT. We all love our dumb superheroes, and Cena plays one who is about as dumb as they come. But there is real hope that Peacemaker can turn into a fun ensemble superhero action series with some real emotional payoffs between Peacemaker and the team who pretty much thinks he’s a moron.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Peacemaker On HBO Max