Well, very much yes. Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney and Margot Robbie are the lucky returnees from David Ayer’s first effort. And they’re joined by Idris Elba’s mercenary Bloodsport and John Cena’s “bro” Captain America-style douchebag Peacemaker.

CGI King Shark (Sly Stallone), David Dastmalchian as the quirky Polka-Dot Man and Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher 2 round out the group of outcasts. And then there’s Milton (a regular nobody who is with the team for almost their entire journey to provide a joke late on in the film).

Gunn has pulled these unfamiliar superheroes directly from the most obscure 70s versions of the Squad and the film adds his familiar idiosyncratic humour, weird one-liners and plenty of gory blood to a lot of success.

Unlike the 2016 version, characters are introduced and established in minutes (instead of half the film’s runtime) and there’s a tongue-in-cheek knowingness that a film like this sorely needs - especially if you’re gonna have a monstrous shark-man (or weasel even) as part of the team.

The plot sees two squads, on the promise of less jail time, arrive at the island Corto Maltese (Vicky Vale’s photos of this were great in 1989 Batman, natch) to destroy a secret military facility. After a double-crossing ambush the remnants of the first team merge forces with the back-up group to join local rebels and continue their mission.

From rats saying hello to Polka-Dot man’s virus infected face, the film is an exciting mixture of superhero tropes, incredibly peculiar situations, beguiling humour and oddball action. As they trudge through the jungle there’s hints of the freaky team dynamics of Predator and, thankfully, almost none of dullness of their first outing.

The actors have great chemistry with each other (Cena and Elba trade barbs throughout) and Gunn’s script has them bantering and hollering but at the same time, he also allows time for them to bond naturally in slower scenes. This helps by adding some tonal humanity to his frankly ludicrous concept.

The film barrels along as Harley Quinn gets captured and then escapes in a hail of bullets and bouquets (don't ask) and eventually we discover Peter Capaldi’s “Thinker” who is working on a project which sees a giant Starfish attack a city. With smaller starfish emanating from its armpit, they attach themselves face-hugger style to people’s heads as a way to control the area's population. Just writing that sentence would have been unthinkable just a few years ago under Snyder’s tenure.

So where does that leave the DCEU? In many ways, who cares? Whether they’re using the same actors from previous unsuccessful attempts or simply creating standalone movies (Joker and the forthcoming Batman) it seems as long as they allow directors to complete a vision with as little studio interference as possible then they’re on to a winner.

With Joker, Snyder’s recent re-imagining and now The Suicide Squad, DC has provided far more imaginative films than any Marvel project since Endgame. And kudos (finally) to them for doing so. It’s been a long time coming.

So despite my scepticism that anything could be made from the DCEU corpse, Gunn proves he can polish even the dullest of franchise turds into something incredibly watchable and fun with huge energy and blockbuster thrills. This is how you do it.

★★★★