TV Review: I’m loving Cena’s muscly psycho in Peacemaker

Despite having grown up on comics such as The Boys and Deadpool I’ve never been hugely impressed with their puerile screen adaptations.

That desire to be seen as rude and subversive is the comedy equivalent of getting someone to pull your finger; funny, but it ultimately ruins the ambiance of the elevator you’re using.

John Cena’s The Peacemaker is in the vein of these juvenile superhero romps where the gags are cheap and life is, judging by the body count, even cheaper.

Yet this spin off to last year’s hit The Suicide Squad movie is lifted on the shoulders of former wrestler John Cena; this is just as well considering his shoulders appear to be made from spare JCB parts.

Cena makes even Arnie look a bit like Eddie Redmayne and, like the brawny Austrian, probably won’t be troubling any awards committees with his raw acting ability.

Again, like Schwarzenegger, Cena has charisma. In Peacemaker, he plays a murderous, hyper-violent vigilante whose attitude to fighting crime verges on the psychopathic.

Yet a penchant for ’80s hair metal, endearing oafishness and sheer pathos is enough to make you root for Peacemaker and his crackpot team of incompetents as they battle an alien infiltration that’s like if Invasion Of The Body Snatchers was handled by the guys from The Hangover.

Peacemaker – Sky/Now