It’s awfully easy to forget given that Suicide Squad has reigned supreme as the worst-reviewed installment in DCU history on Rotten Tomatoes ever since it was first released seven summers ago, but the hype was through the roof in the buildup to the movie landing in theaters.
While that was reflected in a monstrous opening weekend and hugely lucrative run at the box office, the theatrical cut has now become a figure of widespread mockery and ridicule, with fans instead focusing their energies on willing director David Ayer’s original vision into existence with a much-needed assist from studio co-CEO James Gunn.
And yet, despite the outpouring of goodwill to have been pointed in the direction of the Ayer Cut, not a lot of people were ever truly sold on Jared Leto’s Joker. To be fair, if you take an opinion-splitting actor and give him an even more opinion-splitting look as one pop culture’s most enduring icons, then feathers are destined to be ruffled.
The knives were out from the very first second an image of the Academy Award winner in character was released, and Ayer hasn’t held back in admitting that branding the Clown Prince of Crime with a forehead tattoo wasn’t his finest hour.
Of course, it would have helped had Leto knocked his performance out of the park, which wasn’t the case. Whether you choose to believe the Ayer Cut can rehabilitate his Joker in a similar fashion to how well-received his return in the epilogue of Zack Snyder’s Justice League proved to be is entirely down to personal preference, but we have to actually get the opportunity to see it first before the reappraisal can begin in earnest.
