Not many franchises can claim to have such a tight race for last place; even a string of stinkers usually has a standout underperformer among them. Nevertheless, the soon-to-be-extinct DC Extended Universe, in all of its lukewarm glory, has two entries that are neck and neck for such a title.
Those chapters, according to one thread on r/DC_Cinematic, are David Ayer’s Suicide Squad, which somehow isn’t Jared Leto’s worst superhero movie, and Wonder Woman 1984, the mess of a sequel to 2017’s Wonder Woman that got more than a few folks up in arms. Between the two, just about every shade of cinematic sins are accounted for here, with more than enough overlap to make an obvious loser difficult to come by.
Or at least, that would have been the case last year before one Pedro Pascal took an enormous, gaping bite out of the relevancy sandwich and won our hearts over with not only his performance in The Last of Us, but with his ability to consistently be a near-perfect human being.
For those of you who have had the fortune of not seeing Wonder Woman 1984, Pascal plays the film’s villain Maxwell Lord, a businessman that director and co-writer Patty Jenkins says was modeled after Donald Trump. Trying to imagine such a turn from local cinnamon roll Pascal is a one-way ticket to dissonance, even if The Last of Us did portray him in full John Wick mode.
But still, a Pascal presence is a Pascal presence, and from that point on, the Suicide Squad hate train began picking up speed.
Let this be a blueprint for most any debate in the realm of entertainment; if Pascal’s involved, you probably have your answer.
