Jared Leto

Jared Leto is the second name on the poster for Suicide Squad. The only actor to get billed above him is Will Smith. Leto is listed ahead of actors like Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, and Viola Davis, who, unlike the Joker, are all actual members of the Suicide Squad. Despite Leto’s billing, though, and despite the large amount of publicity surrounding his unusual version of the character (not to mention his unusual preparations to play the role, which included sending disgusting “gifts” to his colleagues), Leto has very little screentime in the final film. He’s featured mostly in flashbacks about Robbie’s Harley Quinn and her time before she was captured by Batman. When he finally appears in the contemporary story, he shows up to “rescue” Harley, fails, and crashes in a helicopter. Then he doesn’t show up again until the very last scenes of the movie, when he tries to break her out of prison.

How was the Joker? Is Ben Affleck’s Batman a welcome addition? What about the other surprise DC cameo? Does Amanda Waller’s plan make any sense at all? Who the heck is Slipknot? How does Harley Quinn fit into the rest of the Suicide Squad? Why did they introduce Katana so late in the movie? What the hell was going on with the Enchantress? Did they really just rip off Ghostbusters with that ending? All of those topics and more are on the table for our FULL SPOILERS discussion and review of Suicide Squad.

If you liked the scene in Batman v Superman where Bruce Wayne watched YouTube videos about the future members of the Justice League, you'll love Suicide Squad. Instead of just one scene of plot-stopping fan service, Suicide Squad delivers an entire first act of soul-deadening exposition. The movie spends nearly 30 story-free minutes with a Machiavellian bureaucrat while she sits in a restaurant discussing a top secret personnel file. Here is Deadshot, the world’s greatest assassin; this is Harley Quinn, the Joker’s psychotic girlfriend. Oh, and have you heard about Captain Boomerang? And on and on and on.

Odds are you’ve probably rolled your eyes more than a few times after hearing Jared Leto’s approach to playing the Joker in the upcoming Suicide Squad. We’ve talked here before about the actor’s refusal to break character and his uncomfortable gifts to his costars; what we should also remember is that Leto’s Joker seems to be the perfect version of that character for Zack Snyder and David Ayer's vision of the DC universe. If Leto’s take on the Joker proves the quiet optimists like me right, DC Films would do well to give audiences a chance to see Ben Affleck’s Batman and Jared Leto’s Joker in action.

A new fan theory has emerged in recent months suggesting that Jared Leto’s version of The Joker in Suicide Squad is actually Jason Todd — a hypothesis that gained a little traction when it was revealed that the Robin suit featured in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice belonged to Todd. If you subscribe to this particular theory, then David Ayer has some disappointing news for you.

Aside from a few brief glimpses in the trailers, we haven’t seen much of Cara Delevingne’s Enchantress in Suicide Squad. The mystical and mysterious villain is the subject of one of two new promos for David Ayer’s upcoming DC super-villain film, while the other…well, he doesn’t really need an introduction.

Kudos to the Warner Bros. marketing department for keeping the main villain of Suicide Squad secret for so long, and although that may change in the next month as David Ayer’s film begins screening for critics, for now it remains an intriguing mystery. That mystery deepens in a new interview with a couple of the film’s producers, who reveal that the enigmatic “adversary” isn’t the only foe the Squad will have to contend with next month.

Yesterday, Entertainment Weekly revealed four new covers featuring the cast of David Ayer’s Suicide Squad, which has taken over the latest edition of the magazine. As you probably assumed, that was just the tip of the iceberg, as even more new photos have arrived showing off the full rogues gallery (along with Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller) from the highly-anticipated anti-hero team-up.

We are about a month away from the release of Suicide Squad, David Ayer’s devious new DC super-villain team-up that brings The Joker, Harley Quinn, Deadshot and more together in what will hopefully prove to be an antidote to this disappointing summer movie season. If you’re itching for a new look at the Squad, Ayer’s film has taken over the latest edition of EW, which features the cast on four different magazine covers as well as some new info on the highly-anticipated project.

When Christopher Nolan first revealed Heath Ledger’s Joker for The Dark Knight, fans were pretty annoyed with the drastic departure from the classic depictions of the character. Reactions to Jared Leto’s version of the character from Suicide Squad were twice as intense thanks to that gold grill and his collection of questionable tattoos, which mostly left fans feeling baffled. If you’re curious about what on earth inspired David Ayer’s new Joker, the director has offered some insight into his influences — most of which you can find on Instagram.

Suicide Squad is one of our most anticipated films of the summer — mostly because after a few months of watching heroes save the world in big blockbusters, it’ll be fun to see a team of villains swoop in to shake things up. If Amanda Waller is to be believed in these new TV spots, these guys (and a couple of ladies) are the worst of the worst, but maybe that’s what we need right now.

While most fans can agree that Suicide Squad looks like a fairly entertaining antidote to the usual blockbuster superhero fare, at least one part of David Ayer’s super-villain team-up remains divisive. You already know which part that is: Jared Leto’s tattooed, chrome-grilled Hot Topic take on Batman’s arch-nemesis The Joker, aka the Clown Prince of Crime. However you feel about Leto’s Joker aesthetic, it’s certainly different from and incomparable to any previous iteration of the character — though Leto does have a couple of wacky comparisons in mind.