Jared Leto as the Joker in Suicide Squad

[Hector]

I love some of the comments online...

"Marlyn Manson, not the Joker"

"Wow, white paint and green dye, and that's it, instant low-budget Joker"

"White rapper"

"Ghetto grilled thug"

"The next celebrity tattoo artist on TLC"

Or the one that stood out to me the most...

"Good grief!"

[Random Axe]

I have run out of words for how badly WB is screwing up this brand. If you're not sure exactly what to do with it, sell it. Don't eat it, vomit it back up and then eat it again. Snyder and WB are playing a game of 2 dudes, one cup regurgitating this tripe back and forth until every useful bit of protein or possible nutrient is eliminated. They just had to Snyderize the Joker. He simply looks like he's ready for a Five Finger Death Punch concert. Pathetic.

[Hedji]

Me No Likey

[sprytel]

Does anyone else get a Caesar Romero vibe from this? And not just because of the grillz...

[emeraldknight47]

Wow. That just---sucks. I didn't know the Joker was a part time ghetto-rapper and tattoo aficionado or that he had dental problems requiring him to get silver dentures. Sadly, for DC/WB, another fail in my book. I dunno---I guess they're trying to appeal to a much younger, "hipper" demographic than us old fogeys....

[huedell]

I have run out of words for how badly WB is screwing up this brand. If you're not sure exactly what to do with it, sell it. Don't eat it, vomit it back up and then eat it again. Snyder and WB are playing a game of 2 dudes, one cup regurgitating this tripe back and forth until every useful bit of protein or possible nutrient is eliminated. They just had to Snyderize the Joker. He simply looks like he's ready for a Five Finger Death Punch concert. Pathetic.

It's not great, but it ain't as bad as what WB has done to Superman thus far.

Snyderized?

Snyder, to me, is some kind of pawn in this game---a lesser version of directors who seem to grasp "story" and "characters" to any great extent, not even in the same league as guys like Tim Burton, i.e. stylistic visual directors who also know very little about story comparatively, but have an extraordinary "visual" sense....IMHO, Snyder's value to WB is mostly "knowing how to shoot high-adrenaline action sequences".... which is cutting edge style for today's "video game" culture audience....and, admittedly, pretty vital to these kinds of movies.

Leto's Joker likely came about from a WB executive meeting with Nolan, asking his take on how the Joker could successfully be portrayed---the only answer being to instruct Snyder to have elements of the successful "Ledger" Joker without copying him directly. Nolan has described Ledger's Joker as a "Sid Vicious" screw-the-world type---I see it as if we took Hamill's familiar Joker but never added the paradoxical "gentleman-psycho whimsy" (that Nicholson's also seemed to have). Ledger's Joker was much dirtier, and more creepy---and more UNPREDICTABLE than any live-action Joker we've seen before. Tattoos, bad hygiene, etc---these things belong to that kind of Joker.

I'm fine with that, as I see the Joker as a character archetype whose main defining trait is "CHAOS" ---him being the greatest purveyor of chaos in the DCU.

So, Leto, a real-life "rock star" of sorts was stunt-cast as the Joker for that "rebel musician" connection to Nolan's "punk" notion on which Ledger's bankable Joker was built.

Could be worse.

You could get a dark, brooding Superman who strays far enough from his familiar "goodest-guy" archetype to encroach upon his Batman co-star's turf----oh---wait....

[Random Axe]

Trust me Hue, I'm pretty hacked off a the treatment of Supes, this Joker pic just sent me completely off the rails I was precariously balancing on.

Snyderizing to me is taking something and, without necessity or public demand, modernizing it to appeal to a demographic that would have purchased a ticket regardless. It takes little skill to make a dark, gritty action story cool. The real talent is taking something inherently goofy, an alien in a blue suit with red underwear on the outside of his pants, and making THAT cool. We've already seen how that can be done, it's not impossible. A talented writer, a talented director can mold the nerdiest of subject matter into something both compelling and interesting. Exhibit A: The Incredibles. Had WB approached their universe from the fun side and made something sort of faithful to the source material, they would have so much more room for expansion of other characters and stories. Instead we get a Muscle and Fitness cover model putting on a suit and doing some sulking and screaming.

I'm ranting and I shouldn't. Nothing I write anywhere on Earth can change the course WB is on, and I might be totally off base, but from all the negativity I've already read the past couple of days tells me I'm likely not alone in thinking that Warners and DC have utterly failed on many levels and have ignored the remaining levels they could use for some sort of redemption.

I'm a HUGE Superman fan and did not watch MoS in theaters because I thought it looked like ****. I rented the bluray and confirmed it was ****. I fully expect b v s to be doubled up on the **** factor. Not sure if they are still planning on releasing this the same weekend as Civil War, but you can be damn sure which film I'd rather see that day.

[enyawd72]

Words fail me...just another example of how far superhero comics have fallen.
It saddens me beyond belief.

[WannabeMego]

This is NOT the Joker we were hoping for...Move Along...

[thunderbolt]

really wish they would loose the ink, trendy-ing up iconic characters never works in the long run. In a few years this will look as dated as the Disco Dazzler.

[The Bat]

My God that's HORRIBLE!! Really missing Heath Ledger right now.

[Hedji]

My God that's HORRIBLE!! Really missing Caesar Romero right now.

Fixed that for ya.

[The Bat]

Fixed that for ya.

No you didn't! Loved the Batman 66 show when I was 5...but can't stand to watch it now. Sorry.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Is someone high up at WB/DC secretly working for Marvel? It's like they are intentionally making boneheaded moves to sink these movies.



Chris

[Hedji]

It's like they are intentionally making boneheaded moves to sink these movies.



Chris

I'm actually not so sure about that. People like to be shocked. It gets butts into theater seats. This will sell. How do you follow up Heath Ledger? You go more shocking, more out of the box. This will sell tickets. They'll get some wild trailers put together. People will say, "Hey that looks pretty different". We'll all buy a ticket, just because we're low hanging fruit.

Whether or not people come away liking this is a different story altogether. But the idea is not to make movies that are beloved… it's to make movies that sell tickets.