2. The Joker – Suicide Squad (2016)
The tragic and untimely passing of Heath Ledger had a number of unforeseen ramifications. After the actor’s turn in The Dark Knight redefined the character of the Joker forever, he posthumously presented a conundrum to the DC cinematic universe. Any character with anything in common with Ledger’s Joker would look like a pale imitation, but he’s still (and will probably always be) Batman’s greatest enemy.
The big brains at Warner Bros. put their heads together and came up with a truly insane solution. They cast notorious oddball Jared Leto in the Joker, and wrote him to be a jewellery-laden, heavily tattooed crime boss. Nothing like Heath Ledger’s criminally insane domestic terrorist at all, then.
The problem with Leto’s Joker was simple: he was nothing at all like Ledger’s. Gone was the character’s charisma, his mildly terrifying screen presence, and his plausibility. Leto’s Joker was little more than a clown, and we don’t mean that in the way that might be construed as a compliment. It was a terrible recasting, and Suicide Squad should be thoroughly ashamed of itself.