Last we heard of David Ayer’s DC villain flick, whether or not Harley Quinn, the nutjob supervillainess from the Batman comics, would be included was still up in the air, and Jared Leto was in talks to play The Joker (lesser version 2.0). Yesterday, Warner Brothers announced the Suicide Squad lineup and yes indeed, Harley Quinn is coming to the big screen, and she’ll be played by Margot Robbie. A cinematic Harley can be balls-out awesome, and while Robbie isn’t particularly inspired casting, she’s also not a bad choice. Physically, I can totally see it, and she played a good bitch in Wolf of Wall Street. I like this a lot better than, say, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. Robbie can at least act.
Oh yeah, Leto will be the next Joker. I still don’t get what the f*ck The Joker is doing on the Suicide Squad—a group of captured villains forced to do black ops for the government—in the first place. Truly, this will be a Lesser Joker in every way, if he’s part of this team and not the mastermind who ultimately liberates them.
Have I mentioned that Harley Quinn carries a huge mallet and regularly bashes people’s heads in with it? I’m not kidding when I say she’s a fantastic villain. She’s messy and c*nty and her comics can get REALLY dark. There is so much potential for what to do with this character.
The roster also includes Tom Hardy and Will Smith; Hardy as Rick Flagg, leader of the Squad, and Smith as Deadshot, an assassin. Hardy is doubling-down on DC villains, having previously been Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, and Smith has a DC connection, too—Jada Pinkett Smith is currently starring on Gotham. Coming off the straight-up disastrous After Earth, this is a good way to rebound for Smith. Also, Deadshot is white in the comics, and by casting Smith WB/DC continues to demonstrate a commitment to diversifying comic book movies.
Rounding out the Squad are Cara Delevingne as Enchantress (a sort of dual-personality magic person—she’s hard to explain and will probably be given an overhaul for movie audiences), and Jai Courtney as Boomerang, a character every bit as stupid as his name. Delevingne feels like an actual risk, like there HAS to be something there to get her included alongside Leto, Hardy, and Smith, but I can’t believe we’re still trying to make Jai Courtney happen. He’s the human equivalent of mashed potatoes.
So this is our cinematic Suicide Squad, from Lesser Joker to a bowl of mashed of potatoes. But of all the upcoming DC movies, this is the one I’m most excited about and it’s purely because of Harley Quinn. I cannot stress enough how high my hopes are. As far as I’m concerned, this movie ought to be called Harley Quinn: And Some Other People, Too.
(Lainey: Attaching shots of Tom Hardy I missed in September at the Apple store in London with his wife Charlotte Riley. Not obvious at all.)
