Critics, what do they know? Jumped-up, privileged, entitled bunch of phonies the lot of them! And especially when it comes to the extended DC universe, of which David Ayer’s Suicide Squad is the latest instalment to be roundly pummelled, battered and exiled to the comic-book equivalent of Siberia by those self-appointed arbiters of cool.

Here’s your chance to give the professional reviewers a kicking. Is Suicide Squad worth its 26% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a score that would suggest it’s even worse than the execrable Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice? (Though not as awful as last year’s Fantastic Four.)

Are you willing to countenance the rumours that Ayer’s debut comic-book epic was stitched together from wildly different edits – one by the director, one from the company that made the film’s smash-hit trailers? Or should the naysayers just stay quiet and lose themselves in the film’s frenetic, Pollock-esque chaos?

Here are a few issues you might want to discuss when delivering your verdict.

The Joker and Harley Quinn

This is the first time we’ve seen the clown prince of Gotham on the big screen in almost a decade, since Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning turn in The Dark Knight. Did Jared Leto – who says many of his scenes were cut from the final edit – perform well enough to convince you that there’s a new psychopathic, emerald-haired king in town?

And how about Harley Quinn, his devoted partner in passion and crime? Was Margot Robbie convincing as a sociopathic livin’ doll with eyes only for her puddin’? Or were you unable to ignore the crude manner in which the camera lapped up every skimpy outfit and gyrating gymnastic move? Rumours on Reddit, by the way, suggest that even nastier footage of the Joker torturing Harley was left on the cutting-room floor. Speaking of which ...

The muddy plot thickens

How about that edit? Was Warner’s rumoured decision to cut two versions of the movie (only one under Ayer’s full control) and blend them together responsible for the muddled plotting and confused story development? Did you believe the way the Joker and Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller both turned up alive when we thought them dead?

And why does everyone in the DC universe seem to make decisions like a three-year-old, based on gut instinct or rage and often without any thought for the consequences? For me, Waller was another thinly sketched character who was created purely for plot development, like Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Did you know what her motives were, or how such a flagrant psychopath came to be put in charge of pseudo-military operations?

The cameos

“Batfleck” was in the movie more than we expected, but always as a shadowy background figure until the mid-credits scene (more on that later). This was a traditional caped crusader, taking down Gotham’s bad guys with his bare hands rather than blasting everything to smithereens with giant Batguns. But did you wonder whether he really needed to punch out, then give the kiss of life to a waterlogged Robbie? Is it ever acceptable to use sexualised violence against a woman by a man for comic effect, even in a silly superhero movie?

The Flash was gone in a flicker, but helped to take down Jai Courtney’s Captain Boomerang. Ezra Miller looks confident and composed in the role, wouldn’t you agree?

The paper-thin characterisation

Might the fractured editing process have played a part here too? Compare Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s Killer Croc to supporting heroes in Marvel’s similarly pitched Guardians of the Galaxy – the obvious comparison is Dave Bautista’s Drax the Destroyer. Or the romance between Joel Kinnaman’s Rick Flag and Cara Delevingne’s Dr June Moone to the wonderfully eccentric, offbeat love story between Ryan Reynolds and Morena Baccarin in Deadpool. In each case, Suicide Squad’s human connections seem cartoonish when measured against those of the comic-book movie elite. But perhaps you disagree?

Yet another CGI meltdown finale

Speaking of Delevingne, was pitching the young British model and actor as effectively the movie’s main antagonist the best idea? I thought she was rather good as the Enchantress in her madcap, grubby witch phase, but went a little Nicolas Cage in Wicker Man around the time the villain transformed into her gyrating-fantasy-princess-from-hell alter ego.

Her brother, Incubus, was a complete non-entity, a Snyderian CGI mega-villain as meaningless as Batman v Superman’s Doomsday. And that laughable, slo-mo infested, almost unfeasibly clunky ending … is anyone prepared to defend it?

The mid-credits scene

So Batman forms the Justice League because he doesn’t want the bad guys having all the fun. This bit probably made more sense than anything else in the movie, though that’s not saying a lot. At least DC has wisely given up trying to come up with its own take on universe-building segues (see Batman v Superman’s confusing “knightmare” or the preposterous scene where the Batfleck sits down to watch trailers for upcoming DCEU movies) and decided to copy Marvel instead. But if Waller has a dossier on decent-hearted meta-humans such as the Flash, why didn’t she get them to take down Enchantress and her bro rather than a bunch of crazies?

Will the DC extended universe live to fight another day?

Would you agree that the answer is a resounding “yes” – somehow – despite everything that’s terrible about Ayer’s movie?

The early box-office figures for Suicide Squad look spectacular, and the movie’s key cast – Leto, Robbie, Smith (as the previously unheralded Deadshot) – gave good supervillain in short bursts of brilliance, even as the film as a whole got lost in a knotty labyrinth of competing visions. There’s a real sense that these characters might be well worth watching in a different movie, with a more carefully considered film-making process in place.

Most of the Suicide Squad, with the exception of Harley, ended up back in their prison cells by the time the credits rolled. Are you begging them to stay locked up, or hoping they’ll be let out again for round two?