Joker: Folie à Deux
I had held off watching this movie for a while, as the reviews starting pouring in that this was horrible from both comic book fans, critics and people who enjoyed and hated the first, my excitement for this completely plummeted. Then given some time, I had a morbid curiosity, some people came out of the woodworks saying the film was misunderstood, and I do like to judge things for myself, so went in with no expectations. I left having feeling I'd just wasted my time on a bland, lifeless and substanceless film.
What a complete disaster of a film. I really was intrigued by Phillips decision to abandon the conventional trappings of both comic book films, and knock off Scorsese films, to make something his own. He cast Gaga as Harley Quinn and wanted to explore the ideas that the first film, and the reactions to the first film, brought forth through a musical. Pair that with the beautiful cinematography of the trailers, I truly was excited to see a follow up to a massive film ditch its easy cash grab of a sequel to perhaps be something a little more arthouse with a deeper look into the characters of the first film.
What the result ended up being was nothing like this at all. It commits perhaps the biggest crime a film can commit; it was bloody boring. I was just so uninterested in anything going on for the majority of the runtime. There's perhaps a total of five scenes which are engaging but other than these I just found the film to lack any sort of depth or message.
It's felt throughout a majority of the runtime that there's an air of uninterestedness involved in the production. Joaquin Phoenix's performance feels like an imitation of his previously exquisite performance, it feels like he's parodying himself as he's just completely not interested in the role, he tries on a number of different hats here and none of them fully work. I don't really know what he's trying to with his character, other than play him like a fully insane man, sure the script doesn't help as it gives literally no more depth for Phoenix to play with, but I also thought that he was aware of this and it's felt through his performance.
Lady Gaga's casting as Harley was always something that intrigued me from the start, I've loved her in most of what she's done - sorry House of Gucci - and thought she'd be a perfect fit for Harley... and perhaps she would be, I wouldn't know as the film gives her absolutely fuck all to do, except for be an insane lady obsessed with the idea of Joker. There's zero depth to her past this and what's even more insane is that her vocals are wasted?!?
I mean this speaks to a larger issue with the film, but why was this a musical. I'm a massive fan of musicals, some of my favourite films are musicals, so this is not coming from the perspective of just a hater of people singing in movies. It's perhaps insulting to the genre to gift this movie that title as it's so scared of committing it might as well simply be a narrative.
People often complain in musicals about people just randomly breaking into song, this critique is often exaggerated, and this movie makes it clear, I have no other way than describing what these characters do most of the time as simply just randomly breaking into song. It doesn't move plot forward, it doesn't delve into what a character is thinking, it doesn't do anything other than have a song randomly in a scene. There are a few songs which turn into musical numbers which are far more interesting, but the majority of them are just boring arrangements of songs which have nothing to do with the story.
What's really funny is that if you cut these musical numbers out what you're left with is a pretty short movie that still has no substance, so if the substance isn't coming from the musical elements nor the story, perhaps the script is a little thin and should've had a look over.
When not a musical, the film aims to be a courtroom drama, and it's genuinely perhaps the most boring version of a courtroom drama it could be. The debate in question is whether or not Arthur Fleck has a split personality who would have committed his crimes. It's painfully obvious to anybody who's watched the previous movie what the answer to this is, so immediately it's not compelling and then the actually hearing brings up nothing new which would make it interesting. Perhaps the only good scene is when a friend of Arthur's has to testify against him but given this is half the movie, it's so boring to get through sadly.
The movie has sadly nothing to say in which the previous film didn't already tackle; it felt like through the story they picked all they were doing was rehashing the same points made. Of how Joker has managed to radicalise all these marginalised people who saw him as standing up for them really that's all there is.
Look there's some nice cinematography, especially in the musical sequences, other than that it does feel a bit bland and the score is fine, it pales in comparison to its previous score. What really is insane though is how technically bland it is for a movie that cost as much as this did, I have absolutely no idea where the money went cause for the most part this looked worse than the original.
Surprisingly the thing which I really liked was the ending, which seems to have been the thing people walk away from and it confirms how bad this was. I really enjoyed how it was the only aspect of the movie set on furthering the message of the original and actually felt like there was some sort of consequence for what he did, he radicalised a group of people for him but in doing so created more monsters