Joker: Folie à Deux (2024)

 

Genre: Musical/ Thriller

Time: 2h 18mins

Director: Todd Phillips

Quick Summary: Arthur Fleck is institutionalized at Arkham, awaiting trial for his crimes as Joker. While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur not only stumbles upon true love, but also finds the music that's always been inside him.

Apparently, in Arkham, nobody can go two minutes without a cigarette 

I went into this knowing that people hated it, and came out understanding why. For something that is labelled as a musical, it is so afraid to be a musical. I was expecting more of a dramatic change when it came to the delusions which were usually the musical numbers aside from one or two moments. More of a contrast was needed during the more serious side of the film which would be Gritty and dark, like Gotham usually is. Compared to the delusions which I assumed were going to be more colourful, extra and extravagant. What we actually get are really long and painful segments of Arthur and/or Harley singing a full song. I mean it genuinely when I say the full song too. Half the time while watching this I wanted them to stop singing. It's pretty hilarious too because I swear they sounded out of tune mostly.

Another issue is that for some reason this is so dull. This is mainly at the fault of the writing and script because when they weren't singing they were basically talking nonsense or to be honest about nothing. I do wonder if this was done on purpose because surely nobody could have thought this was a good idea, right? It's like it does absolutely everything to not be good. As soon as it dangles the even slightest idea of being interesting or having some depth, it's shoved away. 

We don't get to see the real Arthur and why everyone loved the first film. There is no character study material, it doesn't feel like he's a victim anymore. I was so hoping it would in fact go into detail about Joker being his split identity, giving us a real humanized version of Joker. But no. We get a courtroom drama that is slow, uninteresting, and pumped with poorly timed musical numbers that also aren't very good. 

I do have one thing to say about this. It looks nice at least. Even though I hated the musical numbers they were to my surprise choreographed really well. Lots of energy was put into them as well the imagery and clothing design were also spot-on. It grasped the look of old musicals so well, and they knew how to use the camera for these bits, so still I am so shocked they managed to ruin them as much as they did. 

They also did Lady Gaga dirty here as Harley was very underused. It actually irritated me how little they went into her backstory or anything about her. She just feels hollow. A cardboard cut-out of someone obsessing over the joker.

Contributed basically nothing, and then gave us a gut punch of an ending. After really thinking about that ending I understand what they have done and why. We've got a stepping stone for the new era of Batman. Sure, I am very sad and frustrated about it, but there should have been more indication towards it. Unless we get another film, which I'm unsure about, but more than likely if it was to revolve around Batman.

Unless you want to go see how bad this is, I strongly recommend you give this a pass. 

2/10

"It isn’t me, it isn’t me, so you don’t think this is me. Maybe, maybe you don’t know who it really was."