THAT’S entertainment?
Directed by: Todd Phillips
Written by: Scott Silver, Todd Phillips, Bob Kane
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson
Swift shot: Well, if you didn’t care for the original Joker, good news, they made this one a musical! And guess what, your Boomer parents probably don’t even know these freakin’ songs. This film brought the same bleak, unfunny, sad elements from the original but peppered in some absurd music numbers that nearly redeemed it. Superb acting and decent singing aside, a lot of people are going to be pissed off after seeing this movie.
First and foremost, I was not familiar with the phrase Folie à Deux. But apparently, it is apropos for this film, meaning: “shared madness,” where two closely connected individuals share the same delusion or psychotic disorder.
Before the movie starts you get a Looney Tunes opener featuring The Joker called “Me and My Shadow” which introduces you to the main question of the film. Is Arthur really Arthur, is he Joker, is he a mix, and is he responsible for his crimes?
Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) is awaiting his trial for the very public murder of Murray Franklin and four other unfortunate dirtbags who he exterminated as The Joker. Joker 2 (easier to just call it that, cuz fuck French accents) is a prison and courtroom drama, sorry if you wanted something different, but at its core, that’s the movie you get.
I am not a fan of most male prison films, with a few exceptions. So, watching more scenes of Fleck shuffling around and smoking cigs in his underwear was not exactly thrilling. Clearly Todd Phillips didn’t read my Joker review. Or maybe he did and wants me to suffer for attacking it too harshly.
Anyway, Arthur has to navigate Arkham Asylum’s corrupt corpulent guards as they delight in tormenting him and insist that he makes them laugh. Although, good luck finding any fucking levity in this movie. I chuckled . . . once.
As his trial of the century is unfolding, one of the guards, Jackie Sullivan (Gleeson) takes it easy on Arthur and lets him join a minimum security prison choir where he meets the potential love of his life, Lee (Gaga). I must admit I didn’t watch any of the trailers, so it was a bit of a twist that she turns out to be Harley Quinzel.
Naturally, the audience is left wondering what is real and what is purely in Arthur’s head. But now he has a new friend who ‘shares in his madness’ with Lee injecting chaos into the otherwise severely milquetoast Fleck – much to the chagrin of his attorney, Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener).
Stewart wants to prove that Arthur is clinically insane and belongs in a real hospital, not Arkham Asylum which is a horrific prison masquerading as a hospital.
Thing is, if you know anything about the sanity defense, she has to prove he doesn’t know wrong from right and that he is actually a split personality. You’d think that would be easy enough, considering his Joker persona. But, there’s the rub, again. And I won’t spoil the answer here – but we can get to that in my spoiler section.
Meanwhile, the hotshot young District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) is of one mind about the prosecution. Joker is an act, Arthur is the real persona, and he is guilty as sin.
As his world is both unraveling and his passion for Lee is burgeoning, Arthur is forced to face the old Clark Kent dilemma. Is Lois in love with Clark or Superman? In this case, is Lee in love with Joker or Arthur? And do either of those people even exist? Does he even know?
With Arthur and Lee living in their shared delusional world, the audience is treated with several musical numbers. And that is the movie we all came to see. A film where Joker and Harley Quinn start fucking things up whilst merrily singing show tunes and whacking mofos!
Oh, but that isn’t what happens. Instead we get very well staged musical numbers that don’t actually have any impact on the world around them. And since they are both incarcerated, they don’t manage to wreak much havoc.
But, fret not – there will be blood.
Some of the things I really liked about Joker 2 was the aforementioned love triangle he has with Lee and his dual-identity. But that was diluted in execution. It’s like Phillips keeps hitting the brakes when he should just hit the fucking gas and go!
Oh, and there were some truly terrific musical numbers, however, just not enough to cream the seats. I counted three songs that I both liked and knew. The rest were quite forgettable.
I will give it this too. It was a very believable sequel to Joker. But was it entertaining? Engaging, for sure – but would I call it an entertaining film? I just don’t know!
There aren’t many dark, bleak movies that I like. I want to be entertained and disengage from reality for a bit watching a movie. And the fact that they beat “entertainment” into us over and over again was a bit of a trap for Phillips. Because, I was then acutely, immediately aware I was not being entertained. I was watching cringe porn with some shitty songs that Arthur Fleck’s mother used to like.
Some of the things I really didn’t care for. Well, you’ll have to . . .
Knock-knock!
— Who’s there?
The inevitable.
— The inevitable who?
…Spoiler alert: it never ends well.
Translation, beyond this point, I mention major spoilers!
The ending is perhaps one of the darkest, bleakest, melancholy, tragic choices that Phillips could have chosen.
Not only does Joker not exist, which is oddly enough a fitting demise given how I felt about him in the original film, but the tragedy of Arthur Fleck is that he really is a loser. They take away his nuts, quite literally, making him lose the Joker and he gets gutted in prison and the Joker persona shifts to the presumable Heath Ledger iteration from The Dark Knight.
Why can’t this just be a standalone movie? Why must everything always connect to every expanded universe? And why can’t the Joker just die? I mean, I get it, I guess, he is a symbol of chaos where Batman is a symbol of justice. But everyone knows Bruce Wayne is Batman – we never really get to the bottom of this Joker character, will we ever? Perhaps that is the cruelest joke of all!
Just when we think we are getting to know him – he is slaughtered like a stuck pig! FUCKING HILARIOUS!
