The world is a stage.
Joker: Folie à Deux is a 2024 musical drama film directed by Todd Phillips, written by Scott Silver and Todd Phillips, produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, Domain Entertainment, and Joint Effort, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is based off of various Batman characters from DC Comics. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga. This is the second film in the Joker franchise. It was preceded by Joker.
"Let's give the people what they want." - Harley Quinn
Plot
Two years after he murdered Murray Franklin on live TV, failed comedian Arthur Fleck is awaiting trial. As his infamy as the Joker grows, Arthur meets Harleen Quinzel, an inmate whom he falls in love with and who persuades him to continue to head down the path to becoming the Clown Prince of Crime.
The Sweet
I will give this movie credit; it's really frickin' weird.
A sequel to Joker seems like a bad idea in general, because Joker is not a movie that sets up a bunch of directions it could go in the future. It's a contained character study about this mentally ill man finding his confidence by becoming a terrible person. The only reason it really got a sequel was because Joker made a billion dollars, so Warner Bros. naturally wanted to suck the property dry.
I would say that this is one of the most interesting bad movies I have ever seen. So many movies nowadays feel generic and bland. They feel soulless or directed by a studio, not an artist with a vision. This movie is not that. It's not generic or bland. It's insane. I cannot say that the insane things it does are good, but I'd much rather a movie be bad for taking risks that don't work than a movie be bad for taking no risks at all.
On the positive side, Joaquin Phoenix is still incredible in this role. It's hard to compare his performance in the first one to this, because the first one was so transformative and so unsettling, but he still is great here. He is just really good at disappearing into these roles. You don't watch Arthur Fleck and think "Oh, that's Joaquin Phoenix playing Arthur Fleck." You just think "That's Arthur Fleck."
I also think this movie does do an interesting job of exploring identity. That's really what the film is about; Arthur struggling between his identity as Arthur and his identity as the Joker. The film doesn't really have a main plot - this identity thing is more the principle exploration that they are going for. We see how each side of his life influences his identity. His lawyer wants him to be more Arthur. Harley Quinn wants him to be more Joker. There is definitely an interesting overarching theme with that, but because everything else is so weird, it kind of gets drowned out.
Finally, I actually really liked the ending. The ending is one of the most talked-about aspects of this film. It is incredibly bold, but when you think about what it truly means, it makes sense. I understand that what they do is a weird, shocking choice, but I really think that it was the right decision and a good way to bookend Arthur's character.
The Sour
As I said, this is one of the most interesting bad movies I have ever seen. Key word there? Bad.
Joker: Folie à Deux was announced to be a musical shortly after the film itself was confirmed, and that was a subject of much debate. It does not make sense for a sequel to the Martin Scorsese-inspired movie about the Joker to be a musical. And yet that's what we got. And it is terrible. The musical numbers are so very stupid. They serve no purpose to the plot and are really, really forgettable. It feels like the writers compensated for a lack of story by just throwing fifteen musical numbers in here to pad the runtime. Every time a character started singing, I just rolled my eyes. There really isn't a world in which this movie should ever exist, and there especially isn't a world in which this movie should have ever been a musical.
I also think Harley Quinn was a bad addition to this film. Honestly, when they announced that she was going to be in it, I thought that was the only sensical announcement they had made about the film. But her character doesn't really do anything. She serves Arthur's story while having no arc or development of her own. And her service in Arthur's story is pretty one-sided. There's really no nuance or complexity to her character. And that was disappointing.
This movie is also really, really slow. The first Joker is relatively slow, but that's because we are watching Arthur's sanity fully unravel. This movie is slow because nothing is happening. The first half of the movie is spent building towards Arthur's trial. The second half is Arthur's trial. Again, this film is severely lacking on the story front, so there isn't really any significant plot that is occurring while we are building towards or in Arthur's trial. I could probably tell you everything significant that happens in this movie in twenty to thirty seconds. And it's a two hour and twenty minute movie.
Great movies are able to combine every aspect of storytelling and make a coherent, entertaining, and impactful experience. The first Joker was seamlessly able to tell it's story about Arthur's descent into madness while also incorporating themes of corruption and the upper class mistreating the lower class. This film feels like it just has a theme; identity. It explores that theme well, but it doesn't have a story, so it just compensates by having these ridiculous musical numbers. That is not how a movie is supposed to work.
And it all goes back to the principle problem; this movie should not exist. There should not be a sequel to Joker. That film was meant to be a standalone character study about a tortured man becoming the worst version of himself. As I have said throughout this review, this movie only exists because the first Joker became the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time...so now we get another one. And this is what we got.
Final Thoughts and Score
I will give Folie à Deux props for being weird, but that's about it. Joaquin Phoenix is great, but this movie has no story and should never, ever have been made a musical (or made in general).
I am going Sour here. Age range is 15+.
SWEET N' SOUR SCALE
Sweet (Great) Savory (Good) Sour (Bad) Moldy (Terrible)
"Joker: Folie à Deux"
Fun Factor: 4.5/10
Acting: 8.5/10
Story: 3/10
Characters: 6.5/10
Quality: 5/10
Directed by Todd Phillips
Rated R for moderate bloody violence, language, sexual material, thematic elements
Released on October 4, 2024
2 hours and 18 minutes
Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck / The Joker
Lady Gaga as Harleen "Lee" Quinzel / Harley Quinn
Brendan Gleeson as Jackie Sullivan
Catherine Keener as Maryanne Stewart
Zazie Beetz as Sophie Dumond
Leigh Gill as Gary Puddles
Harry Lawtey as Harvey Dent
Steve Coogan as Paddy Meyers
Ken Leung as Victor Liu
Sharon Washington as Debra Kane
Bill Smitrovich as Herman Rothwax
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