Joker: Folie À Deux (2024) Dir: Todd Phillips
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In 2019, Todd Phillips brought a new version of Batman's most iconic villain to life. His gritty take, with strong themes of mental health and revolution, was a smash hit with fans. I watched this sequel at the cinema having already seen the initial reactions, and boy were they all over the place. As such, I took my seat with a rather nervous energy, not quite the excitement I had felt prior.
Leaving the cinema, I had so many thoughts, almost none of them good. To start off positively; I liked the set and the costume designs, mostly. What I didn't like, costume-wise, was Harley Quinn's outfits in the "real" world. They were boring, and lacked any personality - much like the film itself. This brings me to the main bulk of my thoughts.
I have so many qualms with this film, and for so many reasons. Firstly, the pacing, which was painfully monotonous. For a film less than two and a half hours, it felt like twice that. I was so unbelievably bored for most of the film, and if there is one thing a film simply cannot get away with being; it's boring. Worse, it's deliberately boring.
Furthermore, the writing was frustratingly contradictory - not only to the previous film, but to other parts of this same film as well. Characters did or said things that didn't line up with their personas, the story went odd, unnecessary directions, and nothing quite fit together in a harmonious manner. For a film that moonlighted as a musical, the songs were tepid, not well performed and far too spread out to be worth it.
The narrative was all over the place. It somehow went too far and not far enough at the same time. It was timid and utterly mediocre. It honestly felt like it was written specifically in order to irritate its audience, be it the die-hard fans of the first film, or the casual cinema-goers. The ending was so lazy, so pointless and such a slap in the face of the audience, the characters, and both films. What a waste.
Joaquin Phoenix gave another of his increasingly typical, and tiresome, confusingly odd performances. He seems to be compiling a portfolio of weirdo personas like it's his personal life goal - and not in the sense of playing weirdos, in the sense that his performances are janky, awkward and unsatisfying. Also, his character smokes in almost every scene, which, while a small thing, became increasingly funny, and not in a good way.
Lady Gaga's performance was better, but dragged down by two things. Firstly, she simply did not appear or do enough in the film. Secondly, her character's writing did not go far enough, and meant she couldnt really expand the character into anything beyond a dull, slightly crazy love interest. It won't surprise anyone to know that her singing was good, though.
Brendan Gleeson gave another of his decent performances, despite the fact that he was in such a cliché role. No one else impressed me all that much, if I'm being honest. Catherine Keener became increasingly irritating because of her character's unshakable nativity, while Zazie Beetz, Steve Coogan and Harry Lawtey did not do enough to warrant more than a brief mention.
Overall, this film honestly does feel like a joke played by Todd Phillips. It's like he made the film bad on purpose. One of the recurring lines of dialogue in the film is "building a mountain", and build a mountain Phillips did: a mountain of disappointment, that is. Turns out the joke was on the paying audience all along.
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