No matter one considered Todd Phillips‘s Joker, it earned its share of acclaim and accolades, and nabbed Joaquin Phoenix a Greatest Actor Oscar. Whether or not it bore too shut of a resemblance to sure Martin Scorsese movies, or appeared to empathize an excessive amount of with reckless violence as the answer to societal points, it was at the very least a considerably totally different tackle a comic book e book character. And Phoenix’s deranged efficiency and transformation from Arthur Fleck to Joker was fascinating.
It’s a movie that didn’t actually need a sequel, but even this seeming one-off tackle the Joker wound up with one. No less than it tries to keep up a streak of originality by touting itself as a musical and bringing within the skills of Girl Gaga as famed lackey/romantic curiosity of Joker, Harley Quinn. This could have been sufficient to maintain the spark alive.
But Joker: Folie a Deux is a mediocre work, regardless of some fascinating concepts. The script is overstuffed with plot factors and has a meandering sense of focus. It spends half of the movie inside Arkham Asylum as Phoenix’s Arthur appears to pivot between embracing his Joker identification and simply desirous to be performed with all the pieces. He’s a reluctant superstar for his crimes and considerably charms the Arkham guards, however he’s additionally bullied by his fellow inmates. It’s an try at creating duality, but it surely comes throughout as unfocused and unclear on what it needs to be.
Whereas Phoenix remains to be stable, he doesn’t appear fairly as totally invested within the function this time. The brand new (for this sub-universe) character of Quinn makes an attempt to have a duality as nicely, however has poor execution. The movie teases a plot level of Quinn stealing the present from Joker and his emotions of jealousy, however that is then deserted with no concrete decision. Finally, the film pivots to being a courtroom drama, as Joker is tried for his crimes from the primary movie, however this angle is just not all that fascinating both. We get a brand new tackle Harvey Dent as a younger, cocksure assistant district lawyer who’s extra entitled punk than noble public servant, however that is too minor to matter.
In keeping with the movie’s total half-baked method is the musical side, executed with a thud. The movie isn’t actually a musical, and to be truthful, Phillips had admitted interviews that it isn’t a musical within the true sense. Maybe the studio interfered. Both method, the remnants of the musical side are completely disappointing. The movie by no means actually embraces the surrealism inherent in musicals or goes for these bombastic sequences that may have benefited bigger than life characters resembling Joker. As an alternative, the scenes are principally Gaga and Phoenix singing deliberately unhealthy variations (Phillips requested them to sing poorly!) of Sinatra and different showtune model songs. The characters are actually singing within the context of the scenes, and this literalism prevents the scenes from hovering the way in which they may. Unsurprisingly, the scenes that do lower away from actuality are the higher ones, however these are too few and much between.
Joker: Folie a Deux is a movie that struggles with what it needs to be. Brendan Gleeson is delightfully excessive as a Irish Arkham guard, taking part in up the Irish cop stereotype to hilarious extremes. The movie additionally has a remaining message that appears to criticize sure components of the primary movie’s fanbase and has a surprising ending within the wider context of franchise movies, even when the script finally ends up telegraphing the place it’s going within the third act. Had the previous two hours been well-written and executed, this remaining act might need been actually wonderful.
As an alternative, Phoenix’s rendition of the character involves a seeming finish with a uninteresting stumble. Whereas nowhere as unhealthy as some evaluations appear to be suggesting, Joker: Folie a Deux feels just like the viewers has been fooled. It’s all the pieces and nothing abruptly, and is a nap to look at. Regardless of the flaws of the primary movie, it did have components that stored you locked in. This simply leaves you wanting.
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