150 Word Review: 'Joker: Folie à Deux' (2024)
Sad clown
Joker: Folie à Deux isn't a sequel per se—it's a $200 million epilogue to a controversial Oscar-winning box-office smash about catatonic Arthur Fleck, aka Joker. Here’s what happens next: Gotham’s murderous Pagliacci falls in love.
The first Joker was a shotgun marriage between director Todd Philips's adoration of Martin Scorsese's filmography and his lack of respect for comic book characters. When it works, Philips bends a blue-chip intellectual property to fit his offbeat vision. This highly anticipated follow-up is fascinating and incoherent: a One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest-slash-courtroom drama-slash-musical about a reluctant supervillain's existential crisis.
I wanted Philips to pick a genre, and I was stunned by the recklessness of his tragedy. Joaquin Phoenix looks bored as skeletal Fleck but Lady Gaga gives her all as his girlfriend and aspiring psycho killer. Joker 2 is a rebuke of the original and all the little Travis Bickles who loved it.
Random Rankings
Top 5 Jokers
5. Joaquin Phoenix
4. Mark Hamill
3. Jack Nicholson
2. Ceasar Romero
1. Heath Ledger
I guess I won't watch it, LOL.