10/05/2024
Joker Folie Á Deux
^Title
Joaquin Phoenix & Lady Gaga (née Stefani Germanotta)
^Stars
Todd Phillips
^Director
Warner Bros
^Studio
I'll start this off with honesty... I'm at crux with how I feel about this film. I state such because I did honestly enjoy the first one. It was a seriously intriguing take upon the aspect of the Joker character mythos. This one sort of explores more towards his instability than it does the character being of which the title states. I mean that because, though it gets to the point of calling himself The Joker, it winds up not being the one from the Batman comics and regards. I'll explain that in a moment. Still, it's about Arthur Fleck, again, and his time in Arkham Asylum. It's just that instead of driving home the means of offering more supposed inspiration that the first one provided, it plays more as a cautionary tale towards those whom thinks "maybe following that path is a good idea."
Arthur is more of a shell of a man than he was in the first film, due to the medications reasonably suppressing his maniac side. He is slumped around trying to just mosey around the institution in some awkward way of living without needing to feel alive. It's not a "fun" time. Yet, oddly enough, the few blips that which might indicate that he is the same individual is only very minutely displayed in the fantasies that he has in which he sings out classic songs as if he is in a staged musical.
He has a bevy of followers that seem to want him to be free & even paint their faces as the character, some even donning similar attire to what he wore when he went off the deep-end. Still, he doesn't seem to fully relish in the ordeal of it all. The trial procedures of which the Assistant District Attorney, a young Harvey Dent, tries to prove that he didn't legitimately go on a psychotic personality break, but that it was just Fleck lashing out because he didn't give a damn & mustered up the Joker ploy as to say that it psychologically wasn't him. Such a thing can cause the fan of the first to pshaw that, but, strangely, a point like that needs to be made in the film. With the growing frustrations that the everyday life now holding upon folks, it is INTENTIONALLY not trying to offer inspiration that people presumed from the first film.
The addition of "Lee," aka Harley Quinzel(oddly, NOT Harleen Quinzel, in this particular version of a Gotham story), comes around rather oddly, both good & badly. Lee is seen inside of the Asylum with Fleck... No, not as his therapist, but as another inmate. And, just like the regular version of the character, she has a fascination with him(which you'd know just from seeing the posters & trailers of the film). Yet, the Quinzel that fans are strongly familiar with is one that was a renowned therapist whom went psychologically absent when she started looking towards Joker with a die-hard love. This one, though, seems like she's already lock-in-step with his aspect of insanity &, crazily, sometimes seems more lost within her psychosis than him. Yet, there's more towards that aspect. One thing I will spoil about her is that she's not stupid, and she does possess some regard towards the true character that we've all come to know.
The gripe that some held over the timeline factor with Arthur Fleck being The Joker becomes slightly worked on due to the fact that Arthur Fleck isn't the Clown Prince of Crime that we all know from the Batman portion of the DC Universe. Yes, here is another spoiler, as which you should be thanking me for, but Fleck merely is the inspiration for the Joker that is the deranged day to Batman's brooding night. A character, at the end, conducts an act in the back of the concluding shot that was one of the nitpicked aspects of Ledger's Joker's appearance(making said character the supposed ACTUAL Joker of the off-shoot DC Movie-verse... even though we likely won't see that version of the character be played out).
Phillips tries strongly to yell to the audience NOT to be like Fleck, probably due towards the outright adoration that so many fans had with the first film. It's just a big mixed bag of "seems smart" regards & "ehh... maybe things could've/should've been different" views. Is the movie bad, though? No. Is it a musical? About as much as an 80's Disney cartoon film. So, take with it what you will, but you should NOT go into it expecting a bigger/more glorious take upon what you saw in the first film. This, in all truth, is a film that yells out, "THESE ARE THE CONSEQUENCES!!!" There's even a scene in the film that doesn't openly show him being forcibly molested-pseudo-raped by the asylum guards, but implies that he went through something that they truly would be arrested for.
All in all, it's NOT an easy movie to just step out of a theater after watching it on a Saturday afternoon & seek to see if you can act out in a similar manner. Yet, it is a dose of reality towards those that hoped to believe real life could have Hero/Villain regards like in comics, games & films.
3.5/5
^My rating for the film