Joker: Folie à Deux
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| Joker: Folie à Deux | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 "I used to think my life was a tragedy. But now I realize... It was a fucking disaster."
— Arthur Fleck/Joker | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"Ha ha! You got me, Todd! About 40 bucks and five hours for these two movies, THAT WEREN'T EVEN ABOUT THE JOKER! GOOD ONE, TODD! HILARIOUS F*CKING JOKE, TODD! WE'RE ALL HAVING SUCH A GREAT TIME BECAUSE WE LEARNED SO MUCH, TODD!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!"
— Honest Trailers
Joker: Folie à Deux is a 2024 American musical psychological thriller film directed by Todd Phillips from a screenplay he co-wrote with Scott Silver. Loosely based on DC Comics characters, it is the sequel to Joker (2019) and stars Joaquin Phoenix reprising his role as the titular character, with Lady Gaga joining as his love interest Harley Quinn. Zazie Beetz also reprises her role from the previous film, while Brendan Gleeson and Catherine Keener join the cast. It is produced by Warner Bros. Pictures in association with Joint Effort.
Joker was conceived as a standalone film, although Warner Bros. intended the film to launch a DC Black film series. Phillips expressed interest in making a sequel. The sequel entered development in June 2022, with Gaga and Beetz joining later that year. Principal photography took place in New York City, Los Angeles, and Belleville, New Jersey, from December 2022 to April 2023.
Joker: Folie à Deux premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 2024, and was released in the United States on October 4, 2024. It was not well-received by critics, who deemed it inferior to its predecessor.
Plot
In an animated sequence, the Joker is impersonated by his shadow, who takes his place to perform his singing number for a TV show, and then abandons him on stage half-undressed, before three policemen arrive and beat him.
In 1983, Arthur Fleck was in custody at Arkham State Hospital awaiting trial for the crimes he committed two years prior. His lawyer, Maryanne Stewart, plans to argue that Arthur has dissociative identity disorder and that his "Joker" personality is responsible for the crimes. At a music therapy session, Arthur meets another patient, Harleen "Lee" Quinzel. Lee confides to Arthur that she grew up in the same neighborhood he did, had an abusive father who died in a car crash, and was imprisoned after burning down her parents' apartment building. Lee also expresses her admiration for the Joker's crimes and personality.
During a film screening, Lee starts a fire. She and Arthur are caught trying to escape, and Arthur is placed in solitary confinement. Lee seemingly visits him at night to say she is being released to avoid his influence but promises to attend his trial, and they have sex. During an interview with television personality Paddy Meyers, Arthur sings to Lee through the television screen, deepening her love for him.
On the day of the trial, Assistant District Attorney Harvey Dent calls witnesses who dismiss Arthur's claims of insanity. During a break, Maryanne reveals that Lee was a psychiatry student who grew up in the Upper West Side, and her father, a doctor, is alive. Furthermore, she voluntarily committed herself to Arkham, checked herself out, and never burned down an apartment building. When Arthur confronts Lee, she confesses that her lies were an effort to get close to Arthur but also tells him that she is pregnant and has moved into his old apartment building to create a home for them.
At the trial the next day, Arthur dismisses Maryanne and represents himself. After bringing Arthur's former co-worker Gary Puddles and neighbor Sophie Dumond to the stand, Dent rests his case. Arthur, visibly affected by Gary’s testimony, offers no defense, although, during his speech, he mentions the Arkham guards negatively. Returning to Arkham, he is taken to the shower room by head guard Jackie Sullivan and two guards, where he is brutally raped before being brought to his cell partially naked. Ricky, an inmate and friend of Arthur, verbally confronts the guards, resulting in Jackie strangling him to death. Overhearing this, Arthur reminisces about the aftermath of his first kills as Joker.
During his closing argument in court the following day, a devastated Arthur renounces his Joker persona, taking full responsibility for his actions. Enraged at this, Lee storms out, and the jury finds Arthur guilty of first-degree murder. As the foreman reads the verdict, a car bomb explodes outside the courthouse, killing and injuring numerous attendees and scarring half of Dent's face. In the chaos, two followers help Arthur escape.
Arthur wanders through Gotham and encounters Lee outside his old apartment, but she rejects him for renouncing his Joker persona and admits that the pregnancy was another lie before leaving. The police apprehend Arthur and return him to Arkham. The next day, a young patient approaches Arthur and begins to tell him a joke before repeatedly stabbing Arthur in the abdomen. As Arthur bleeds to death, the patient carves a Glasgow smile into his own face while laughing.
Why It's a Fucking Terrible Joke
- The film as a whole was very unnecessary, as the original didn't end with any sort of hint at continuation. Even Todd Phillips, who directed this film and its predecessor, was initially against making a sequel[citation needed] for the above reasons.
- The only real reason for this decision was to cash in on the financial success of the first.
- Besides that, this is inferior to what made the first film so great in the first place, as this one suffers from a lot of issues.
- The musical numbers are very awkward and disjointed. Yes, music was an integral part of the first film, but not to the extent seen here. This creates a very questionable genre clash between a musical and a psychological thriller in the vein of the original.
- Todd Phillips, Joaquin Phoenix, and Lady Gaga have all said that the film was not a musical, claiming that it is a film "where characters express themselves through music when scene and dialogue are not enough",[1] which is exactly what a musical is.
- The idea of making a musical sequel to a film that was mainly a thriller is just jarring.
- False advertising: The trailers for the film show Joker and Lee Quinzel storming the court stairs, recreating the iconic and memorable stairs dance scene from the first film. This scene, in particular, is nowhere to be seen in the actual film.
- Joker, the main character of the first/this film, is done dirty because of flanderization to the point where his personality is the same as in the 2016 Suicide Squad.
- This film has loads of padding, such as Arthur's trial, where the court recaps the events of the first film just in case the audience didn't see it.
- The infamous scene where it is implied that Jackie and the security guards raped Arthur.
- This film also completely rewrites Arthur into a man who regrets having the Joker persona. It's almost as if the writers realized that too many audience members fully sympathized with Arthur in the previous film, so they retconned Arthur embracing his life as the Joker to him regret having it in the first place.
- Plus, the "Joker identity" that Batman often fights is instead given to a random "Joker-devoted" inmate who stabs Arthur to death, making this film a complete retcon to the previous one.
- Mediocre direction from Todd Phillips, even though he already directed the first one and directed the sequel.
- Because of the padding as mentioned above, the film can be completely boring, especially to audiences who have seen the first film.
- Jackie is the most unlikable character in this entire film as he brutally beats up and rapes Arthur offscreen and kills Ricky; additionally, he's a Karma Houdini as he gets away with all the terrible stuff he did to poor Arthur.
- Most of the film takes place in either Asylum or Courtroom which makes the film boring to watch.
- There's also a completely insulting twist where it's revealed that Lee Quinzel (aka Harley Quinn) was never in the Arkham State Hospital by force but by her own will. This means that Lee was in full control of her mental state and it was her that was manipulating Arthur, not the other way around as most other depictions of a Joker/Harley relationship were.
- And if the ending is to be taken seriously, that means that Harley got away scot-free for treating Arthur as a tool and potentially getting him murdered.
- Terrible ending: After Arthur's death trial is announced, the courtroom explodes, which results in Harvey Dent becoming Two-Face as expected; Arthur runs away to see Lee by the iconic stairs from the first; Lee rejects Arthur while the latter is sentenced to death. Arthur gets captured and sent back to Arkham; a guard says he has a visitor; then, out of nowhere, a random inmate stabs Arthur to death, leaving him to bleed out; then, in the background, the inmate is carving a smile in his face to look like Joker from The Dark Knight film with a shiv. To say that the audience being pissed at this would be a severe slap in the face that not even the Joker would laugh at.
Redeeming Qualities
- The Looney Tunes-style animated intro scene short "Me and My Shadow" at the beginning is very well done.
- Speaking of Looney Tunes, Pepe Le Pew also makes a cameo. It is pretty nice to see him after Space Jam: A New Legacy.
- The performances are still great, as usual. Although she is likely there for stunt casting, Lady Gaga gives a great performance as Lee Quinzel/Harley Quinn.
- Additionally, Joaquin Phoenix reprises his role, and his performance as Joker is still good, as always.
- The lighting is pretty good and a huge upgrade from the first movie. This also enhances the cinematography very well and creates a great depth to that.
- Even if the musical numbers are unnecessary, they are still catchy.
- Also, the vocals in the soundtrack are actually nice, as usual, especially Gaga's vocals, since her voice is beautiful.
- Admittedly, the idea of Harley Quinn mentally abusing Joker was novel, and this film wasn't the first to incorporate this, as Batman: The Telltale Series did years earlier. The problem was that Telltale Games did their version of Harley abusing Joker that felt more natural than this, as Harley Quinn in Telltale's game had her father commit suicide before the events of the game.
- Like its prequel, the cinematography is just perfect, with the blue colors giving a nice contrast to its depth and the camera momentum and angles it does are really impressive/cool.
- Despite the issues, like a lot of bad movies, it can still be great to see a Joker movie in theaters after five years.
Reception
Compared to the previous film, Joker: Folie à Deux received negative reviews from critics and fans alike, calling it inferior to the previous film. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 32% of 253 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5/10. The website's consensus reads: "Joaquin Phoenix's eponymous Joker takes the stand in a sequel that dances around while the story remains still, although Lady Gaga's wildcard energy gives Folie à Deux some verve." On Metacritic, the film holds a 46/100, indicating "mixed or average reviews".