Joker: Folie à Deux | Film Review

Following the events of the first film, Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is awaiting trial for murder when he meets Lee (Lady Gaga), and immediately discovers just how powerful love can be.

I was really excited about seeing this before hearing the general view of it. I loved the first film so much and, while I didn’t think a sequel was necessary at all, I was excited to see where it would go. 

While I tried not to let public opinion sway me too much, I did go in with low expectations. But because of that, I was pleasantly surprised. It really wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be.

For a start, the opening was something I was expecting to hate, and while it was weird, it was also really original and I liked that. It told me that the film was going to take risks, which is always welcome for me.

I felt like I was in the minority before the film came out because I was really excited to read that it was a musical. It was unexpected, but also really inventive and fun. And while this didn’t always work, I thought the musical element did add to the surreal nature of the story, and they picked some great songs! And some of the musical numbers, particularly towards the end, are really quite powerful.

Though, maybe there were a bit too many songs?

It moved much slower than it needed to, and made the audience start to lose interest really early on. It also found unnecessary ways to increase the runtime when it would have really benefitted from being a bit shorter.

The plot is flimsy and, at times, just messy. Where the first film was a tight story, this one felt a bit all over the place.

It loses a lot of the surprise and shock that made the first one so good, which is one of the reasons why I didn’t want there to be a sequel in the first place. You can’t create that twice when we already know what the character is capable of.

But in saying that, for better or worse we’re getting much more of an insight into Arthur’s mind. Though for me this comes at the cost of losing a bit of Arthur’s voice. We knew who he was in the first film. In this one, he doesn’t even know who he is.

Even if the film was universally liked, it wouldn’t become the classic that the first one is because there’s no re-watchability. After we’ve seen it once, it’s really easy to file it away and never think about it again.

And then there’s the ending, which was the worst thing about the film.

Overall this was an odd movie as a standalone, and it didn’t really work as a sequel. I enjoyed it because of the originality and the risks it took, but there’s absolutely no contest between this one and the first one.

4.5/10