Joker: Folie à Deux

Combining movie genres can be tricky business. When the mix is right, the outcome can be truly impressive, but, when it’s off, it can spell cinematic disaster. In the case of this long-awaited sequel to the 2019 box office and critically acclaimed success, unfortunately, the result is closer to the latter than the former. Picking up where the protagonist’s story left off, this saga about charismatic villain Arthur Fleck (a.k.a., the Joker) (Joaquin Phoenix) finds him in prison awaiting trial for his string of heinous crimes. Most of the picture’s first half takes place here, an unlikely venue for Arthur meeting the love of his life, the psychopathic Lee Quinzel (a.k.a., Harley Quinn) (Lady Gaga), who diligently stands by her man when he eventually goes to court, the primary focus of the film’s second half. So, at this point, the picture is already part prison film, part courtroom drama and part dark romance. But, if that weren’t enough, writer-director Todd Phillips draws upon a fourth genre – musicals – to make the mix even more overstuffed (but, hey, if you’ve got a talent like Lady Gaga at your disposal, why not, right?). The result is a convoluted, overlong, often-uninteresting offering that’s heavy on style but weak on substance and not especially interesting. Admittedly, the performances of the two leads and many of the supporting players (Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener and Steve Coogan in particular) are quite good, doing a more than commendable job of making this material look far better than it actually is. In addition, stylistically speaking, the picture is terrific when it comes to its production design, costuming and cinematography. And the soundtrack is great, too, including an array of superbly chosen standards to complement the narrative (even if there are a few too many selections). But these strengths by themselves aren’t enough to make a good picture overall; what’s stuck in between these elements feels more like filler than substance, and that’s where the movie falls apart. In my view, “Joker: Folie à Deux” isn’t as resoundingly awful as many reviewers have made it out to be in light of its artistic and aesthetic accomplishments, but that doesn’t mean this release is not without its share of problems, most notably in the dreadful writing and mishandled film editing. This is one of those pictures where you get to the end and are likely to heave a heavy “Ho hum, so what?” And that’s regrettable, given that the character and this picture’s predecessor both deserved better than what this follow-up has to offer. If you haven’t seen this yet, you might be better off sticking to the picture’s genuinely stellar trailer, as that’s ultimately much better than most of what’s found in this clunky 2:18:00 release.

I was going to go and see the first Joaquin Phoenix outing as the "Joker" (2019) to remind my self of who did what to whom, but I didn't have time. I think I am glad because I recall that being so very much better than this. Here, we pick up after "Fleck" (Phoenix) has been on his clown-faced slaughtering spree and is in prison supervised by prison officer "Jackie" (Brendan Gleeson). His lawyer "Maryanne" (Catherine Keener) is trying to have him declared competent to stand trial for his crimes so she can plead some sort of personality disorder defence - he's not "Fleck" when he's the "Joker" sort of thing. Thing is, he encounters "Lee" (Lady Gaga) at a prison sing-a-long and she manages to ingratiate herself with him and then to derail that plan ensuring the plot twists it's way into the courtroom where his conviction for multiple homicides quickly appears as inevitable as there being a song in the film. Now I did like the soundtrack, but by the way Todd Phillips has presented this, it might as well have been either Tony Bennett or Newley who took on the leading role as her part is largely a series of entertainingly photographed music videos with the thinnest slices of meat constituting a weak story in between. It's a love story, I suppose, but that wasn't really what I turned up to see. There's loads of excess, but no menace or jeopardy and the character's previous adeptness at treading the thin line between sanity and madness isn't really developed at all here. He comes across more as a pathetic, emaciated, prisoner whose flame has well and truly gone out. His legal antagonist (Harry Lawtey) looks about eleven years old but that doesn't really matter either as the judicial proceedings themselves offer us little by way of sustaining drama, even as we build to a denouement that offers the tiniest bit of hope then... It's a stunning piece of cinema, money has been spent and there's imagination a-plenty from the production's designers. It's just too much of a jigsaw of a film with too little plot serving as a vehicle for an album boxed-set that's doubtless ready to hit the shops.

**_Joker falls in love in prison and goes to trial while singing songs_** Whilst the 2019 movie was intended to be a standalone film, Joaquin Phoenix said he felt there was more to explore with the character, which was augmented by his dreams that inspired the idea to make the potential sequel a musical. Since the original film was a mega-hit, the creative wheels started rolling and Lawrence Sher was reenlisted as cinematographer, citing Francis Ford Coppola's “One from the Heart” (1982) as an influence. The story is simple and condensed into my title blurb; it’s just a brooding continuation of the original film, with the addition of two thrilling sequences in the final act (which I’m not going to give away). If you took out all of the song & dance sequences, you’d have a 95-minutes movie. So, whether or not you’ll like this flick comes down to if you can stomach the imaginative musical pieces. If you enjoyed “Chicago” and “Into the Woods” or even “The Wizard of Oz,” and are open to that approach mingled with the dark side of the DC universe, specifically the Batman mythos, you’ll probably appreciate this. If not, you’ll rail against it. I get that ‘Lady Gaga’ (Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta) is an acquired taste, but she’s uniquely beautiful here and performs well. Surprisingly, there’s no physical exploitation, which I respect. At the end of the day, this isn’t as captivating as the original film, yet a lot of that has to do with the unpalatable or mundane nature of the plot; I’m talking about the setting of a prison hospital and the court room happenings. So, in my mind, the colorful song & dance routines perk things up from time to time. It runs 2h 18m and was shot from Dec-Apr 2022-2023 at the abandoned Essex County Isolation Hospital in northeast New Jersey, which is a dozen miles west of the Lincoln Tunnel. Other exterior places include New York City (the County Courthouse and the “Joker stairs” in the Bronx) and downtown Los Angeles. Studio stuff was done at Warner Brothers Burbank Studios. GRADE: B/B-