Joker: Folie à Deux Is an Anti-Sequel That Pretends To Be Great, but Never Is

The biggest misdeed committed by Joker: Folie à Deux is its inability to beryllium a due sequel. Ideally, sequels should grow a story, enrich the characters, and instrumentality the assemblage connected an unexpected travel filled with caller radical and places. Here we conscionable caller radical and spot caller places, but the communicative and characters are firmly stuck successful the archetypal movie, unwilling and incapable to make oregon grow. Director and co-writer Todd Phillips continually teases absorbing caller ideas and themes but ne'er makes bully connected them. In fact, astatine times helium purposefully sets thing up lone to teardrop it down. As a result, Joker: Folie à Deux mightiness beryllium the astir non-sequel sequel ever made. It’s enactment 1 of the adjacent section stretched into a afloat movie, which is simultaneously unsatisfying and frustrating.

When we past near Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), he’d conscionable murdered a TV big connected unrecorded television, mounting disconnected a question of chaos and demolition successful Gotham City. Two years later, Arthur has been successful situation and is getting acceptable to spell connected trial, but his popularity hasn’t waned. The metropolis inactive seems obsessed with Arthur’s change ego, Joker, and proving those 2 personas are antithetic is the cardinal constituent to his defense. Wait, we’re sorry. Arthur successful situation awaiting proceedings is wherever the live-action portion of the movie starts off. The existent commencement of the movie is simply a Looney Tunes-style cartoon that adds thing to the communicative oregon code too mounting up a signifier of disorder and disappointment that volition proceed passim the film.

Lee and Joker successful Joker: Folie à Deux – Warner Bros.

Soon Arthur meets Lee (Lady Gaga), a diligent successful the prison’s minimum information helping who reveals she’s a Joker superfan. The 2 footwear disconnected a romance; the lone mode for the lovebirds to explicit their emotions is large-scale philharmonic numbers, with Arthur and Lee singing popular standards oregon amusement tunes either successful the situation oregon different phantasy locations. These scenes are beauteous and often rather entertaining. Plus, the mode Phillips cuts them in, we are near guessing what’s existent and what isn’t, and oftentimes we conjecture incorrectly.

Through each of this, Joker: Folie à Deux keeps our interest. Will Arthur beryllium capable to get distant with murder? How volition his newfound emotion alteration him arsenic a person? Can Gotham City grip the information the proceedings is being broadcast connected TV? We bash get immoderate answers to those questions but seldom successful the mode we expect. Arthur mostly remains the aforesaid aged Arthur, bittersweet and quiescent sometimes, boisterous and convulsive astatine others. From the archetypal scenes done the ending, helium seldom deviates oregon reveals caller penetration into his psyche. Lee is the 1 happening that does alteration Arthur a bit, making her a cleanable complement, but the movie aboriginal reveals things astir the quality that undercut overmuch of that.

Once the proceedings begins though, Joker: Folie à Deux truly loses its way. What we anticipation volition beryllium an entertaining, tense, astonishing matter becomes an extended rehash of the archetypal movie, with characters from it returning to attest and archer america things we already know. We deliberation that’ll alteration erstwhile Arthur, seemingly retired of nowhere, fires his lawyer and decides to support himself. Again though, with this Phillips sets up the imaginable for thing peculiar and it doesn’t wage off. We fundamentally get 1 afloat country of Arthur the Lawyer wherever it’s wide neither helium nor the movie person immoderate hint what to bash with this idea.

Arthur is not doing large successful prison. – Warner Bros.

All the while, Joker: Folie à Deux keeps teasing its assemblage successful unsatisfying ways. Will Arthur and Lee’s philharmonic fantasies magnitude to anything? They don’t. Does Lee’s fandom for Joker accidental thing successful peculiar astir the quality of celebrity? Not really. Scenes we privation to beryllium longer are not. Scenes we privation to beryllium abbreviated are long. And each clip the movie sets up a question to beryllium answered and either doesn’t oregon wholly flips it connected its head, it gets progressively maddening. This whitethorn person been the constituent but it doesn’t rather work.

All of which whitethorn person been good if immoderate of it amounted to something. Some justification for the ping pong crippled Phillips is playing with the film’s crippled and themes. Instead, without spoiling anything, the film’s 3rd enactment aggressively goes against everything connected an adjacent grander stage. It not lone blows up this film, but the archetypal movie too, leaving america to wonderment wherefore the heck we watched immoderate of this successful the archetypal place.

To beryllium fair, determination are immoderate bully things going connected successful Joker: Folie à Deux. As 1 whitethorn expect, Joaquin Phoenix is conscionable arsenic awesome arsenic helium was successful the archetypal film, for which helium won an Academy Award. Lady Gaga is electrical passim and each clip she’s connected screen, either arsenic Lee oregon immoderate philharmonic phantasy mentation of her, the movie lights up and is amended for it. And the cinematography by Lawrence Sher is sumptuous, giving the full movie a precise retro, epic feel. It’s conscionable a shame the bully enactment of those radical and everyone other is betrayed by the communicative they are telling.

Joker: Folie à Deux is little astir Arthur than it’s a stand-in for him. It’s a movie, arsenic good arsenic a character, that isn’t rather definite what it wants to be, oregon adjacent what it is, truthful it messes astir and yet decides it doesn’t privation to beryllium thing astatine all. At slightest the archetypal Joker near you with immoderate things to deliberation about. Here you’re conscionable near frustrated astatine everything that could person been oregon ne'er was.

Joker: Folie à Deux is successful theaters Friday.

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