The end of the 2010s were the apex of superhero popularity: everything from “Avengers: Endgame” to “Shazam!” were at the forefront of pop culture’s interaction with cinema.
The first “Joker” from 2019 was an alternative to the science-fantasy action-comedies that permeated the genre space. It satisfied the toxic cultural appetite for the fables of superheroics from adolescence to be dragged into the world of adulthood. It was also terrible, but it won Joaquin Phoenix an Oscar and it made a billion dollars. Of course there was going to be a sequel.
It’s been a long five years since the original film. With a wild tonal shift to the musical genre and an additional lead in the form of Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, one would assume that director Todd Phillips would take the criticism from the first and grow it into something better.
Alas, “Joker: Folie á Deux” ends up feeling embarrassed about its own existence. The swing into the musical theater genre is hampered by Phillips’ inability to see the value in his own theatrical choices. As a result, its origins as both a superhero story and a musical both feel like self-imposed obligations on the drama Phillips wants to tell rather than a real exploration of either genre.
Two years after the events of the first film, Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) finds himself locked up in Arkham Asylum. Set upon by a swath of abusive guards and a potential death sentence for his violent murder spree, Arthur falls in love at first sight when he notices the enigmatic Lee (Lady Gaga) occupying the same prison. As he tackles his case and his new romance head-on, Arthur confronts his past and his identity as Joker to discover who he really is.
Sequels often indicate a larger scale, and while budget-wise that’s true — a jump from ~$70 million to $200 million — this insane asylum/courtroom drama feels oddly small in comparison to the first. If nothing else, the first “Joker” had the vision to show Gotham City’s underbelly in a way that gave the fictional metropolis some life.
Here, everything is mostly confined to two interiors. They’re beautiful spaces — production designer Mark Friedberg uses that budget boost to give his sets a real grandeur — but nonetheless we often feel trapped between a few rooms.
Don’t forget the ‘deux’ part of the title, because yes, Lady Gaga is technically in this movie. For such a big marketing draw, it’s bizarre that her character is written most similarly to the one-dimensional doting wives found in Phillips’ earlier “Hangover” films. She has nothing to do here beyond furthering Joker’s ankle-deep discovery of his identity that he already did in the first film. All of her (shockingly short) screen time is devoted to telling Joker that he should be Joker.
But she does sing! The medium of a musical finds itself in a unique position to relay emotion through the fantastical nature of song, and it is a tool to render powerful emotions through music and narrative.
Phillips fundamentally does not understand this. There are around five or six numbers in the film, and they are all prefaced by making it very clear that these sequences are purely the imagination of the Joker. As quickly as they come, the film tries to sweep them away to get back to the story instead of incorporating them into the narrative in any meaningful way.
On top of that, they’re blandly choreographed: Phoenix and Gaga will start out sitting and then just kind of awkwardly mull around a room while they finish out the song. It’s boring to watch, and more importantly, it’s a pointless aside. The most apt reference point for their inclusion in the film is that of a “Family Guy” cutaway gag.
If you want to watch a good musical, go watch “Please Baby Please.” If you want to watch a good Joker movie, go watch “The People’s Joker.” If you want to be lulled into a deep coma over the course of two and half hours, go watch “Joker: Folie á Deux.”
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