'Joker 2': Folie à Poo Poo
The Clown Prince's last laugh is a total joke ... for all the wrong reasons
"Joker: Folie à Deux" was a boring, underwhelming film that lacked imagination, creativity and heart. The film follows Arthur Fleck a few years after his arrest in the first film, "Joker," for the murder of Murray Franklin. As he waits to stand trial and plead insanity, he meets a woman named Harley Quinn who has other plans for him.
This film was a giant slog to get through. The film starts out pretty creatively with an animated recap of the first film in "Looney Toons" fashion, but that's the only creative thing I saw in this movie.
For those who don’t know, this movie is a musical, and a terrible one at that.
Joaquin Phoenix was alright, but his singing as Arthur Fleck was awful. At points he sounded like a young Dean Martin but at others he sounded like a busted squeaky-toy.
Same goes for Lady Gaga, surprisingly, too. Her acting is borderline average, but her singing is atrocious. Did Gaga film this movie while battling COVID-19? Because she sounded like a wounded goose. The accent she was trying to pull off while using her normal singing voice was a horrible mix.
Brendan Gleeson ("Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," "Into the Storm") is the best actor in this, playing Arthur's security guard. I loved his character because he was realistically written and offered a good commentary about police brutality and abuse of prison inmates.
I loathed the pacing of the movie. There's a lot of shots of Arthur walking, and talking, and more walking, then a song, and then back to more talking. Much like that sentence, a lot of the movie seemed like it was tripping over its own foot, rather than being a Joker movie.
The movie wanted to be a commentary on police brutality and how the system work, which is fine. The problem is that the movie wasn't advertised that way.
The visuals were sloppy, dark and very poorly lit, and don't get me started on the unnecessary sex scene between Harley and Arthur. Ugh! Talk about disgusting!
The music choices were boring and predictable, and the covers suck.
Don’t waste your time with this film. I beg you to see "The Wild Robot" or "Transformers One" instead!
"Joker: Folie à Deux" is a 4/10, redeemed only by Brenden Gleeson.
Carter Salley is Central Michigan Life's resident film reviewer and co-host of the pop culture podcast "Raving Geeks." He is majoring in Media Arts.
