As I left the screening last night, I told the PR representative that I liked him [Todd Phillips] Made a movie that no one will like. Clown: Pas de deux At the end of the movie, I heard groans from the fans I was watching with. That’s something that everyone didn’t expect, how different the feel and tone was from the first one, and how different the world was I doubt it was when the first movie came out in 2019 and grossed over $1 billion.
Joaquin Phoenix Returning as Arthur Fleck clown Set in this world two years after the events of the first film. He’s spent the past two years in Arkham State Hospital waiting for the murder trial to begin for the people he killed in the first film. During his stay, he met Li (李) Lady Gagain the prisoner’s music class because he behaved so well. Their fascination with each other, combined with the court trial, pushes Fleck back into the fantasy-driven state of mind that made him the Joker in the first place. The film is about the impact of this character, which had a very public impact on the people of the city, or that’s what the film hopes to convey.
The problem is that the film ends up being a very bland and sometimes downright boring courtroom drama that repeats too much what happened in the last film and builds on the strengths and themes of the first film with different characters. Real-world conversations are litigated. The movie is over two hours and eighteen minutes long, and it felt like every minute I was there was as long as it was. I think Phillips and Todd SilverThe writers fell into a narrative trap of trying to connect many of the first film’s real-world criticisms to the world of the film through characters like Harvey Dent (Harry Lawty) and not that, to me, this Joker is actually different from Batman’s unnamed iconic foe. There are elements at work here, such as the poor treatment of prisoners by the police, the media’s need for spectacle, and of course things used in the last film, Gotham’s class divide leading up to that big riot.
Phoenix’s on-screen portrayal of Fleck remains mesmerizing as he once again lost a lot of weight and looks like this skinny cartoon character because of his freewheeling sanity and need for love and recognition from others. He’s very good at controlling his facial expressions to show the emotions Fleck is dealing with internally. Much of the film is about the character dealing with his own responsibility for what happened to Maryanne, a lawyer (Catherine Keener) trying to save his life through an insanity defense, Fleck and the Joker are two different characters. Nothing could explain why she believed this, other than that she was his defender. It’s the opposite of Dent, the young assistant district attorney who is seeking the death penalty, and you never understand why the character doesn’t do much to make you think he cares enough to pursue the sentence. This isn’t a Dent movie, but it would have been nice to focus more on his driving reasons for thinking Fleck should die.
The film, like the first, looks stunning thanks to Phillips’ long-standing collaboration, Lawrence Schell. The way they choose shots and work with the lighting team to bombard you with beautiful images as you get more and more bored with the story makes this movie so watchable that I would still buy the 4K version of this movie because I like the look of it. They make great use of color to tell the story and whether we the audience are watching the real world or Fleck’s daydream. The costumes also capture an early eighties feel, as it still looks like the seventies, and it continues to immerse itself in this version of Gotham, but this time straying away from Scorsese in an attempt to be something of its own.
I guess it’s time to talk about the musical nature of the film and how it works and doesn’t work. Some people hate musicals because the bursting nature of the songs disrupts the reality of their world. It no longer feels real. The film chooses to do a few things: have the characters hum or sing naturally, play the song in the world, and keep the complete musical sequence in Fleck’s head as he processes what’s going on around him, letting the characters in the song Outbreaks, people look at and treat them with disdain for having a mental illness. The songs are mostly old pop songs that fit the storyline; the original songs didn’t quite work as well as they should have for me, but I wasn’t bothered by any of them. Phoenix sings well on his own and sometimes with Gaga, but he’s by no means a Bradley Cooper duet with her, like in a star is born. Sure, Gaga’s singing ability is incredible, but her character isn’t the well-thought-out version she’s known for. Harley Quinn. They go in a different direction with her than other recent work, which is interesting, but Gaga doesn’t do enough. In many ways, she exists to make sure the musical parts are great.
Now, earlier, I said that I found it interesting that I could find things that I liked in the story, thinking on a meta level about the multiple interpretations of these DC characters because they’ve been reinvented so many times. I love how different Fleck is from the Joker we usually see, while also being inspired by The killer joke and three clowns even man who loves to laugh The character was inspired from the beginning of the movie. To me, in the first movie, it all fit into the overall pop culture canon of the character. Honestly, I just don’t want to get tired of the same shots. A lot of other people I personally know, especially comics readers and professionals, aren’t as open to it. When other people like it, all you can do is shrug. There’s a lot to be said for the overreaction to the first film, like the idea that just because the filmmakers used Joker to pay homage to August’s Martin Scorsese film, it ended Western society. But that’s not it, people.
This movie tries to be everything to everyone, but ends up being for no one. Having said that, the story is over and these two films tell a complete story for the character of Arthur Fleck and are probably more worth watching at home rather than rushing to the theater which ultimately feels like a waste of time and most people’s money.
