dir. Todd Phillips
2019’s Joker surprised audiences by being a reasonably engaging, different take on the Batman villain, after everyone thought there could be no interest in him again following Heath Ledger’s defining portrayal. But any goodwill Joker earned is swiftly annihilated with this pretentious, shallow sequel. Joaquin Phoenix reprises his role as Arthur Fleck / Joker, and Lady Gaga joins as his love interest Lee Quinzel. Very little of substance happens in the movie – at the end Arthur basically winds up exactly where he started, locked up in an institution, with just one consequential event in very final scene which really didn’t need over two hours of build up. Arthur goes on trial and it really makes no difference to anything at all, except that the audience is forced to sit through his erratic laughing and accent changes because these apparently make him “crazy”. Worse, the running time is unfortunately padded out even further by excruciatingly forced song numbers. Jukebox musicals ideally weave in the songs so they enhance the emotions of the story, but Folie à Deux seems to think the entire movie needs to pause to make way for the songs instead. The romance between Arthur and Lee is incredibly difficult to believe in, as none of them seems to have any reason to be drawn to the other – they just sing that that’s how they feel. As their connection is meant to be the backbone of the movie, obviously everything else around it fails. Joker: Folie à Deux is the ultimate proof that sometimes, one is enough.
BMDb 