Joker: Folie à Deux Review
Is it a riveting courtroom drama? Is it a story of a hopeless romantic? Is it a bright colored musical that makes everyone have a good time? Joker: Folie à Deux can’t seem to decide, and usually, that’s not a good thing.
Joaquin Phoenix is back as the Crowned Prince of Crime as his character struggles with his double identity as Arthur Fleck and Joker. While awaiting trial, Fleck meets the love of his life, Harley Quinn played by Lady Gaga.
As a general warning, there will be spoilers all over this review. This is a direct sequel to the 2019 movie, Joker. That movie ends as chaos is ensuing in Gotham after Fleck kills talk show host Murray Franklin. For the majority of this movie, Fleck is on trial for the murder of Franklin and four others.
Phoenix and Gaga give very good performances as their respective characters. Now these characters aren’t the ones typically shown in the comics or in other movies or TV shows. Joker isn’t the madman leading the mob against Batman, and Harley Quinn isn't Joker’s psychiatrist, but she does fall madly in love with him. Having these iconic characters not be true to their roots is a problem.
Because these characters are more unfaithful to their source material than faithful, it can make it a hard watch. There’s a desperation for Batman to show up, and for Joker to take control and become the criminal mastermind that he is, but it never happens.
The dynamic between Joker and Harley Quinn is interesting to say the least. There is no Joker and Harley without Joker, but during the trial Joker’s defense is that Arthur Fleck and Joker are two different people. While Joker’s defense strategy makes for a good courtroom drama, it hurts the movie when Harley is only there for Joker. She doesn’t see Fleck because she doesn’t want to. Ultimately, this movie is almost a hopeless romance about Joker as he also falls madly in love with Harley, but she abandons him when he abandons the Joker persona.
While the dating life of Joker and Harley Quinn is a huge part of the movie, it’s not the only part. This movie is infamously a musical. There was some good and bad about the music in this movie. Most of the songs were written by Lady Gaga and were released as a part of her most recent album, Harlequin. When there’s a musical talent like that on the cast, why not use it, right? There was a downside to some of this: not all of the music is original. For a movie marketed as a musical, there should be all original songs. Make it unique, make it for the movie. Since it wasn’t all original music, it felt very blunt for the characters. Instead of letting the audience interpret the songs and what they mean, the music told everyone who watched exactly what the characters were going through.
Some of the music was in Joker’s head, but some wasn’t. It might’ve been mildly confusing at first, but it was clear what was going on by the end of the first song. He also wanted to have that perfect relationship with Harley, but as it went on, it was shown very clearly that was never going to be the case.
With ups and downs for the dynamic of Joker and Harley, and ups and downs with the music, there are ups and downs with what this movie sets up. At the end of the movie, Joker is stabbed and killed by another inmate in Arkham Asylum and then the killer begins to laugh like a maniac, similar to Joker. Also towards the end of the movie, there is a bomb that goes off at the courthouse, and the prosecuting attorney Harvey Dent is shown to have injuries on his face. Obviously he’ll become the villain Two Face if this franchise continues.
Like I previously mentioned, this movie constantly feels like it needs Batman. At the end of the first movie we see the Waynes get shot and killed in an alley. There are things like this which make it seem this could lead to a DC Elseworlds project like 2022’s The Batman. Director Todd Philips has said that this Joker won’t become the Joker that most fans know and love. With constant references with characters and the Waynes playing a large part in the first movie, this feels destined to lead to Batman sometime in the future.
Regardless of the downsides, there are upsides to them. The dynamic between Joker and Harley Quinn works well aside from some core character changes, the courtroom drama part of the movie was done very well and should’ve been featured more, and the music was not the worst thing imaginable. On top of all of that, there is some very well done choreography, camera work, direction, set design, and use of VFX. For the roller coaster of a ride that Joker: Folie à Deux was, it gets a 77/100.
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