Joker: Folie à Deux (dir. Todd Phillips)
By: Adam Freed
It has become entirely too common that the sequels of massively successful films amount to little more than fan service and an opportunistic maximization of studio profits. This tired formula would be a welcome replacement for whatever it is that Joker: Folie à Deux is attempting to achieve. Todd Phillips’ sequel can’t even accurately be called fan service as it is one of the messiest and most confounding disappointments of a sequel in a very long time. The inspirational nerve that was struck with Phillips’ Joker (2019) a film that not only netted Joaquin Phoenix (The Master, Her) the Academy Award for best actor, but also earned the film the distinction as the highest grossing R-rated film of all time for a half decade, is surely gone. In its place there are only the charred remnants of what might have become of a promising franchise. The decision to make Joker: Folie à Deux into a musical is intriguing, especially once the casting of Lady Gaga (A Star is Born) as Lee Quinzel (Harley Quinn), became public knowledge. Behold the apex example of one of the more cynical misuses of great talent in recent memory.
One of the cement blocks attached to the ankle of Joker: Folie à Deux is that the film is so painfully under-written that if one were to take a step back and question what actually occurs within the film, it is highly unlikely that anything of significance is presented. Deep in the bowels of the Joker’s character, the anarchist cookbook of all criminal masterminds, there lurks a destructive and distraught man who despite his penchant for chaos, elicits a welcome curiosity from audiences. There is something laudable about the character's dismissal of social morays and his desire to watch the world burn. Sadly, none of that mischievous fun is preserved in a film that paints Joaquin Phoenix’s infamous Arthur Fleck as little more than a mildly entertaining wreck of a man done in by the trauma of his youth. A second film was not required to illuminate for audiences that which the first had already accomplished sufficiently. Phillips’ film is shot almost entirely in medium close-up or tighter is so confounding, claustrophobic and utterly joyless that it even renders appearances by the immensely talented Brennan Gleeson (Paddington 2, The Banshees of Inisherin) and Lady Gaga as afterthoughts. This in addition to an unapologetically bloated runtime, which wouldn’t be an issue if it were in support of a story worthy of such investment.
Although Joker: Folie à Deux leaves little to ponder post credits, what may vex filmgoers the most is considering the last time a sequel marked such a pronounced decline from its original. Not since Return to Oz (1985) has the follow up to a tentpole film felt so underwhelming and utterly demeaning to its source material. In a year that has unfortunately been burdened by productions like Madame Webb and Argyle, it is painfully evident that Joker: Folie à Deux must join the ranks of the year's biggest theatrical disappointments.
Target Score 3/10: In what can only be categorized as one of the most disappointing sequels in modern film history, Joker: Folie à Deux wreaks of cynical malfeasance. The star-cross prison film cannot even claim status as a “big swing and miss” as it is so underwritten and dull that it fails to deliver even a fraction of the chaotic joy present in its original.