Joker: Folie a Deux

Creatively, ‘Joker: Folie a Deux’ swings for the fences.   Unfortunately, it seems to be playing with a Nerf bat.

Translation – you can have the most ambitious, most eclectic ideas on the planet, but if they’re BAD ideas and don’t have any weight behind them, your result ain’t gonna go far.  It won’t connect, and it won’t work.  And make no mistake, this Joker sequel doesn’t work.  At all.

Part of the problem here is that director Todd Phillips set the bar awfully high in really creating something special with the original.  ‘Joker’ was a gritty throwback, an obvious salute to Scorsese’s ‘Taxi Driver’, right down to soaking in the 70’s era….it was unsettling, it made intelligent statements, and it was a stunning comic book film while, at the same time, amazingly thumbing its nose AT comic book films.

Now comes ‘Joker: Folie a Deux’.  Like its predecessor, it’s daring and hungry to be different.  UNLIKE its predecessor, it goes down the wrong path.  This sequel isn’t what the fan base was wanting and, after seeing it twice, I’m honestly wondering if ANYONE was wanting this.

Beginning with an animated sequence that sort of recaps the first film….admittedly, a smart start that shows promise for what’s to come..but things go downhill from there.  Arthur Fleck/Joker (Joaquin Phoenix), incarcerated at Arkham Asylum while awaiting trail for all the murders in the original, meets Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga), a fellow inmate.  They fall in love and Lee convinces Arthur to ditch his lawyer and represent himself in court, leading to song-and-dance numbers, and……well, honestly, I would’ve loved to sit in on Phillips’ pitch for this concept to the studio.  Perhaps I would’ve understood the point a little better.

Despite the insistence from the filmmaker that this is not a musical, it is.  And it’s not a very good one.  Again, I appreciate the effort, I sincerely do.  If ‘Joker: Folie a Deux’ should be commended for anything, it’s that it takes chances.  But when chances have such severely slim odds of surviving, bravery becomes stupidity.  Yes, it’s still Oscar winner Phoenix at work here, and yes….it’s still Oscar winner Lady Gaga giving it her all here.  They’re trying.  But what they’ve been given to work with just has no clout.