Review: 'Joker: Folie a Deux' a maddening waste of time

Warner Bros. Pictures, 2024.

A divisive movie if there ever was one, 2019's "Joker" was a movie that I was absolutely enthralled by. Not even considering Joaquin Phoenix's Oscar-winning (and well-deserved) performance, it was a movie that took an inspired, serious deep-dive into the causes-and-effects of mental illness, using a well-established and iconic comic book villain as its lens. It was nuanced, gripping and did not offer any easy answers. Was Phoenix's Arthur Fleck born mad? Or was he the predictable end-product of a broken and corrupt societal system? By the film's end, he had inspired the poor and down-trodden citizens of Gotham City...but was Arthur truly the actual Joker that we all would come to know as the arch-nemesis to Gotham's eventual hero, Batman?

(Read my review of the original "Joker" here).

With it's incredible, record-breaking box office success - grossing over 1 Billion dollars and breaking the record for highest-grossing R-Rated film of all-time, until this year's "Deadpool & Wolverine" surpassed it - it was perhaps inevitable that a sequel was demanded, if not required.  Lady Gaga signed on to play Joker's comic book love interest, Harley Quinn, and it was announced that both Phoenix and director Todd Phillips would return. It made fan-boys salivate at the curious announcement that "Joker 2" would actually be...a musical? I guess it could make sense...we are dealing with a master anarchist, a man so crazy and unpredictable that in his world, anything can make sense.

Everything was teed up for "Joker: Folie a Deux" (translated from French as "madness shared by two") to be a massive success. It ends up being one of the most egregious misfires in recent movie memory.

***Spoilers are to follow, be warned.***

Grade: C

The sequel picks up a good while after the events of the first film, with Arthur Fleck spending his days inside a cell and the walls of the infamous Arkham Asylum. On the particular day that this movie takes place, Arthur is in no joking mood. Under the watchful eye and hard fist of a prison guard (played gleefully by Brendan Gleeson), Arthur is shuffled from his cell, to his shower, and to the outside "recreation" area of the Asylum where he sits unusually quiet and somber.

He happens to catch eyes with a fellow inmate, Lee Quinzell (Lady Gaga), and the two are instantly enamored with each other. As Fleck has become somewhat of an icon to the citizens of Gotham (especially after an apparent TV movie about him was aired), Lee seems obsessed not with Arthur, but with his Joker persona. She tries like hell to foster this side of him, and for perhaps the first time in his life, Arthur feels like he has something to live for.

Despite these sparks flying, the movie itself never catches fire. It's aesthetically interesting...a credit to Todd Phillips for keeping things so despite how little actually happens. Gaga is effective even as her character is written paper-thin. Phoenix gives what ends up being another stellar, if wasted, performance. But glance at the clock, and an hour of the film has passed by with us still hanging out with Arthur in prison. The second-half of the film shifts to become a stilted and stunted courtroom drama, as Arthur faces the death penalty for the previous movie's crimes.

Perhaps most fatal and disappointing of all, "Joker: Folie a Deux" is simple...a glaring juxtaposition with how complex the first "Joker" was. It dumbs down its characters, revising Arthur no longer as an enigma, but as a man with a split-personality. Really? Is that what The Joker is? He is so much more interesting when you can't quite put a finger on him, or on his motives. The movie wants you to wonder if he is really the canonical Joker, or not. If he is Arthur, or not. As the movie slogged along, I became increasingly offended as an audience member that this movie wasn't interested in challenging me in the ways that the first film did. It was binary. Dumbed-down. Simple. All of the things that the Joker is not.

But that my friends, is when I discovered that the real joke is on us. Is "Joker: Folie a Deux" a giant middle finger from Todd Phillips to the slobbering fan-base? It's hard to make an argument against this. You wanted a "different" kind of comic book movie? Here it is. You wanted a sequel, you little worms? Here it is.

We learn nothing about these characters that we already didn't know from the first film. This sequel is so claustrophobic, that we seem to be locked up alongside Fleck, with most scenes unfolding in the way that a stage play might and with the actual Gotham City locked away outside of reach and sight. There is no mention or reference to Bruce Wayne, or anything tying this to anything other than the first film. Phillips seems bored with the idea of exploring mental health any further than he did in the first film, and the only inspiration comes in his efforts to give people exactly what he thinks they don't want. I'm all for doing things in your own way...but this is not an artistic choice here. It's brazen indifference.

And I haven't even gotten to the musical elements of the film.

"Joker: Folie a Deux" is a musical, technically, in that people are shown on screen singing. But the musical "numbers" are not well-done. The song choices are too obvious. Gaga is great, of course, but Phoenix is horrible, by design.

Given nothing to grab on to, I have come to the following conclusion about "Joker: Folie a Deux": The entire movie is meant to show us that Arthur Fleck is in fact NOT the Joker...not the Joker that goes on to face-off against Batman. Arthur tries to become something he's not, as he searches for an identity that he doesn't have a grasp on.

Even when he is "Joker," he is bad at it, comparatively speaking to the other versions we've seen on screen and on paper. He has musical fantasies, but this man is no singer. He wants to be a good person for Lee, but he is not a good person. He is indeed a product of our society, in that he will always blame society for his own actions instead of ever taking personal responsibility for them.

He is a giant, face-painted, sociopathic fraud. And yet, the people love him and will do anything for him. He is also so legendary, that his legend - his shadow, if you will - is bigger than him. The world no longer needs him, but what he "represents" will live on in others far beyond his time. The damage, as they say, is done.

Whether or not that sounds familiar to you, it's as depressing a story as you'll find, and a maddening waste of all of our time.

Grade: C

Genre: Crime, Drama, Musical
Run Time: 2 hours 18 minutes
Rated: R

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Harry Lawtey, Steve Coogan.

Directed by Todd Phillips ("Joker," "War Dogs," "The Hangover" trilogy, "Old School," "Road Trip").

"Joker: Folie a Deux" is in theaters everywhere.