Joker 2 Review

[Westside Steve]

Joker Folie a Deux

Warner Brothers

R. 120 min

One thing seems to be a constant in motion pictures, and that is the most interesting characters and the most fun to play are almost always the villains. Especially looking back to the 20s and 30s when the comic books originated. The superheroes were pretty straight guys. It wasn't until later that the Batman character himself became a lot more interesting as revisionists added to his backstory; see Christian Bale's Batman. The villains, especially in the Batman Universe, for all pretty crazy and dare I say the king of them all is and was the Joker. There have been a lot of memorable performances of this guy from the ridiculous Caesar Romero, the frenetic Jack Nicholson, a chillingly psychotic Heath Ledger, and now taking on the role for the second time, one of my favorites: Joaquin Phoenix. One of the origins of the Joker concerned street hoodlum Jack Napier falling into a vet of some sort of toxic waste which permanently disfigured him and snapped his already tenuous grip on sanity. Again in the old days of comic books the villains were most likely to be bank robbers or stick up artists or possibly kidnappers but as Americans grew more and more jaded it became necessary to make them even more brutal and demented in order to keep the attention of each generation. Also in attempting to draw in new and more modern viewers the producers will add characters played by actors meant to draw young people into the theaters. You might recall George Clooney being saddled with Chris O'Donnell as Robin, an experiment that fell flat. Much more successful was the addition of a psycho girlfriend for the Joker in Harley Quinn played by Margot Robbie who, in my opinion, owns that role. Now to draw in the kids Lady Gaga has taken over. I'll give props to Gaga who is a good singer, dancer choreographer and composer. She has done well with just about every role she's been given. And this Harley Quinn is different than Robbie's Harley Quinn so the switch up isn't really annoying. They are both crazy, of course, but Gaga's Quinn has deeper mental issues and is less, shall we say, heroic. Another thing you're going to find out soon enough as that this movie is almost a macabre musical. There are a lot of songs, too many in my opinion, that somewhat fit the feel. You know Gaga can sing and you get the feeling that Phoenix can sing but he's singing in character so it sounds terrible. And since this is something of a prequel there's no Batman around and the Joker / Arthur Fleck if you were buying the split personality hook, after committing a handful of murders was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He's been locked up in a mental prison, possibly Arkham, and abused by the guards who seem to be his friends one day and his tormentors the next. Maybe that's because of the strange cult following he's built up in prison.. Prosecutor Harvey Dent, later to become Two-Face in the BATMAN pictures, wants to remove the insanity plea and prove that the Joker is actually capable of being prosecuted. The storyline is barely comprehensible and the look is dark and surreal but that's what they're going for. It almost everybody on screen is out of their mind just like Arthur / Joker. Still as vague as this weird courtroom drama / love story may be it's still compelling, hard to look away from. But even though it doesn't put Phoenix at the top of my list of actors who have played this part he's certainly well within the top three along with Nicholson and Ledger.

B-

WSS

[DieHardBrownsFan1]

Haven't seen it but I read some reviews that said it sucked.  Guess it's a matter of opinion.

[Ibleedbrown]

That seems a worth-seeing review. I do like musicals. And l generally like Batman related stuff. Batman is basically the crown jewel of the DC comics world. I will abbreviate my love for Batman comics with Frank Miller, Gotham Central, and Batman and Catwoman are the steamiest couple in comics. I popped boners over that shit as a kid. 

I will totally agree that Robbie owned the role of Harley Quinn. 

I saw the first Joker movie and it was just ok for me. I may need to rewatch it. I actually kinda liked “The Batman” with Robert Pattinson , even though it’s too damn long and feels like it ends 3 times before it actually ends. But it accentuates the “world’s greatest detective” aspect of Batman, which l think is an underutilized thing in Batman movies. Looking forward to watching The Penguin, the spinoff on Max.