If you're being swept away by all the hype surrounding the latest release of Joker 2: Folie à Deux (especially from cinema companies, do we really need to deck the entire cinema with Joker designs and cards?!?) and wondering if you should find a day and time to watch it, here's my advice: DON'T.
While all of us were probably expecting the second movie to follow the style and themes of the first movie, somehow Joker 2: Folie à Deux can be considered a full-fledged musical. While it's understandable following from the first movie that music plays a key role in highlighting Arthur's Fleck descent into madness, did we really need 2 hours and 20 minutes of both Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga singing?
To be fair, the musical scores were great, it was just highly unnecessary for them to be singing every line, and many a times a full-length version of the song was not needed. The message was conveyed, and you'd find yourself wondering when they'd stop singing. The overdependence on music and singing truly takes away the signature pacing and dark themes of Joker (albeit, the movie is still pretty dark) making you wonder if you stepped into a dark La La Land or Joker.
For a movie with a screentime of 2 hours and 20 minutes, that's considered quite long for a cinema run. Again, following the first movie, I expected the pacing to be the same - where majority of the movie is used in a slower pace to build up to Arthur Felck/Joker's bombshell-dropping grand finale in the end.
Unfortunately, the ending fell short of even the lowest expectations, as it was pretty much an anti-climax that left so many of us in the cinema confused. The courtroom just got bombed, we assume it's by Lee but where is she? Where is he running to? What on earth is going on? Later on in the movie, the grand grand grandest finale shows Arthur being stabbed by a psychopathic inmate and eventually dies. Again, what is going on? There are no post-credit scenes, hence we're even more confused.
And while the overall storyline, plot and scores have been criticized, there is also a lack of fit and true purpose for Lady Gaga's Harley Quinn in Joker 2: Folie à Deux. While it is understandable that there is a love interest needed to drive Arthur to do many things and instil a will to live, in this movie, it was truly not necessary for that love to be Harley Quinn. Not much was mentioned about her background and only stated explicitly that she was a psychology graduate that lied to him to get closer.
With this, his love interest could just be anyone, and it was indeed quite disappointing to see that a key character with so much potential like Harley Quinn be wasted away just as a accessory to escape the Arkham Asylum. Until the end, her true purpose was never nailed down, we have no idea if she was truly in love with Arthur or just loved Joker, and what her intention was in getting closer to him.
There is also a lack of performance from Lady Gaga at this end - Harley Quinn is a character that is meant to be quite insane (reflected in her behaviour but she remains level-headed in combat) yet gives out a catwoman-ey, sexy vibe. None of which were exuded from Lady Gaga, unfortunately - the vibe she gave off was more of a rich woman with nothing to do than to walk in and out of the asylum and wherever Arthur was. Can't help but to compare - Margot Robbie is a much better Harley Quinn.
Overall, I'd rate Joker 2: Folie à Deux a solid 2 out of 10. As always, Joaquin Phoenix's acting is top-notch (as expected from an Academy Award-winner) and some of the music scores where fairly quite nice, but that's the only two points I'd give credit for. Highly recommend to wait out the hype and watch it on Netflix or other relevant streaming sites later on when it's off the cinema.
C Chai is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact Newswav.