The following is my review of the 2024 sequel Joker: Folie à Deux, directed by Todd Phillips, starring Joaquin Phoenix (returning as the titular villain) and Lady Gaga (as Harleen “Lee” Quinzel). This review was written as I viewed the film for the first time, notated over the course of its 138-minute duration.
Before I begin, in the interest of full disclosure, I felt the 2019 Joker film (also directed by Phillips) was serviceable but overrated, being that its running time seemed largely devoted to endless takes of Phoenix (“Arthur Fleck”) smoking, crying, and daubing on clown makeup, interspersed with scenes of sudden violence that appeared to be cribbed from Scorsese classics like The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver. That being said, I did feel that the movie’s infamous climax, where Phoenix’s Joker murders talk show host Robert De Niro on live television to be well-earned in context, despite the fact that I had already seen it spoiled in leaked footage. When Phoenix leapt to his feet after doing the deed, I was wholly convinced that I had borne witness to a definitive and fresh take on the iconic member of Batman’s “rogues gallery” created over 80 years ago. Although I wasn’t exactly awed by the film, I was won over. I was excited to see where things would go next.
Here in this foul year of Our Lord 2024, we have a sequel. We were warned well in advance that this sequel would, inexplicably, take the form of a musical. On the surface, this is not necessarily a bad omen. The Joker himself has always had a dark flair for the dramatic, and a tendency to be theatrical. Despite my distaste for “Lady Gaga”, I thought perhaps she might add a new wrinkle to a role that’s more than worn out its welcome in the past decade, that of lunatic consort Harley Quinn.
Herewith are my notes on Joker: Folie à Deux, written as they emerged in real-time.
The show opens with a faux Looney Toon evoking the golden era of Warner Bros. animation (the first one anyway), directed by Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville). The Joker battles with his shadow, who goes on to humiliate him on live television (see above picture), before he is beaten bloody by Keystone Kops. By initial reports, I was led to believe that this sequence was far more “anarchic” than it is. Looking back, someone was definitely attempting a “hard sell”. More on that later.
What the fuck exactly is wrong with Phoenix’s body? He didn’t even look this horrendous in The Master, and he had a buff physique in You Were Never Really Here, probably the last movie I’ll ever respect him for. He looks like freaking Gollum.
Debasement time already?
Seven minutes in, as we follow Phoenix through the rigors of life in the asylum, he’s asked for the fourth or fifth time “You got a joke for us today?” Every guard in the asylum talks like Chief O’Hara in the old Batman show from the ’60s. Toodley doo, parson! Oi’m a leprechaun, troid and true!
About ten minutes in, Ugly Googly shows up, !!!ACTING!!! This movie is already asinine.
Catherine Keener plays Maryanne Stewart, Phoenix’s lawyer, who tells him there’s “another person inside him” who committed the crimes seen in the previous film. Twelve minutes in, Phoenix begins smoking, so the audience is aware that he’s playing Arthur Fleck, who spent the entirety of Joker smoking cigarettes and weeping.
Fifteen minutes in, we’re already into the gay stuff. Gotta make sure DC doesn’t have another James Holmes on their hands! Take that, “incels” whom we guiltlessly label and abuse! Fuck you for enjoying the first movie!
Hey- do you like “When The Saints Go Marching In”? I sure hope so, because you’re gonna hear it about thirty times! Also, this is one of those totally-realistic asylums where they let you wear hard-soled dress shoes. Makes sense, right? Who ever heard of a crazy person hitting someone with a shoe, anyway?
There is literally no force on earth that can make Ugly Googoo attractive. She is an absolute dog. Kids; remember what Mom told you about people who are ugly on the inside. It always comes out. It’s almost physically painful looking at the two lead actors of this shitpile. I guess it works for authentic asylum-dwellers, if I’m being honest (which I clearly am).
That’s right, folks, this is totally set in the Batman universe! Try to forget that you’re bored to tears, here’s some red meat for ya! Arthur Fleck is declared competent to stand trial. At least SOMETHING is competent here.
As yet another Oirish guard tells Phoenix that he’s destined to fry in the electric chair, the unthinkable happens at 26 minutes in. Phoenix starts to sing, and all our worst fears are confirmed. A tough-looking black inmate suddenly mimes tickling the ivories. I didn’t pay to see this garbage in a theater, so I can fast-forward and save my fracturing sanity. Jesus wept, this is beyond the pale.
Three minutes later the number mercifully ends, as Phoenix laughs maniacally in the rainy yard. Then he takes a phone call, while comedian Tim Dillon makes his first appearance as the only guard who doesn’t talk like an Irish Spring commercial. He wants Arthur to sign his copy of a book about the famous final scene of the first film. De Niro gets a check for the use of his ham face on the cover, which he can spend on a cage for keeping an underage sex slave, or to host a gala for elites where he can bark death threats at Donald Trump, or whatever else that old clown burns money on.
At 31 minutes the movie commits the cardinal sin of showing a better film, while Ugly Googoo and Phoenix watch. I don’t know what movie it is, I’m sure it’s something ironic and inexpensive. An actor is talking about musicals. There is a goddamn hour and a half of this piss-mist to go. It’s like I’m punishing myself.
Googoo sets the room on fire instead of smoking as expected, and everyone evacuates.
I guess we’re due for another song.
Eww, heterosexual kissing! What’s that doing in my gay Joker movie?!? Wait- that is a woman, right? Is “Lady Gaga” a drag name? I can’t keep up with these progressive masterpieces of the 2020’s.
Googoo and Phoenix use a musical duet to escape the asylum as it burns. Despite the obvious brilliance of this plan, it fails, and both are dragged kicking and screaming back to jail. By the way- so far all these songs are around 80 to 100 years old. Any songwriters who might be mortified by the association are long dead. Convenient!
Arthur is thrown into solitary confinement, giving the movie a convenient excuse to bloat the running time with another effete musical number. This is like watching someone eat a live scorpion. I can’t imagine to whom this would appeal, nor do I want to know. Somehow Googoo is inside Phoenix’s cell, and she begins to apply his Joker makeup. She tells him to stop taking his medication, and he affirms that he already has, which presumably caused his uncontrollable laughter during his recent capture. Then they bump uglies in the filthy, urine-stained cell. It’s about as awesome as it sounds.
There is still over an hour of this shit left. I could be doing something more productive with my time, like committing a hate crime, or smothering a small animal.
Arthur is told by his lawyer that he shouldn’t smoke when he is interviewed by Paddy Meyers (Steve Coogan), because it makes him “look cavalier”. Then he awkwardly kisses her, which to my surprise, she rebuffs, being professional. I don’t expect anyone in this tripe to behave like a believable human being. Coogan, of course, lights up a cigarette within seconds of appearing on screen, and now I know why movies have that text at the end of the credits where they tell you no one was compensated for the use of tobacco products. Everything about this film is carcinogenic.
Coogan plays a Tom Snyder type, who goes over the final scene of the first Joker with Arthur, because God knows there’s nowhere else to go with this thing, and no one is paying attention at this point. Coogan presses Arthur about his Joker persona, and brings up “Harleen Quinzel”, and their song-and-dance escape attempt, which I guess was reality and not cringe-inducing fantasy. I presume Arthur will either suddenly attack Coogan, or burst into song. Place your bets folks.
“Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered” is bebutchered, and Googoo, somehow free to roam, smashes the window of a TV repair store to get a closer look at the show. You know those TV shops that exist in every real city, that totally aren’t a shopworn cliche used in a thousand films for the exact same narrative purposes. Googoo even steals a portable TV for herself, and of course nobody notices, because it’s Gotham or NYC or whatever.
Arthur is being transported to what the radio is calling “the trial of the century”, and MOTHER OF GOD WE ARE STILL NOT PAST THE HOUR MARK. Phoenix smiles and laughs crazily, because otherwise you’d never know this was supposed to be a Joker movie.
Phoenix arrives in court to whoops and thunderous applause, waving a “double victory” sign to the gallery, which is totally something that could happen in reality you guys. As the jury enters, Arthur looks around nervously for Googoo, who is busy smoking and singing outside the courthouse.
This is really happening, folks. This is a real movie. Real people made this thing. Real people thought this was a good idea.
We are still not past the one hour mark.
Googoo finally enters the courtroom as several actors play pretend trial. Literally every woman I’ve ever seen in my life is more attractive than Lady Gaga. Like Phoenix, she looks like a Glad bag of boiled shit.
Keener brings up Arthur’s mother during cross-examination of a witness, and only through sheer force of will am I able to pay attention to this. Arthur is blithely doodling on a legal pad, and holy shit- actual “flashbacks” of the first movie as we mercifully PASS THE ONE HOUR MARK! Also, Arthur is (as always) smoking, which I DOUBLE DARE YOU to try in a federal building. Please, please, try this at your earliest convenience. Blame this movie as you’re dragged off to prison. It’ll be hilarious, I promise.
Keener reveals to Phoenix that Googoo is a rich psych grad with a doctor father who voluntarily checks herself into and out of the asylum, which explains why she was able to commit mayhem and larceny in public after setting fire to the place. Then, and I’m not even kidding, the “Joker & Harley” show begins, another interminable musical number made up to look like the old “Sonny & Cher” show, which ended a full decade before anyone watching this movie was born. This is a goddamn travesty. It’s actually worse than I expected.
Back at the asylum, Googoo comes to visit Phoenix and they smoke cigarettes together. He confronts her about her rich father and she admits that she just wanted him to like her. She tells him that she moved into his old apartment, and that she’s pregnant. Right after she lights up a cigarette. Then she starts singing “Close To You”, by the Carpenters.
This movie is garbage. I want you to respect the fact that I’m enduring what is probably one of the worst films I have ever seen. I’m embarrassed for both of us. The makers of this movie can suck herpetic sore pus as far as I’m concerned. If I’d paid to see this I’d be in prison for shooting up the theater.
On to more singing, more smoking, more silly shit, then Phoenix yells “I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE” and fires his lawyer Catherine Keener, stating that he wishes to represent himself. It would almost have been worth the torture to hear the audience’s reaction when Phoenix delivers that line, but let’s not kid ourselves, no one went to see this dreck. This was produced for no purpose other than ridicule and it shows.
After Arthur’s appearance in the asylum mess hall causes a “riot” of inmates singing “When The Saints Go Marching In”, the trial resumes, and the judge ludicrously allows Arthur to represent himself while dressed as he was when he shot Robert De Niro to death on live television. Honestly that scene feels like a lifetime ago, in another, better universe. It doesn’t even register as “The Joker” anymore.
“Harvey Dent” calls “Gary Puddles” to the stand, a little person whom I guess I’m supposed to remember from chapter one. He has to sit on a copy of the Yellow Pages to be seen by the court, another ancient relic that will only confuse any hapless millennials who might mistakenly glimpse this ordure. Phoenix begins to question “Puddles” (inexplicably using a Southern accent), and for a brief moment, it appears as though there might actually be some Joker in our Joker movie. Like anyone with a functioning cerebellum, Phoenix can’t believe that Gary’s last name is really “Puddles”. I couldn’t ask for a better indictment of the so-called screenwriters if I tried.
I find myself wishing for another musical number, just so I can skip ahead. Now Phoenix is mocking “Puddles” in a faux-British accent. Gary tells “Joker” that he made him feel “small”, even though Arthur was the only one who never laughed at him. First-year community college theater has more depth and subtlety.
The defense rests with yet another interminable musical aside. Christ alive, just end already. “Joker” returns to the asylum, cheered by inmates, cursed by guards, blah blah blah.
The guards knock “Joker” unconscious against a wall, drag him into a restroom, and strip off his costume. They either beat him or gang-rape him, it’s unclear which, then they toss him into a cell. Googoo shoehorns in another murdered standard (“I’ve Got The World On A String”), because of course she does. Now we’re back at the trial, where “Joker” tells the gallery that there is no Joker, only Arthur. He describes his heinous crimes in full detail, saying that he just wants to “blow it all up and start a new life”, before Googoo leaves in disgust. I can’t imagine where the fuck this movie has to go over the remaining half hour.
Oh, of course. More singing. More pointless bloat via another antebellum tune that has no resonance to the plot, script, or anything with a shred of meaning.
To no one’s surprise, the jury finds Arthur guilty on all counts. His uncontrollable laughter causes spectators to assault him, before the wall of the courthouse literally explodes. Cut to exterior shot of the city for some reason, then back to the courtroom, where everyone is conveniently injured or dead except for Arthur. It should be illegal to make a movie this cretinous. It should be punishable by death.
As Arthur stumbles from the wreckage, he is rescued by a doppelganger in full Joker regalia. Billy Joel’s “My Life” blares on the radio as Arthur is sped away in a car, before he clambers out and runs for his life. He returns to those fucking stairs to find Googoo, and I know you won’t believe this, but she’s smoking a cigarette. You know, “character development” and all that. She tells him he’s not the Joker, and that they won’t be running away together. If I know my crap movies, I predict she’s about to start singing, AGAIN, just to twist the knife in deeper.
Yep, I called it. Thank Christ, that means I can skip ahead. God bless pirated movies.
Googoo wanders off, and Arthur is apprehended by police and returned to the asylum, where the same Pepe Le Pew cartoon has been playing for the last several months on the dayroom TV. Phoenix is summoned to see a visitor, but before he gets there, the inmate he kissed fourteen hours ago in the first act stops him, to tell him a joke.
The inmate delivers the punchline and stabs Arthur several times in the stomach. He has a vision of Sonny & Cher Show Googoo as he dies. “That’s Life” rises up on the soundtrack as the inmate laughs hysterically. The End.
I don’t even know what to say. I have never, ever, ever in my lifetime experienced a movie with such utter contempt for its intended audience. This “film” is absolutely disgusting in every conceivable fashion. It is ugly, stupid, arrogant, and most egregiously, skull-crushingly boring. It has the narrative thrust of a rotted corpse’s penis, and the intrigue of low-budget pornography featuring mentally retarded actors. It’s like watching a movie made by people who possess not even the slightest understanding of what movies are or how they work, and who in fact resent them intensely for that reason. I am absolutely ashamed for having seen it, and for everyone involved in its production.
The idea that anyone living or dead could possibly enjoy this monstrosity makes me physically sick to the point of vomiting. I refuse to believe anyone who claims they liked it. I refuse. Nothing can convince me otherwise.
To conclude my honest and sincere opinions on Joker: Folie à Deux, I remain firmly convinced as previously stated that this was produced intentionally to destroy all possibility of a series or franchise, after the events of the Dark Knight Rises massacre in 2012. To circumvent the chances of another James Holmes “incel rampage”, DC and Warner Bros. let this happen, the total and complete assassination of the Joker as a character and a classic villain. No man will ever dress as Joker for Halloween again, and no sane woman will ever emulate Harley Quinn. If the Joker ever reappears in a Batman film I will be astonished. The iconic character, and this wretched, ungodly film, are as of now AIDS-infected plutonium. If, like me, you are stupid enough to sit through this bilge, you will see why.
To Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, and Todd Phillips; fuck you. I hope the three of you never work again in my lifetime, or afterward.
I hope you get what you deserve.
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