Review of “Joker: Folie à Deux”: Phillips’ sequel can barely hold a tune

Despite the lack of a Batman, audience exhaustion with comic book movies, and a story that often overly mimicked Martin Scorsese's work, Todd Phillips' 2019 joker was a bona fide hit whose box office success (and two Oscar awards) almost ensured there would be a sequel. Slide for twoPhillips' new musical joker The follow-up film seems to know exactly how willing people were to buy into the dark power fantasy of the first film. Slide for two remembers the way theatergoers could see jokerArthur Fleck as a dissatisfied victim of the system, driven to murder by a deeply broken society.

But instead of trying to find more meaning in the Joker's madnessSlide for two lights up the metaphorical house to take a much more negative and critical look at its central anti-villain and the culture of hero worship. It's a solid enough pitch that could have made for an interesting comic series. But as a film, Slide for two is an unconventional mess that barely manages to express its handful of good ideas.

Joker: Folie à Deux continues the story of failed comedian Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), the most notorious inmate at Arkham Asylum in Gotham City. After two years of being imprisoned and systematically abused by Arkham's guard squad led by Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson), Arthur has become a stern, gaunter shell of his former self. Although people finally want to hear Arthur tell jokes, it's hard for him to be wise when he knows District Attorney Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) will be pushing for the death penalty at his upcoming trial. But no matter how much Arthur wants to contemplate his fate in quiet solitude, the Joker's fame makes it impossible for him to ever have a moment of peace.

After joker and his portrayal of Arthur as a murderous folk heroSlide for two It feels like Phillips is taking a step back and portraying him as a man grappling with the question of what it really means to have launched a burgeoning movement based on ideas that he doesn't necessarily embody. Everyone saw Arthur in clown makeup shoot a late-night talk show host on national television – a pivotal moment joker cleverly told in Slide for twois the first animated short set for Me and My Shadow.

For many people, this inclusion cemented the Joker as a concept that expressed their own frustration with the very same systems that had failed Arthur. For Arthur's lawyer Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener), portraying the Joker as a separate identity is one of the few ways to win her case. But Slide for two uses Arthur's catatonic depression to emphasize what his path to fame really was: a killing spree that landed him in prison and on his way to being executed by the state.

Although Gotham stories always focus on bizarre plot twists, they still have a factual quality Slide for two This will likely be a disappointment for fans expecting theatrical bombast. The film is essentially a courtroom drama about a defendant who is about to lose a case that appears to be stacked against him. But you can feel Phillips trying to spice things up and tie things together Slide for twoloose threads about fame being a monstrous phenomenon as it introduces its version of Harleen “Lee” Quinzel (Lady Gaga).

After years of DC trying to evolve the Harley Quinn brand beyond her roots as the Joker's girlfriend, Slide for two brings you back to most basics. Here she is just another inmate in Arkham and not a psychiatrist working for the city, but she still brings color and, more importantly, music to Arthur's life. On the face of it, casting Lady Gaga as one of the most iconic and subversive characters DC has ever produced was a brilliant decision. But Gaga's Lee is largely sidelined Slide for twotells the story in a way that makes it seem like Phillips doesn't really know what to do with her other than cast her on stage as Phoenix's Joker in a series of musical fantasy sequences.

There are some things that work wonderfully Folie à Deux'It's a take on Harley and Joker as a couple, with plenty of nods to the way their stardom has often overshadowed his stardom in the larger DC Comics IP system. During their escape from reality – one of which is framed as a kind of vaudeville hour – Arthur's fear that Lee might be more in love with the idea of ​​the Joker than he is manifests itself as a show-stealer as fans applaud. The clowns' fantasies help Slide for two This better illustrates Arthur's insecurities, but also his hope that Lee might be the first to truly understand him. But the film spends so little time really making Lee a concrete presence that you never get a concrete sense of what she gets out of her relationship.

If Slide for twoThe musical numbers were really entertaining, so maybe that's not such a big problem, but on the whole they're so lacking in whimsy or any sense of fun that it's hard to ever get drawn into them. They're also over almost as soon as they start. The film then takes you straight back to Arthur's grim reality, from which there never seems to be a viable way out.

If joker So it was a dark comedy Slide for two is his bleak, tragic twin with a frown on his face. It's a bitter note for the end of this franchise, but it's also a great reminder that all comedians bomb at some point.