Joker: Folie à Deux is now out in theaters and you can say that everyone has (no pun intended) CLOWNED on this film over the past weekend! As the time of this writing, it has a 33% critically rating and a 30% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. PostTrak had audience giving it a 1/2 star rating in a survey, with only 24% of folks recommending the movie. It’s also the first ever comic book film to receive a D rating on Cinemascore (even Madame Web this year received a generous C+ rating). It’s quite baffling how just a month before we have to endure the most controversial election in America history, it’s a freaking Joker sequel of all things that actually managed to bring the country together for possibly the last time……ever. The critics don’t like it, the fans don’t like it, and not even the easy to please general movie going public seems to like it. There’s certainly a loud minority on Twitter that have singed their praise for it and it will no doubt receive the “reappraisal” substance a few years down the line but for the most part, Joker 2 is not being well liked by the majority of folks that have seen it.
What the hell happened here?! How is it that a sequel to a popular mainstream film that made a billion dollars and was nominated for a bunch of awards managed to misfire THIS badly both critically and (likely) financially?!
Even taken away the fact that Warner Bros NEVER attended for Joker to have a sequel or how Todd Phillips is the KING of making bad sequels (See The Hangover: Part II and III), there was potential for a Joker 2 to deliver. You had a bold (if not odd) direction to make it a musical, you had a masterful singer/growing actress in Lady Gaga as Harleen Quinzel, and it provided a chance to explore this world with the clown prince of crime in his early days of being the clown prince of crime in a way that no other Batman medium ever has. Unfortunately, it seemed like delivering ANY of those elements in a satisfying way was the LAST thing on Todd Phillips’s mind when making this sequel.
Before I start to (also no pun intended) unmask the clown in the room, I want you to close your eyes and imagine being Todd Phillips. You just made a movie that managed to be a genuine crowd pleaser that grossed a billion dollars and was nominated for a bunch of big awards, including the Academy Awards, A.K.A. the Oscars. Your career has initially skyrocketed as basically any studio is bounding to come knocking at your door in the hopes of securing you for their latest major IP. You have all the reasons in the world to bask in your own glory. You are at an all time high in your career, putting yourself on the map everywhere!
However, you have a certain group of folks that watched and loved Joker that seemed to have enjoyed it in a way that you didn’t attend for. Sure, it didn’t lead into a major uprising of incels and losers empowering themselves to become a threat to society like mainstream media predicted but there are many folks that seem to claim that the Joker was in fact intended to be a hero that was able to take matters into his own hands. They are in the mindset that he did NOTHING wrong in that film and all of his actions were COMPLETELY justified! And considering we are now living in a timeline to where there’s a DISTRUBING amount of praise for Nazis and Adolf Hitler, that has to be in the back of your mind with looking back at the success of your film.
Fast forward to the Oscars, while Joker was able to secure the awards for Best Actor and Best Score, it lost the Best Picture to Parasite. That in of itself causes a major portion of the fanbase you created to be OUTRAGED. Typing out angry tweets and making RANT videos about how the Academy Awards are rigged and Joker deserved to win over Parasite. Hell, even former president (at least at the moment) Donald Trump made a comment about how “odd” it was that a foreign film won Best Picture and he likely would have preferred for Joker to win (It was reported that he watched Joker and enjoyed it!). And of course, do I even need to mention this bizarre rant from infamous YouTuber Robert Storms about Parasite winning Best Picture over Joker.
So, you basically have two distinct ways which you could look back on the success of your film take on the clown prince of crime. You can either just be proud of the fact that it made a billion dollars, was nominated for a bunch of awards and won some, and that the majority of the (sane) public was able to enjoy it when it came out during the Fall of 2019. Or you can be embarrassed at the fact that so many folks took the “wrong” idea on how the Joker was portrayed in the film, being a major reason why the film received so much pre-release controversy, and made nothing but rage videos when it didn’t win for Best Picture at the Oscars.
Warner Bros comes up to you and confirms they want a Joker 2. Even if the original plan was for Joker to be a one-and-done kind of film, the success of that film was too massive that studio execs are demanding for a sequel. In the back of your mind, you really don’t want to do it because you originally signed up for just one. Not to mention, if a Joker 2 is even remotely successful as the first one, they will no doubt demand a Joker 3, 4, 5, along with a bunch of spin-offs that you will be stuck having to make for the rest of your life. You also don’t want to go through yet ANOTHER tiresome press tour, answering the same questions as to whether or not the Joker is “dangerous” to society and if certain folks are still getting the wrong idea from the character. At the same time, you don’t want someone else taking over because you will have a much higher salary than with any movie that you’ve made nor do you want to risk someone else “tainting” your masterpiece.
It’s then you decide, “Screw it! I’ll make another one!” Not because I HAVE it, but because it’s what literally EVERYONE else wants. However, I’m going to do EVERYTHING in my power to make sure I don’t go through the same experience as last time. I will NOT leave a cliffhanger for a Joker 3, I will make sure to have the entire plot centered around telling those certain folks they were wrong for liking Joker the way they did, I’ll make it a musical staring Lady Gaga just to stick it to does that HATE musicals, and best of all, I’ll make a film that undoes EVERYTHING the previous film established, that is guaranteed review bombings and low Rotten Tomatoes, just so there’s NO way the studios will ask me to come back for another one. That sounds like a plan!
I’ll get the highest salary of my career, I will make a film that spits in the face of those idiots that actually thought Joker was suppose to be the “good guy” in all of this, I will make sure to have the entire film build up to an ending which makes a Joker 3 or ANY other film in this universe impossible, and I will be FREE of having to do anymore of these movies. Who cares if it makes fans or critics angry? They are the ones that asked for it, even though you didn’t whatsoever. Because of that, let’s make this whole sequel THEIR problem too and make them feel stupid for even imagining a Joker 2 of any kind.
To be sure, I can’t say for certain this was the mindset that Todd Phillips had going into making Joker: Folie à Deux. Perhaps he did attended to make a genuine crowd pleaser that the mainstream audience would be “smart” enough to understand. However, when watching this dreaded sequel, you can’t help but wonder if Todd Phillips’s only motive for making this film is to tear everything down as punishment to those that enjoyed the original Joker the “wrong” way. To prove those claims, now it’s time to get into the major spoilers for Joker: Folie à Deux.
*Warning! The rest of this articles contains MAJOR spoilers for Joker: Folie à Deux. If you haven’t seen the movie yet and/or don’t want anything spoilers, then you might want to click off the article right now! You have been warned!*
We started off with an odd animated sequence that feels like it was ripped straight out of The People’s Joker (A.K.A. the best Joker film and even best comic book film of 2024), which sees the Joker being impersonated by his shadow. It’s his shadow that takes his place to perform the singing number for a tv show and then abandons him on stage half-undressed, before three policemen arrive and beat the shit out of him. This opening in of itself sets the stages of what’s to come for Joker: Folie à Deux, highlighting the difference between the Joker and Arthur Fleck. And it also even foreshadows the most awful and disturbing scene in the film which we will get to later!
Once we get to real time, we revisit Arthur Fleck, who has been in custody at Arkham State Hospital awaiting trial for the crimes he committed two years ago. His lawyer, Maryanne Stewart, seems to suggest that Arthur himself has dissociative identity disorder, which is basically a split personality. There’s the the normal, innocent Arthur Fleck side of him and there’s his evil, chaotic “Joker” side of him. She plans to argue to the judge that it was the “Joker” side of him that was responsible for committing the crimes he did and NOT Arthur Fleck himself.
Arthur meets another patient, Harleen Quinzel, or just strictly going by Lee, because this universe needs to be more serious and grim and the name “Harley Quinn” is too fun and jolly. Lee, much like a certain group of those that love the first film, felt empowered and inspired by what Arthur did in the previous film, while also looking up to him deeply. Much like Mr. Fleck, she grew up in the same neighborhood he did, had an abusive parent figure who died in a car crash, and went as far as to burn down her parents’ apartment building, which is what let her to be imprisoned at Arkham Asylum. She did all of those things just so she can one day meet her idol.
Lee wants to run away with Arthur, where the two can start a life together. Arthur, believing that he has finally found someone who loves him for what he is, wants to try and escape with here. Lee starts a fire to free the two of them from the prison but both are caught by the guards. While Arthur is put in solitary confinement, Lee has been released to avoid his influence. She promises to attend his trail and be there with him during his trial. All before they have the most awkward sex scene you have ever seen in your life, which makes you NOT want to look at the first officially released pic of Joker and Harley together EVER again!
*insert barf meme*
On the day of trial, Harvey Dent (who I completely forgot to mention in my review because of how irrelevant he is for the majority of it) calls witnesses to those dismiss Arthur’s claims of insanity, hoping this will leave to the death penalty for him when all is said and done (even though this film takes place in 1983 and the death penalty didn’t get reinstated in New York until 1995). With former co-worker Gary Puddles (who witnessed Arthur beat the death out of one of his co-workers) and neighbor Sophie Dumond (who was Arthur’s imaginary girlfriend in his hallucination) being brought forward to speak, Dent rest his case.
When getting back to Arthur’s relationship with Lee, his lawyer Maryanne reveals that she has lied to him quite a bit about her history. She was someone that grew up in the Upper East Side, NOT in Arthur’s neighborhood. Her father is a doctor and is still alive. Plus, she voluntarily committed herself at Arkham, checked herself out, and never burned down an apartment building. Because this is a film that is by design done to remove any sort of ambiguity from the first film, Lee tells Arthur that she lied to him because she wanted to get close to Arthur, hoping the two can one day be together. She also states that she’s pregnant and has moved into his old apartment building to create a home for them. Even though Lee literally JUST admitted to lying, Arthur believes her anyway and will make his best efforts for the two of them to be together by the end.
After going through uncomfortable sequences with Arthur getting brutally assaulted and prison raped by the guards (Yes, really!) and his friend Ricky being strangled to death for stepping up to them (Again, yes really!), Arthur reminisces about the aftermath of his actions in the first film, finally realizing all the terrible things he had done.
He killed people in cold blood, he led an army of supporters that were inspired by his Joker persona and not for his Arthur Fleck persona, there’s great many people in Gotham that want him dead, and worst of all, everyone now has the wrong idea of who Arthur Fleck is. He was able to be seen in the public eye the way he wanted but not in the way that he ever imagined. People still don’t like Arthur Fleck, they only like Joker.
In court the following day, during his closing argument, a devastated Arthur comes to terms with the fact that it was himself that was responsible for his actions, NOT his Joker half. In a statement that almost seems like Todd Phillips himself is directing a sincere apology and/or “F**k you!” to the audience of the first film, Arthur Fleck renounces his persona and takes full responsibility for his actions. There was never a “Joker” half of him, there is not even a Joker at all. It’s just Arthur Fleck himself, a sad, broken man with a tragic backstory and mental illness and NOTHING more!
At the exact moment that I imagined 90% of audience left the theaters, Lee storms out of the court room, enraged and disappointment. The Joker that she looked up to and worshiped doesn’t exist. This is NOT a movie which Lee and the audiences get to see Arthur Fleck be full Joker, this is a movie where they see the Joker in his cosplay make-up only, leaving just Arthur Fleck. The jury finds Arthur guilty of first-degree murder.
Out of nowhere, a car bomb explodes outside the courthouse, which injures and kills numerous attendees. In the process, it also scars HALF of Dent’s face, turning him into Two-Face supposedly. Two of Joker’s followers helps him escape from the courthouse. Once he regains his conscious, Arthur flees from the Joker supporters, realizing they only see him as Joker and not his actual self.
Arthur wanders through Gotham and makes way for his old apartment only to find Lee right outside of it. Arthur confesses that he’s ready to start a live with her but Lee rejects him. She admits that she only loved him as Joker and NOT as Arthur Fleck, stating exactly what the audience are feeling at that exact moment. She also claims that her pregnancy was another lie because……of course. As she leaves, the police apprehend Arthur and return him to Arkham.
It’s at this point where Arthur is basically right back where he started at the beginning of the film. The main difference is that he no longer has the Joker persona within himself. All of that love and support that Arthur got not as himself but as strictly Joker is all gone, leaving him sad, lonely, and broken once again.
As to add more salt to the wound, there’s a young patient that arrives, who Arthur has bumped into already a few times in the film (even kisses him at one point). He begins to tell him a joke, which is suppose to mirror the “joke” that he told Murray Franklin in the first film. And just like what happened during that moment when Arthur told his “joke” to Murray, the young patient tells Arthur that “YOU GET WHAT YOU F**KING DESERVE!” and proceeds to kill him. He stabs Arthur repeatedly in the stomach, leaving him to bleed to death. Just like that, Arthur basically got killed by his own original joke.
So the movie ends, and right before Arthur is 100% dead and one last song plays, the patent is seen in the background carving a smile on his own face while laughing hysterically. This moment is suppose to resembled Heath Ledger’s Joker from The Dark Knight (Fyi, NO I do NOT think those films are connected with one another whatsoever!). Even if Arthur Fleck was never the Joker, that doesn’t change the fact that his now dead persona has inspirited others and will lead to actual Jokers in the future. Arthur Fleck himself may be gone but his infamous legacy of the Joker will continue on.
So, yeah! I think you can now understand entirely why this film seems to be pissing people off! Instead of doing the most logical thing a sequel can do which is basically take the character to their next step forward, give the audience more of the same things they enjoyed about the original, and throw in a few new elements for good measure, Joker: Folie à Deux is a film that basically refuses to meet any one of those expectations whatsoever.
It doesn’t want to take the character of Arthur Fleck in a new and proper direction, it doesn’t want to commit to being labeled as strictly a musical, courthouse drama, or love story between Harley and the Joker, it doesn’t want to see Joker being on the top of it’s game, and it doesn’t want to expand upon this version of Gotham City in any meaningful way. All Todd Phillips seems to want to do is to sit the fans and critics of his previous film down, lecture them about how wrong/right they were with how they reacted to the previous film, and have it led to a resolution that prevents the general public’s wants or needs for a Joker 3 to happen.
To be sure, these elements themselves COULD have worked. After all, we are living in a time where superhero movies need some extra variety to them if they are to continue to dominate Hollywood blockbusters. Not to mention, fandom in any form of media have become more toxic and hateful than ever before, almost feeling appropriate to annihilate the “wrong” kind of fans that this stuff way too seriously. The problem isn’t so much that it chooses to go against the grain, but so much the film doesn’t necessarily know what grain it is trying to go against. It claims to be trying to avoid all these tropes yet still commits to them whenever the film requires it.
It doesn’t want to have a Joker in his prime and the big man of crime at Gotham City yet they keep showing fantasy sequences which hint at what a prime Joker would look like in this universe. It doesn’t want to be label as a musical but there are plenty of musical numbers here and has the presence of Lady Gaga that warrants calling it a musical. It doesn’t want to be the standard sequel that folks would have expected for a Joker sequel but ends up following the same beats from the original film regardless, right down to having the titled character being right back where he started before he even became the Joker, only to then be killed off in an unsatisfying way.
This isn’t so much a film that’s trying to have the best of both worlds but achieve the WORST of both worlds. It’s a film that basically fails at failing. No matter what way you look at or examine it, Joker: Folie à Deux doesn’t work in any form of capacity because it’s not trying to work in any form of capacity. When you do that, that’s how you get a low 30% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest scored comic book film ever on Cinemascore, and a opening weekend that is looking to be on par with Morbius (only there will be no memes to save it this time).
Todd Phillips after this weekend!
To tell you the truth, for as bad as Joker: Folie à Deux is and deserving it is for all the hate it is getting, I can’t help but grimace about how much of a bomb it’s going to be at the box office. Not strictly because of the narratives of superhero fatigue and theaters dying along with this being Todd Phillips’s plan so Warner Bros don’t ask him back for a Joker 3 come Monday morning but more how studios will take the wrong lesson from the film’s mostly negative reception. That being that filmmakers should have less creative control on their projects and more creative influence should be given by fans and focus groups.
I am of course talking about the recent reports of studios constructing superfan focus groups to evaluate various projects for franchises to avoid severe online backlash. With toxic fandom being at an INCREDIBLY all time high, studios are now looking to be much more careful with constructing their latest installments for said franchises in the hopes that it doesn’t lead to review bombings on big movie sites such as IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, online harassment of it’s main cast and crew, and countless hate YouTube videos made by mostly alt-right grifters. Films like Joker: Folie à Deux are the kind of ones that would have likely played out INCREDIBLY different if these so-called superfan focus groups were able to contribute. I mean, there’s NO way in hell that these groups would have approved of Arthur being killed off by the supposed “real” Joker at the end of the movie.
Because of that, I can’t help but feel like Joker: Folie à Deux as being the beginning of the end of this current era of blockbusters we are living in. Instead of getting filmmakers to make films based off their own desire, voice, and ambition, the majority of big films now will likely get completely reworked because it might make Super Fanboy #172 too angry since it didn’t have enough jokes, references, callbacks, or lightsaber fights. We are on the verge of living in an era of big movies being written directly by Reddit and ChatGPT. And that’s an absolutely BRUTAL future to think about!
While I highly doubt this will lead to a massive removal of characters that are black, person of color, female, or identify as LGBT+ as many folks have been speculating, it makes me think that blockbusters are going to be much more dumbed down than usual, even more so than they already are. Strong storytelling, great character development, and bold filmmaking will be abandoned for the sake of spectacle, easter eggs, and “fan service”, for those that don’t want to think during a film but just be strictly pandered too. I want to be more optimistic and believe this will lead to more quality mainstream films and franchises installments with studios being more open to feedback from real and honest fans but this is literally Hollywood we are talking about. They ALWAYS learn the wrong lesson for all their successes and failures, just like how I imagine they will for the likely box office failure that Joker: Folie à Deux will be.
Still, if Todd Phillips’s goal in all of this was to really waste 200 million dollars that Warner Bros gave him, while that company is on the verge of bankruptcy, and potentially put a final nail on the coffin to this rather bleak era of cinema we are living in to make for ANOTHER bleak era of cinema, then mission accomplished! It’s only then might we look back at Joker 2 as being the last special kind of bad movie that we will be getting for a very long time. Because of all that and more, who would have guessed that it would be Todd Phillips of all people that would get the last laugh in all of this!
Help us James Gunn, you are our only hope!
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