I loved the first movie but this shit is so ass. Did the writers hit their heads before writing this one?
The ending of the first one was a huge payoff while the ending for this feels like trash tier fanfiction.
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I read a review by Nathan Rabin that summed up my feelings properly
Joker: Folie à Deux is a comic book movie that is ashamed to be a comic book movie. It’s also a musical that’s ashamed to be a musical. Finally, it is a sequel that is ashamed to be a sequel because it knows just as much as we do that the only reason it exists is because the first one made a billion fucking dollars.
Tbf not even the first film was particularly a comic book movie. It was more about how people at the bottom of a capitalist society are beaten down by the system and society in general. Arthur going insane and shooting John Oliver in the head was such a great ending.
The first movie was very careful not to actually say anything, especially without any conviction.
You took the message that it was about how society beats poor people down, chids thought it was a movie about how unfairly men are treated in modern society, people with mental health issues thought it was about how the system failed them.
No solutions are given to any of these vaguely referenced issues and if the King of Comedy didn’t exist I’m not sure they could have actually come up with an ending to this movie because they might have had to actually resolve any of those themes.
Yeah that’s correct. For me Arthur’s insanity is kind of a collective insanity of people who’ve been beaten down their entire lives. The mental health tones are pretty spot on so I can relate with Arthur to some extent.
Sorry I spilled my Doribos all over the script
The problem is there is a sequel in the first place or the possibility of yet another universe.
I wish there was a culture where they could say “Oh sorry we fucked that sequel up really bad, let’s retcon it and try again”
As it is, one bad sequel can kill a whole fandom because it will never be undone.
That’s basically what happened with terminator, every movie after the 2nd is basically a sequel to the 2nd one and largely ignores the others.
Same thing happening to transformers right now. The new movie is actually good and very close to what I always wanted from transformers but it’s doing pretty bad at the box office because of the memory of Bayformers.
They did that with suicide squd turns out it doesn’t matter if the followups dogshit too.
i like that this film exists because it confirms Todd Philips is being adequately tormented for the first one. the fucking Hangover guy actually thought he was in the Big Boy Director club because the comic book slop he put in a scorsese skinsuit made a bunch of money–and his dearth of talent is so perfectly captured by the fact he couldn’t articulate a “fuck you” to his fans with any artistry
bro had lady gaga and did a jukebox musical, just completely directionless when he doesn’t have someone better to copy off of
He also whined about
the leftists trying to cancel him when the first one was in theaters.Wait…they didn’t even bother to write their own songs? Fuck me that’s bleak.
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Agree on the ending and that the first movie was better, but I think it was pretty good.
I don’t believe it will be hold forever to that ending either.
somehow joker returned
Society wasn’t ready to be fully jonkerfied
On a more serious note, as someone who was pretty “whatever” about the first one, and didn’t even hear about the second one till all the “discourse” about it happened online, I’ve kinda been enjoying not taking any of the drama seriously and just making “gang weed” jokes at both people who liked it and people who hated it. I think this is the best way to enjoy the Joker as a media asset.
I don’t usually watch superhero movies. I did see Joker tho. I think the premise of being as “realistic” as possible & the acting carried the movie for me. However, I disagree about the ending. It whacked the movie over the head with a theme-shaped bat until its subsequent paste-form could be anything but misinterpreted. I was kinda hoping there wouldn’t be a sequel
However, I disagree about the ending. It whacked the movie over the head with a theme-shaped bat until its subsequent paste-form could be anything but misinterpreted.
The ending is often misinterpreted but it’s extremely good and subtle in a lot of ways. The speech to Murray at the end isn’t meant to be an actual explanation of the character’s beliefs. It’s Arthur breaking down and embracing a role forced upon him. He didn’t kill the three people on the subway because they were awful, it was self defense for the first two and the third because his story wouldn’t be believed even if it was the truth. A morally good Arthur would still end with him in prison because the third guy would lie and say the evil clown attacked him and his friends.
It’s a lot like Joker’s laugh. The traditional Joker laughs at the world, finding some macabre humor in the things he does. But in this movie it’s just a medical condition. He’s forced to do so and people project motivations on to it. He never wanted any of this to happen but society denies him the opportunity to be anything but the villain.
The first movie was just vague posting at everybody without actually saying anything and was an ok but completely unremarkable movie.
The director was pretty clear he thought it was a complete story that didn’t need a follow up, this is him going “ok you want more slop, here’s some slop”
Honestly what did you expect? Maybe you were expecting it to be capeshit? Maybe you wanted another one of those lazy “This isn’t like other super hero stories, it’s dark and gritty and made for adults” superhero slop. Maybe you wanted Watchmen, Suicide Squad, Umbrella Academy, The Boys, Doom Patrol, Kick Ass, Deadpool, etc. Boring. What if we had a super hero movie but the heroes were flawed and tell edgy jokes and do meta commentary and sometimes they break the 4th wall and mention memes from reddit? Boring.
When the movie ended, I’ll admit I was sort of confused about what I had watched. I remained seated in the dark theater while everyone else walked out. I sat alone, the credits are rolling and I hear a familiar song. During the final credits, Joaquin Phoenix performs a cover of the song “Daniel Johnston - True Love Will Find You in the End” as Arthur Fleck. Suddenly I felt like the whole movie made sense. By having Arthur Fleck perform a song by Daniel Johnston, I believe that the movie was trying to make a comparison to the real life artist.
Daniel Johnston is an artist who gained a cult following in the 1980s by giving away mixtapes while working at McDonalds in Texas. Daniel Johnston suffers from severe mental illness and has spent extended periods of time in psychiatric institutions. In 1988, was arrested at the Statue of Liberty for vandalism, drawing hundreds of christian fish symbols on the monument. Later the same year, Daniel broke into an elderly woman’s home while hallucinating and attempted to give her an exorcism. Daniel was arrested after the woman jumped from the second story window, breaking both legs. In 1990, while flying in a 2 seater plane with his father (a pilot), Daniel has an episode and tries to crash the plane, taking the keys from the ignition and throwing the keys out the window. In 1992, Kurt Cobain of Nirvana is seen wearing a Daniel Johnston T-Shirt while performing at the 1992 MTV music awards. While at this time, Daniel Johnston was institutionalized at a psychiatric hospital in Austin Texas, multiple record labels competed to sign him as an artist. While Daniel was receiving treatment, his fans were demanding music and record labels were demanding profits.
In Joker 2, everyone is always demanding things from Arthur, but nobody cares about his health. Nobody actually cares that he’s having hallucinations where everyone sings and dances, not even the audience. The Joker fanatics are demanding that he leads some kind of movement. The lawyer is demanding that he pretend to have a split personality disorder so she can win this case and have a successful career. Even the prison guards demand that he perform jokes to entertain them. Even one of the guards makes him sign a book so that the guard can get rich by selling it. Everyone wants to take from him but nobody cares about him. Arthur falls in love with Harley Quinn because he believes they both have abusive parents, but even she says she only likes him because of the Joker persona. Arthur’s court trial is even televised because the whole world is demanding a spectacle from him.
Throughout the movie, I found myself constantly asking the question, “When does Arthur escape and become the Joker?” The movie is always teasing you. The audience is just as selfish as the people in the movie. The point is that Arthur never wanted to be “The Joker”. Arthur just wants to be loved and live a normal life and to spend time with a woman, but he can’t because of his mental illness. Everyone around Arthur, uses his mental illness to take advantage of him. Being the Joker is a curse. We want Arthur to lead some movement that he never wanted to be a part of. The point is that heroes are not real.
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This movie is a solid 8/10 film about Arthur Fleck, the structural and personal cruelty he’s faced, and the way the people around him refuses to recognize his humanity, even as they lavish attention on Joker.
I liked this movie. I read it as a film for adults with mature themes and real consequences for the characters. I liked Last Gaga a lot here. There’s a three jokers reference there, which the movie doesn’t beat you over the head with. There’s a graphic rape scene. It has two face. I think it’s setting up a wider continuity for the franchise. I liked the pacing of the scenes when the characters talk like people.
they need to put Gaga in better movies because she actually can act. of course Phoenix can too, but he’s already been in better movies. honestly it’s pretty embarrassing that the industry is wasting so much capable talent on capeshit
