Joker: Folie à Deux is the sequel to the Todd Phillips film from 2019 that asked the question: What if the Joker were a sad white man and we were forced to feel bad for him instead of anything related to his comic book history? And furthering that frustrating narrative, the movie won star Joaquin Phoenix an Oscar and just made my hatred for this film run deeper.
And I gave it a chance. I truly went into this movie and wanted to be pleasantly surprised, and instead, it ruined my boy Thomas Wayne and featured the song “Send in the Clowns” from A Little Night Music and made it about him … being a clown. (Which is not at all what that song is about.)
Joker thought it was a great commentary on mental health and thought it was something more serious than it was, and instead of it being a one-off entry into the world of the lore of the Joker, there’s now a sequel, and my frustration just continues on. The release date for Joker: Folie à Deux is set for October 4th, 2024, and okay! Two years for this movie to either figure out how to not be the exact thing it’s pretending to not be or two years of me suffering. Can’t wait!
On top of this, a new teaser was released for the movie, confirming that Lady Gaga will be playing Harley Quinn to Phoenix’s Joker, and it also does seem to confirm this is a musical. While I am excited for Gaga, it’s also an annoying reminder that Harley is back with the Joker in this film (when she’s separated from him in both the Harley Quinn animated series and DC’s live-action movies with Margot Robbie).
This is … frustrating
With the news that Batgirl was shelved for … nebulous reasons at Warner Bros., the fact that this movie is still carrying on while the film with a woman of color leading it is just pushed aside, despite being finished, isn’t exactly a fun thing to think about.
Take the news about Batgirl out of the equation and this is still an incredibly annoying and frustrating thing because Joker was an annoying and frustrating movie. Everything in the lead up to it was about how this wasn’t like other comic book movies, and that’s true. It wasn’t like other comic book movies because it had no real connection to the comics and was just them using a popular character to tell a different story.
In fact, it didn’t do anything different from the world that the Christopher Nolan Batman movies built, so it wasn’t an original approach in the comic book adaptation sense, and it was heavily inspired by Taxi Driver, so it wasn’t necessarily original in its storytelling, either.
It was just a movie using Gotham and the Joker as popular IP to get people to see it, and I just found it insufferable. So yes, I’m excited for the prospect of a musical and Gaga but Joker: Folie à Deux has a lot of work to do to make up for what Joker did and how absolutely insufferable I found it to be.
(featured image: Warner Bros.)
Published: Aug 4, 2022 12:30 pm