An Unneeded Disgraceful Sequel – Joker: Folie À Duex (Movie Review)

“The world is a stage.

While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur Fleck not only stumbles upon true love, but also finds the music that’s always been inside him.” – Letterboxd Synopsis

Joker was an amazing film, with an idea and a message that it got across clearly. It did not need a sequel. Hell, it barely needed to be a “comic book movie” but names sell and Arthur Fleck’s transformation into Joker worked perfectly as a vehicle for the message that the film wanted to convey. This sequel, on the other hand, is not only boring, pandering, unfocused, and uncommitted to its premise, but worse above all, it’s a slap in the face to the first film. It didn’t need to be made, but a lot of sequels don’t need to be made, really this movie, as it stands with this finalized script, shouldn’t have been made at all.

The premise that this movie was sold to most people as, was a Joker and Harley Quinn musical set during Arthur’s trial for his crimes committed in the first movie. I know a lot of people were iffy on that idea, even I was for a moment, but then I thought for a second. The Batman Animated series and others have had plenty of Joker musical scenes that are amazing. Hell, that same animated series is the one which Harley originated. It seems ridiculous, but that’s Joker. You have Lady Gaga as Harley in Arkham Asylum and with courtroom drama. This should work, this should be dark, it should be camp, as long as they fully commit to this musical idea. And it ends up being half-baked, jarring when they do sing, mostly very non-diegetic with hard cuts between the musical numbers and what’s really happening. They look good, they song great, one of them is actually amazing and one of my favorite scenes in the movie but they feel so out of place.

Comic book lore is so loose and flimsy that I never really get too mad about liberties taken on characters between different stories and media. Often times it leads to some really cool stuff that sticks with the character or even can become the new normal. What was done with not only Lee (Harley) but Harvey Dent just felt disrespectful to the history of two very renown characters. Harvey just shouldn’t be here. It could’ve been any lawyer but we’re in Gotham so hey look, it’s Harvey Dent. Now what was done to Harley is, in my eyes, criminal.

Harley and Jokers dynamic is something that’s always interesting. Taking a smart, decorated psychiatrist with tucked away personal issues and insecurities and having her fall into Jokers pit of manipulation and depravity and have it seem like love to her is very interesting. It also plays a very important role in what she has become in recent times, which is someone who has broken away from Joker and his mental and physical abuse to become her own strong independent character. This adaptation is not Harley Quinn. Which would almost be okay, if the movie actually stuck to its guns and gave us a new refreshing look on the character, but it doesn’t. This isn’t Harley Quinn, it’s Lee. They’ve picked and choose certain aspects of her past identities and just threw them in there as a nod like see, that is really her, but no it’s not. It would’ve made more sense to the story to just pick a side. If this is a completely new take, make it that and make it make more sense. Instead, we get this half new, half call back character and with the things she says, does, and gets access to, it would’ve just made so much more sense if they would’ve just stuck closer to her original origin as Joker’s psychiatrist. She moves around in this movie so freely, talks to the press with so much authority, but she has none of that. It’s such a shame, especially because Lady Gaga was a great choice for this role. I kind of see what was attempted with this character. There are many real life people obsessed with killers and fantasize about them. I do get what Lee was about, it just falls very flat.

Joaquin is still amazing as Arthur/Joker. I can say, these actors gave it there all, even with this mostly awful script. He’s at his best when he has adopted the Joker persona fully. There’s an amazing court room scene that is only amazing for the sole reason and absurdity that it’s Joaquin as Joker doing a Johnnie Couqerin impression. It’s ridiculous, and really once I got past the impression it was very clear very quickly how awfully written that scene was, but Joaquin is just so good at displaying his emotions, the highs and lows of Arthur’s mental. Absolutely amazing.

As much praise as I gave the first movie for its rendition of Gotham, this one kind of dropped the ball on Arkham. Arkham has been so fleshed out as a location in the past decade plus so I was excited about what they would do with it and it’s just a normal prison in my eyes. I’m shocked with all the Thomas Wayne stuff in the first movie that they didn’t dive into the Martha Wayne/Arkham stuff. But that’s me assuming there was any more than surface level care about this movie, its characters and established lore. I will say the guards though? Those were Arkham guards through and through. I love them.

The first movie was a commentary on mental health and people really suffering not being seen in the world. By the end, Joker becomes a symbol more than anything. Which is a cool thing cause it is very similar to what Batman has become, but it’s almost more tangible, because everybody is suffering from something. I know a lot of people at one point in their life have felt invisible to the world. A vast majority has been done wrong by the system that’s not designed to help them but keep the people with money and power propped up. Joker as a symbol can be a much easier thing for people to latch onto on the surface than the hope that is Batman. Despair grabs you quicker than hope. What makes this Joker, well, Joker is that he doesn’t care about to politics about it all, he just revels in the fact that he was finally being seen. A big part of this movie is Lee “helping” him find the power to turn back into that chaotic Joker and as she so poetically put it, build a mountain from a little hill, which could be very interesting if their relationship felt any type of believable, if the dialogue wasn’t god awful. I’m not saying the message of the first movie gets completely undermined, but it gets so muddied for no reason by this film which is saying…nothing. Is it a commentary on the prison system and treatment of inmates? Maybe. Is it continuing any of the messages of the first movie? Not really. Is it about Arthur finally seeing the error in his ways? Well no, the movie makes that very apparent very early. This movie has no point. I felt like somebody just yapped to me for almost 2 and a half hours and said absolutely nothing.

So yeah, the first Joker had a clear message and delivered that message in a very well told and succinct way while doing good with the characters that it takes from the comics while still making it very clear that Arthur, the Joker, while tragic is a villain that crossed the line. This movie is the complete opposite. It has no point while muddying the clear point the last movie made. The characters fall flat writing wise, there is no respect paid to the new characters introduced and really even Arthur/Joker himself (cause the ending is absolutely god awful). The premise that this movie was sold on was half-baked and under-delivered majorly. At bare minimum, this could’ve been Joker & Harley meets Chicago and instead we just get badly incorporated musical numbers thrown in here and there. And the cherry on top was that it was dreadfully boring. Both films have similar run times, this one felt like double that. This feels like a movie that didn’t want to be made, and it is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.

Joker: Folie À Duex – 1/10

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