Despite our issues with the first Joker movie, it didn’t take much for us to get on board with the sequel.
The thought of Lady Gaga doing her best Method acting to play Harley Quinn, and putting on a variety of musical numbers in Todd Phillips’ dark, Scorsese-inspired reimagining of Gotham sounded immediately like something we were in no mood to miss, and our excitement has only built over the past year.
On Wednesday night, the movie had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, with critics wasting no time in sharing their thoughts after seeing it for the first time.
And folks, they’ve only managed to fuel our anticipation even further. Are the reviews positive? Not especially. Do they make the film sound like a bit of a mess? Yes, actually. In fact, initial reviews –much like, evidently, the film itself – are a bit all over the place, but that’s genuinely only making us want to see it even more.
Check out a selection of what critics have had to say about Joker: Folie À Deux below:
The Independent (4/5)
“Just as bleak and formally daring as its predecessor [...] certain plot elements remain jarring. The lines between fantasy and reality aren’t always made clear, for instance. But overall Folie à Deux is just as edgy and disturbing as its forerunner, replicating the idea of modern American cities as terrifying powder kegs perpetually on the cusp of explosion.”
BBC Culture (2/5)
“Phillips and his co-writer, Scott Silver, have decided to carry on with yet more of Fleck’s backstory instead. It’s a fascinating decision which bravely subverts audience expectations, but it does result in a film that is a dreary, underwhelming, unnecessary slog.”
The Guardian (3/5)
“Though it ends up as strident, laborious and often flat-out tedious as the first film, there’s an improvement. It’s a musical, of sorts [which] gives it structure and flavour that the first film didn’t have. And that sensational acting and musical talent Lady Gaga is now in the mix – though with nothing like the humanity and depth she had in Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born.”
The Times (2/5)
“Despite everything, Phillips and co smashed back into the self-contained world, shook all the contents out on to the carpet and, against their own advice, had another go. The result? Messy, lifeless, derivative and exactly what you’d expect from a film that simply doesn’t want, or need, to exist.”
Evening Standard (2/5)
“Rather than signposting events or emotions to the audience, the conveyor belt of songs merely slows down proceedings [...] When Harley breaks into That’s Entertainment for the gazillionth time, our hero says, ‘Please stop…Please stop singing’. If only he had asked sooner, around the hour mark, this film might have had time to do something and go somewhere.”
The Telegraph (4/5)
“Truthfully, outside the songs, [Gaga] isn’t given a great deal to do – but within them she’s creepily magnetic [...] As a repeat performance – even a cunningly subversive one – Folie À Deux can’t quite match its predecessor for dizzying impact. But it matches it for horrible tinderbox tension: it’s a film you feel might burst into flames at any given moment.”
“For a movie running two-and-a-quarter hours, Folie à Deux feels narratively a little thin and at times dull. Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver in the first Joker had the sturdy bones of not one but two Martin Scorsese films, Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, on which to hang their story and set their tone. This one is built on more of a conceit than a solid story foundation.”
NME (4/5)
“Phoenix is fantastic once again as Arthur, delivering a compelling and remarkably physical performance that teeters on the edge of insanity throughout – it’s simultaneously chilling and unexpectedly moving. Lady Gaga is equally good as Harleen, sparking palpably insane chemistry with Phoenix.”
“With song, dance, comedy, darkness, animation, drama, violence and more, this is a musical — if it even is a musical — like no other.”
“The casting of Lady Gaga certainly sounded promising, because she’s a great actor, and was put on earth (among other things) to make musicals. But Gaga, who has a lovely unforced presence in Folie à Deux, is drastically underused. Her Lee never quite takes wing [...] Gaga never gets a chance to do what she did in A Star Is Born: seize the audience with her rapture.”
“It’s a waste of [Gaga’s] presence [...] Her Lee isn’t an equal partner to Arthur but another accessory in his grand tragedy — a supercharged, scary-eyed take on a serial-killer groupie. Joker: Folie à Deux is Arthur’s movie, and Arthur just isn’t that interesting, despite how much effort Phoenix puts into rendering the character in exquisitely anguished mental and sunken-chested physical detail.”
Radio Times (4/5)
“Phoenix is seamless, picking up this maudlin character again as if it were only yesterday. It’s a truly versatile, malleable performance. Meanwhile, Gaga makes for a good sparring partner, her Harley far more low-key than the recent version played by Margot Robbie.”
Joker: Folie À Deux hits cinemas on Friday 4 October.