Joker: Folie à Deux – Joker 2 (2024) (Movie Review)

Joker: Folie à Deux – Joker 2 (2024) Hello everyone! I could say a classic little “As good as the first one was, this one sucks!”, but that’s just for people who have nothing to say and think they’re really clever! I’m going to try not to just do an ‘I liked it’ or ‘I didn’t like it’.

So here we go! This film is classified under quite a few genres, as far as I can see! Drama, Thriller, Musical… So… a dramatic musical thriller with no action or science fiction, even though we’re talking about Batman’s greatest enemy? No, actually, if I’d written my review straight after seeing the film, I’d have written it off. But now… I’ve given it some time to mature… to think… At first, I was disturbed, even shocked when films weren’t faithful to the Comics or Cartoons. But I’m trying to let go, to be more open and less jaded. It’s quite an effort and quite a lot of work, of course.

I’m well aware that you can have several visions – not without interest – of the DC and Marvel Universes. In any case, no film or series is really capable of showing all the complexity of the world of superheroes, no matter how hard they try. Especially when it’s money that drives these franchises. I could have just been disappointed and said it wasn’t as good.

I would have been very surprised by this Musical if I hadn’t already been warned. Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga are still very good actors in this film. And excellent singers too! There’s even a cover of Jacques Brel in English.

There’s too much kissing between Joker and Harley plus they smoke too many cigarettes! I can’t believe I’m writing this! I have to admit that it’s always troubled me that Netflix advertises that there’s alcohol, violence, ultra-violence, sex… but I couldn’t understand that sometimes there’s a mention of ‘cigarettes’! And yet I felt offended, invaded, suffocated and disturbed by all the cigarettes in this film. Just goes to show… it can happen even to me!

It’s as if it was so tasty and addictive to smoke those fake Hollywood cigarettes that Joaquin and Gaga had said: ‘We won’t sign if we can’t smoke in every scene! We’d rather die! It was great to see Steve Coogan, even for one scene. What a legend that guy is! On the other hand, I’ve never been a fan of Catherine Keener. No way! Well, it’s not as if I hated her so much that I got out of the cinema as soon as I saw her… but she’s an actress who’s never impressed or mesmerised me.

Joker 2 took risks. The director wanted to do something very different from the first, while still making nods to it, like the return to the stairs. This film is very deep, but also very dark, ultra-black and really depressing. It takes place mainly in prisons and courts. There are some artistic scenes that become ridiculous. Like the pleading, which was a good idea in the beginning, but doesn’t really work. Not with a judge like that! The famous line ‘I will not allow my courtroom to be turned into a circus’ isn’t really well exploited, even though the idea was there. The clowns are much cooler, nicer and more open. They never say, ‘I won’t let you turn my circus into a court’, even though they must mean it!

The last scene of the film has a background that is very important in terms of what happens next. Yes, because Joker is supposed to be a trilogy. Alas, we already know that quite a few people aren’t even going to give it a chance, because I can see that this film has taken a hell of a volley of negative reviews. So I didn’t love this film, far from it. But I can’t take away everything it represents, all the work it took and the courage it took to present it, knowing that it was double or nothing.

My Rating