No one really expected Joker to be the wildly successful box office blockbuster and Oscar winner as it was so when that did happen a sequel was much anticipated by fans. That sequel is Joker Folie a Deux and Joaquin Phoenix returns as the Arthur Fleck aka Joker who carried out five murders which incited a city riot that now sees him banged up in Arkham Asylum shuffling his emaciated form around as he awaits his court case which makes up the second half of the film.
That first half set in the asylum sees him exploring his childhood as a cause of his psychosis but is also where he meets Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga) the Harley Quinn lover to his Joker persona though here she is a patient rather than the psychiatrist as per the comics. From the moment their eyes meets it’s an instant connection and their infatuation with each other sees them indulge in song and dance flights of fantasy as they bang out old showstoppers, a task that Lady Gaga is more than up to in direct contrast to Phoenix’s voice, a singing version of the vocal fry affected by so many teens and twenty somethings. But these song and dance numbers are a huge distraction adding little and serving only to grind the film to a halt each time they burst into song and there’s little visual pizz-zazz about those set pieces although they are nicely lit as is the rest of the film by DoP Lawrence Sher.
This flatness is carried through to the trial itself, traditionally where some of the finest dramas have been set but there’s nothing gripping about the cross examination. Fleck is there in full Joker make –up with the judge ludicrously telling him he won’t have his court room turned into a circus, which is a pity because it would have enlivened things immeasurably. With a baby faced Harvey Dent (Harry Lawley) prosecuting and a waspish defence lawyer (Catherine Keener) its witness Gary Puddles (Leigh Gill ) who is the stand out performance. Wracked with guilt, fearful of Fleck and regretful that his own dwarfism thwarted nay attempt at preventing Fleck murdering his friend his plight is a sympathetic one and it’s one of the best scenes in a film that has few stand out moments.
Gill is not the only one whose scene stays with you. The asylum also sees Steve Coogan as an antagonistic reporter Paddy Meyers conducting a televised interview with Fleck and it’s not dissimilar to that scene in Natural Born Killers with Robert Downey Jr (sporting a terrible Australian accent whereas here Coogan’s US accent is on point). Ad to this another great Brit actor Brendan Gleeson who plays the head guard who veers between being friend and foe to Fleck. What disappoints is Phoenix flat lining , there’s nothing we haven’t seen from him before in the first film and Lady Gaga, who showed in A Star is Born and House of Gucci how terrific she can be as an actress here disappoints in a role that pales in comparison to Margot Robbie’s.
But what you really want is Joker to be Joker, the evil sociopathic orchestrator of maniacal mayhem that we know from the comics and instead we get a film that dives relentlessly into whether he killed due to childhood trauma, mummy issues of is he is just simply Mad Jack McMad winner of the Mr Mad contest on National Mad Monday and for a film with one of the great villains that has earned an Oscar for two actors to date its just painfully dull. At well over two hours Joker Folie a Deux is a slog to get through. Writer director Todd Phillips has said this is the last Joker film he will make but this is such a disappointingly dreary sequel that it serves as a franchise killing sequel if a franchise had ever been intended.
related feature : How Joaquin Phoenix achieved his Joker transformation……
related feature : Will Smith & Director David Ayers introduce the Suicide Squad cast at the London premiere
Here’s the Joker Folie a Deux trailer….
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