When I reviewed Joker a few years back, I headlined my review as it being Joker, A film That’s Not About Joker. I still stand by that too. Admittedly, I really didn’t expect much from the film, but I was massively impressed and surprised by how much I enjoyed it by the time the credits rolled. Then… they decided to make a sequel to a film that really didn’t need a sequel. This is my review of Joker: Folie à Deux.

I was coming back from a trip on the train at the end of the weekend, so I did a lot of using my phone to see what had been going on in the world. I wasn’t really looking for anything in particular, just randomly scrolling through the various new stories that had popped up to alleviate the boredom of a three-hour train journey. There are a lot of sites offering their very negative reviews of this very film. It couldn’t be that bad, could it? The first one was fantastic, a real dark and depressing film about a man struggling with mental health issues and such. While a sequel to Joker is completely unnecessary, there is still scope for further exploration of the Arthur Fleck character. Well, Joker: Folie à Deux certainly does just that, it just doesn’t do a very good job of it.

No spoilers here, but the film takes place two years after the first one with Arthur (Joaquin Phoenix) in Arkham State Hospital and waiting to go on trail for the murders that he committed in the first film. While in the hospital, Arthur meets Harleen “Lee” Quinzel (Lady Gaga) and the two fall in love. Now with someone in his life, Arthur’s attitude and outlook on life changes, maybe not for the better. When Arthur does make it to court to stand trial, his new life with Lee may just bring about his own demise.

First, yes, Joker: Folie à Deux is a musical. Arthur and Lee will often burst into song that pushes forward the plot, even if these musical numbers are not being heard by those around them and are just in their heads. I felt that some of these musical numbers worked, some of them were just terrible and they couldn’t end soon enough. While Lee is a character in the film and while the title would suggest that she is a main character, she really isn’t and is more of a secondary/support character. Which I am very much in favour of, as I personally think that Lady Gaga’s acting talent is on-par with her awful music. Less of her is a good thing. I can’t put the blame solely on Lady Gaga here though, the character is just badly written crap with paper-thin characterization. She’s not Harleen Quinzel, no matter how much the films wants you to believe that she is. I think that is part of the reason she goes by the name Lee. They used Harleen Quinzel, but then completely changed her into a totally different character. To the point that she may as well not have been Harleen Quinzel to begin with. I honestly think this was just marketing bullshit to get fans to watch the film, a live-action Joker and Harley on screen together at last would be a major pull… but that’s not what you get.

Despite the awfulness of Lady Gaga, Joaquin Phoenix is phenomenal as Arthur, just as he was in the first film – it’s just a damn shame he is stuck in such a dull and creatively dead film. The opening starts out strong and with a brilliantly observed classic WB cartoon parody with some wonderful animation. And honestly, most of the first 45 minutes of the film are pretty good too. A little overly long in places and needlessly dragged out, but pretty good. The last half and the last hour or so of the film is quite dreadful. When Arthur does go to court to face trial, and he even decides to defend himself. Honestly, I was getting bored at this point anyway. This 2 hour and 18 minutes film really only has about 45 minutes of story, padded out with musical numbers (some work, some don’t). It could’ve done with having an hour cut from the runtime, or not being painfully dragged out as long as it was.

I did look at a few reviews of this on my train journey Sunday. I saw a lot of reviews give this a 1-star rating, some sites are calling this the worst film of 2024. It really isn’t. It’s not a 1-star film and it is far from being the wrost of 2024 – we have already had Borderlands this year and Terrifier 3 is out in a few days. Joker: Folie à Deux is not a great film, but it is a massively wasted opportunity. There are some good moments, but none of them really work together as a cohesive film. There was no need for a sequel to Joker, but if they were going to do it, they should’ve put a lot more effort into it than they did. I can understand writer/director Todd Phillips wanting to do something different – and he certainly did that. But different is not always mean good. I think it is worth a watch (wait for streaming) if you enjoyed the first film, just prepare yourself for disappointment. Joker: Folie à Deux is nowhere near as bad as a lot of outlets are making it out to be, it really isn’t – but it is still not very good. If there is one thing that this film does really damn well, that is that it proves why a sequel to Joker did not need to exist.

This is a film distributed by Warner Bros., the same company that binned the Batgirl movie despite good feedback from those that did see it. They also gave the well-received Coyote vs. Acme from last year to boot too. So I’m not sure how they could trash two films that got a good reception, but release this one. I don’t think that Joker: Folie à Deux deserves the bitter backlash that it is getting right now, and it is looking like it may very well be a bit of a box office flop, but it just makes no sense how this got released while other WB projects have been binned. Apparently, this film got an 11-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival. Now I have seen the film, I think they were just clapping that it was finally over.