Joker: It's No Laughing Matter

I have to be honest, I was getting sick and tired of hearing about this movie. It's no secret that there's a bit of controversy surrounding it and the press tour didn't help at all (I don't have time to get into everything about that, but I'd Google it. It's a great example on how to not promote your movie). It's gotten to the point where I don't even want to talk about it that much, but since I have OCD, here we are with a new review. With all of that out of the way, let's get started!

Joker is directed by Todd Phillips and stars Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, and Frances Conroy. Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) is a struggling stand-up comedian who is constantly thrown to the side by society. One day he hits a breaking point and goes down a violent path as the clown alter-ego, the Joker. With all of that out of the way, let's dive into the review!

I'll start by saying this: I didn't love this movie like everyone else. I didn't think it was a masterpiece and it's not my favorite movie of the year. With that being said, there are a lot of good things about it. Joaquin Phoenix is the glue that holds this movie together. He's super good as Arthur Fleck and does a great job of making you feel bad for him. This is a very different take on the Joker and it was a little odd sympathizing for him. Phoenix nails the laugh, which, in this version, is actually a medical condition that Arthur can't control. It causes him pain and he's very uncomfortable. I really liked this addition. It was something new and fresh. Whenever I saw Fleck, it felt like watching a time bomb. I knew he was going to snap, but I just didn't know when. Phoenix really got himself invested in this role. He lost a ton of weight and that adds a lot to the movie. It kinda makes sense that a guy like Arthur would be very thin. Everyone is saying that Phoenix is going to get nominated, and I kind of hope he does. He doesn't even compare to Heath Ledger's portrayal, but he still does a great job and is the main reason to go see this movie. On the technical side, the cinematography is gorgeous in the film. I expected a movie about the Joker, one of the most famous villains of all time, to be a very dull affair, visually. That's not really the case here. It's not a vibrant explosion of color, but it isn't bland either. It reminded me of John Wick, in regards to cinematography. I also really liked the tension-building that was done. A key aspect of the Joker is that you never know what he's going to do next and the way the film portrays that is phenomenal. Phillips did a really good job at directing the tense scenes. What's interesting about this movie is that, yes, it's a comic book movie, but it doesn't feel like one. This movie was an interesting experiment to see if a comic book property can be ultra realistic. While I didn't 100% agree with this method, I have to applaud the movie for doing something new. This movie is a great example of something that should be seen more than once because I'm pretty sure I missed quite a few things.

As I mentioned earlier, Joaquin Phoenix does a fantastic job in this movie. The rest of the cast does a good job, too, but they're barely in it. This makes sense because it's a Joker movie. I think my biggest problem with this film is that it thinks it's more important than it really is. I get that people love this movie and it's their favorite movie of the year, but many parts of the film didn't work for me. That's why I'm dreading sending this review out. No it's not because it's a DC movie and no it's not because it was very realistic (Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy was and I love those movies.) I just thought the film itself was pretentious. There were things that felt like they were thrown in because Todd Phillips wanted to show he could do non-comedy movies. The script, at times, is pretty bad. This next part is a tiny spoiler, but I really feel the need to put it in. The more I thought about it, the more frustrated I got. I'll put some asterisks before and after I'm done talking about it. ***At one point in the film, Joker grabs the camera and says, "What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash?" I won't put the answer because it really doesn't matter. My issue with this was that the movie had shown for the past hour and a half that society had screwed him over. This didn't need to be beaten over our heads. It seemed like a parody at this point and I was pretty surprised this made it into the final cut. The movie is about as subtle as a heart-attack and the script doesn't do it any favors.*** A main part of this movie is about how mentally ill people shouldn't be pushed to the side. Yes, that's 100% true, but it shouldn't have taken a movie about a murderous clown for people to recognize this. It doesn't help when the movie keeps reminding you, through dialogue, that Arthur is mentally ill. A movie shouldn't have to tell you that. It should be shown. This movie does both, but it does way too much telling. There's something that's written in Arthur's journal that's shown several times throughout the movie, "The worst part of having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don't." It's beaten over our heads constantly throughout the movie to the point where it took me out. It got to the point where Joker might as well have turned to the screen and said, "Now remember to treat others the way you want to be treated." It just didn't sit well with me and I started to get pretty irritated towards the end, Another thing that bothered, oddly enough, was the comic book connections. Many of them I liked. There's a scene in the trailer that shows Arthur interacting with little Bruce Wayne and it's a phenomenal scene. Some parts, however, felt pretty tacked on and I wondered if they were reshoots to remind the audience this has something to do with Batman. Many people are praising the score, but I didn't really love it like everybody else did. Like the dialogue, it was pretty forced at times, reminding us that this was a mentally unstable individual. I apologize for this being all over the place, but I'm really mixed about this movie.

To wrap everything up, I'm pretty mixed on this film. Phoenix does a great job as the Joker, the cinematography is great, and I really liked this experimental approach to a comic-book film. This is hampered by the fact that the script isn't the best at times, the score is a little too repetitive and some of the comic-book elements seemed like an afterthought. I'm really looking forward to discussing this movie and I do want to see it again. By no means is Joker a bad movie, I just didn't love it like everyone else did. That's fine too, because film is subjective. If I were to rate it, I'd give Joker a 7/10. If you want to talk to me more about it, feel free to message, email, or text me! I'd love to hear from you guys!