STARRING: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Zazie Beetz, Steve Coogan, Harry Lawtey and Leigh Gill. Written by Scott Silver and Todd Phillips, directed by Todd Phillips. Budget $200 million. Running time 138 minutes.
The plot sees a heavy withdrawn and depressed Arthur Fleck an inmate at Arkham State Hospital awaiting his day in court for the crimes he committed two years earlier in the first film, Joker, where he killed six people, including executing Murray Franklin (Robert DeNiro) on live TV. His lawyer, Maryanne Stewart (Catherin Keener) is doing her damndest to help him and determined to show that Arthur suffers from dissociative identity disorder and not responsible for his actions. Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson) a prison guard who tries to help Arthur for his good behaviour enrols him in some music therapy where he meets uber Joker fan, Harleen 'Lee' Quinzel (Lady Gaga) and a romance begins. She re-ignites his joie de vie. The court case begins with Harvey Dent leading the prosecution and Joker begins to come back, however, Arthur sacks his lawyer and defends himself leading to an explosive closing statement that sees Arthur admit the truth. He returns to Arkham and his destiny.
This starts with a wonderful animated sequence in the style of an old Loony Tunes cartoon expertly animated and directed by Sylvain Chomet, the French genius behind the truly wonderful Triplets of Belleville. In the short, Joker is tormented by his own shadow who ends up getting Arthur arrested. Having read all the reviews and talked to people who'd been to see this I went in expecting to watch a two hour 20 minute, $200 million train wreck.
My expectations were extremely low, I mean I hated 2019's Joker, I mean HATED it, nihilistic, miserbale and deeply depressing. I'd heard how badly it had done box office wise not even making $40 million on its opening weekend, and the fact it had the lowest score for any superhero film and I was sold. I saw it at 11:00am on a cold Sunday with my daughter in tow, her too expecting a trainwreck.
How wrong we were!
The film starts with the animated sequence, which was wonderful, and I wondered when it would start going down hill and it didn't, the introduction of Harley Quinn arrived and that too didn't suck, much has been said about the fact that this was nothing but a musical and so I thought that when the songs started I would begin to hate it, but I didn't, I heard that the court room drama was dragged out and boring, and although it did slow the film down it didn't suck and then I heard that the ending had left audiences losing their collective minds in rage and shock, but if you'd watched the film, you knew what was coming and when it did, I was delighted by it's guts. Critics have moaned that Lady Gaga isn't used enough, and to that I would agree but would say this film is about Joker and she was never going to be more than a co-star.
Gritty, moody, mean, edgy and at times touching and poignant, Joaquin Phoenix is superb, Lady Gaga is committed and excellent, Brendan Gleeson, who offers the only glimpse of hope is superb, the direction by Todd Phillips is divine and the cinematography by Lawrence Sher is gorgeous. The film dips in and out of Arthur's imagination with glimpses of a TV special featuring him and Quinn where the sing and dance, and the musical numbers which never feel jarring or out of place add real depth and emotion to the film, there's a hearbreaking sequence where Arthur sings a message to Quinn which she listens to on her answer phone machine.
Honestly I was captivated by this film, was swept up by heart, and the doomed romance at its centre, by the journey of Arthur as he struggles with his Joker duality, and the shocking ending perfectly fitted the tone and shape of this film.
It's been postulated that Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix had no desire to make a sequel and went out of their way to destroy the legend of the two Oscar winning, Billion dollar box office Joker. A film that cost 'just' $60 million to make, a third of what this did. But up there on the big screen is no sign of loathing, no sign of two men sabotaging their legacy, to me it seems like a genuine attempt to do something more, something new with the film and would make it shine and for me it more than shined, it exploded like a supernova!
Fantastic performances, wonderful songs and a film that shrugged off the usual superhero guff to deliver a film that in time will be seen as a classic, if there's justice in this world.
8/10
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