The sequel to 2019’s Joker feels like a clumsy dance partner shuffling their way through a menagerie of musical mediocrity, all while undoing what made the original so special.

(SPOILERS BELOW)

2024 has been an odd year for DC as a whole. One one hand, their television products like the surprisingly well made Batman: Caped Crusader & The Penguin have garnered millions of views & helped break into the cultural zeitgeist. On the other hand, the low reception of their Crisis on Infinite Earths animated trilogy & the dumpster fire that was Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League struck the brand financially. DC’s whole restructuring has also left them vulnerable to not only an industry that’s growing more dissatisfied with the superhero genre, but also with Marvel handing DC & Warner Bros. their own asses with how popular Deadpool & Wolverine was & that James Gunn’s Superman not seeing a release until Summer 2025.

Bafflingly however, DC still had one figurative card up their sleeve for 2024 with the release of Joker: Madness for Two (or Folie à Deux), a sequel to Todd Phillips’ R-rated blockbuster that gave the clown prince of crime a dramatic but human breakdown. It was a slow burn, but it was beautiful, horrifying, and it managed to draw a fine line in appealing to both comic book fans & the critical audience. It was also great because it kept itself contained, you saw the man become the monster and you wrap up Arthur Fleck’s story with one movie. Nobody wanted a sequel, not the fans, not the critics, not even the director Todd Phillips, but since Joker grossed over 1 billion at the box office (even being the highest grossing R-rated movie before Deadpool & Wolverine showed up), the suits wanted more. So now we’re left with Joker: Folie à Deux, a bloated sequel that regresses Arthur Fleck’s story to that of a ugly depiction, showcasing Hollywood at its greediest.

Come Undone

You can easily summarize Joker: Folie à Deux by simply plopping someone in front of a TV, playing the first Joker film, and pausing every half hour to show a musical number you’d find off YouTube. If you went in expecting a compelling narrative about love, loss of innocence & the mental state of a madman who has nothing to lose, I’d ask what movie you went to see & we’d go find it together. Long gone is the ambiguity of the original film, alongside anything resembling a continuation. Instead, you’ll be spending Joker: Folie à Deux watching characters recap the first film as if it was some long relic from the 1960s. It made the overall experience pretty boring, and outside of the musical breaks to help wake up the audience, I remember nothing else from my viewing outside of a couple performances & the insulting ending.

Also, ask anybody to name a scene from Joker and they’ll give you many options. The stairway dance scene, Arthur’s breakdown in the public washroom. The entire third act. There are so many scenes you can take away from Joker, yet for Joker: Folie à Deux, I can’t really name anything memorable or something that lingers in your mind. Sure, there are some decent scenes like Joker’s whole segment with Gary from the first film, but outside of a few outliers, it feels like a film that should’ve been an hour & a half but hangs on for another hour.

Identity Crisis

The biggest issue with Joker: Folie à Deux is that, although it calls itself a sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux feels so disconnected from the first film in almost every manner possible. Initially, we start off with Joker but we see him digress back into Arthur over the span of two hours. It doesn’t feel natural & it comes off as so forced just to have us start off back at square one by the films end, as Arthur lies in a pool of his own blood. No instances of Arthur planning mass crimes. No major events that shift Gotham to its core. Hell, we don’t even see The Joker that much. I like Arthur Fleck, but if you have a movie called Joker: Folie à Deux, you’d probably want to include him as much as possible.

Then there comes the most controversial aspect of Joker: Folie à Deux, the musicals. Mind you, if you’re going to get Lady Gaga, you would have to imagine that some type of musical element would be implemented. Personally, I don’t hate them. They’re competent as they are, but I don’t see a reason for them to exist outside of flexing a larger budget. Instead of having these lead to a deeper revelation or aspect of the film, you could easily summarize every musical as “look at the schizophrenics singing”. Honestly, if you were to ask me what movie sequel would be revised as a musical, I wouldn’t say Joker because it never needed a sequel to begin with.

Mad Love

Although there is plenty that infuriates me, Joker: Folie à Deux is still a competent film with plenty of aspects to admire. For one, both Joaquin Phoenix & Lady Gaga bring their a-game to Joker: Folie à Deux. Mind you the original did nab Joaquin Phoenix his first Academy Award for Best Male Performance, so going in you knew what to expect. Phoenix delivers a solid performance, similar to his 2019 role, and it helps carry whatever little plot there is. But Lady Gaga easily stole the show for me. Cunning, manipulative, and psychotic, this was a side to Harley Quinn that we’ve never truly seen before & it feels fresh, just like Arthur’s story in the original. There is an argument to be made that it doesn’t make sense to have Harley start out as crazy, but considering what her character represents & where they go with her, I don’t see any major issue with this change.

Also, can we talk about how beautiful this film is visually? Almost all the shots & scenes are pure eye candy. The colours, the lighting, the shot composition, it’s truly magnificent. Most of the major crew from Joker returned for the sequel, including cinematographer Lawrence Sher’s fingerprints are easily noticeable from start to end. I might not like the musicals, but the way that they’re shot & composed helps make it more digestible for the audience. Speaking of music, composer Hildur Guðnadóttir returns as well with a powerful score. Just like its predecessor, Guðnadóttir’s score is deep and boastful, but also tense & quiet. It helps add the necessary oomph to scenes that need it, and I was more of a fan of the score than any of the musical aspects.

Overall, the best way to describe Joker: Folie à Deux is that it shouldn’t exist. It isn’t made for comic book fans, critics, or even the general audience. Unless you really want to see a musical with the Joker & Lady Gaga in it, then I really can’t recommend this film, which truly hurts for me to say. With how much it tries to undo all the goodwill from the first film, it makes me feel that they wanted to push this version of the Joker all the way to the side to make way for the next attempt of rebooting the DC Universe for films. So what can you do but smile & laugh?

4/10

(at least there won’t be a Joker 3)