Film Joker: Folie à Deux (Joker 2)

Looks like it's a mega flop.

Wouldn't have expected that tbh (even if the movie was bad).
I'd have absolutely expected that. There's just very little overlap in the venn diagram of people who enjoyed the first one and people who would pay to see a musical.

That decision is just tantamount to burning piles of money.
 
I wonder if it was a case of getting gaga on board and then chucking some songs in on the back of it.

Because it seems like an odd decision the other way around. I saw somewhere this one cost a couple of hundred million to make, about 3 times the first one. So everyone on screen got their cash this time around, and that is probably all they wanted.
 
I wonder if it was a case of getting gaga on board and then chucking some songs in on the back of it.

Because it seems like an odd decision the other way around. I saw somewhere this one cost a couple of hundred million to make, about 3 times the first one. So everyone on screen got their cash this time around, and that is probably all they wanted.

I think the problem they had was getting Phoenix to agree to a sequel. And he was only interested if it was a completely different sort of film and a big risk. Thus an avant-garde comic book villain origin story musical was born.
 
Probably one or two 'meh' songs. The other 10 songs (I'm not far off) are painful. What a moron for okaying this movie after a masterpiece from the first one. Just a mind boggling bad decision. It's annoying because there really is a movie in-between those scenes and it could have paid off so much better. The acting, cinematography and all that was good. But feck the story sucked.
Steady.
 
It’s just really boring. The only positive is some of the songs with Lady Gaga singing are quite good, but then I could have just listened to her soundtrack album on Spotify.

The ending is absolutely ridiculous.

Not content with making a mess of his own Joker, Todd does the same for Nolan’s too
 
I think the problem they had was getting Phoenix to agree to a sequel. And he was only interested if it was a completely different sort of film and a big risk. Thus an avant-garde comic book villain origin story musical was born.
What they could have done is make another origin story with the same characters, only told differently. Like how Heath Ledgers Joker is always changing his story in The Dark Knight.
 
Sounds like a total waste of time.
Joaquin Phoenix sure has made some odd career decisions over the years. I guess maybe that makes him more of an artist than actors that play it safe - guess it depends on who you ask.
 
well, it’s a feckin musical. What a chance to make a great film, but it goes nowhere. Gaga and Phoenix were great and it had the potential to be really good but it goes nowhere. Bursting into song at every opportunity, yes I get it’s to show he’s insane and it’s imagined but it’s overdone. As for Gaga, it feels as though just because she’s a singer it’s shoehorned in multiple times. Story is weak. Really disappointed. People who pretend to like modern art and jazz will probably like it [\spoiler]
 
They didn't go balls in, that's the biggest problem with it.

There's no theatricality, no madness, it's all so restrained. Especially the songs.

You have Gaga, and she never once goes crazy or sings with any power, you have an on form Phoenix but never let him show any real insanity, it's all just so shallow and safe in itself. Again, especially the songs.

I don't think it's quite as bad as some are saying, it certainly doesn't have as many songs interrupting as we've been led to believe, it's just flat and disappointing. It is more of a waste of the Joker they could have built on, Phoenix and Gaga than anything.
 
I'd have absolutely expected that. There's just very little overlap in the venn diagram of people who enjoyed the first one and people who would pay to see a musical.

That decision is just tantamount to burning piles of money.
I think that's only part of it, for example Aquaman 2 was a horrendous flop after the first one grossed 1 billion and there was no genre switcheroo there. I think combination of not looking as good, the moment having passed (first one came out ages ago), association with DC (which is being furiously rejected by audiences), musical element, and poor reviews.
 
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Im going to edit this tomorrow to add detail, because I’m knackered right now, but I LOVED this film!

As an allegory for the dangers of idols and idolisation I don’t think I’ve seen a film tackle it better (again I’m very tired so in the morning I might be able to think up examples).
 
So you were the one...
I am and I’ll tell you why - as per my first post I think this is a GREAT movie about idols and the dangers of (a) creating false idols and (b) projecting your own needs onto another person.

Arthur Fleck is a weak character, not in the cinematic sense but in reality. He is physically weak, low IQ, beaten down by the abuses he suffered. In fact it was one of the criticisms of Joker, that ‘Arthur Fleck is THE Joker?!?!?’. This movie essentially confirms that, and displays that ‘Joker’ on Murray Franklin was the ‘best’ that Arthur Fleck would ever be.

But what I think Folie à Deux does brilliantly was show how other people create a monster out of Joker, far beyond what the person, Arthur Fleck, is or was ever capable.

This is a great cautionary tail, for both the creator or a ‘character’ and the followers. Take
the prisoner who eventually is killed by the guard. He is a loyal, unquestioning follower of JOKER, not Arthur Fleck. He sees the extravagance of the singing etc and is by his side even when he can’t follow where Arthur goes. Then, ultimate, he pays for that cultish following with his life
.

Likewise it’s a great cautionary tale against populism / cult of personality / idolising characters because the pressure is then on the ‘idol’ to always be escalating your rhetoric or flamboyancy etc. we see this in both Harley &
the prisoner that ends up killing him. Harley created a picture in her head of what Joker was, again not what Arthur Fleck actually is. She builds him up and builds him up and then Arthur had a choice to make, between fantasy and reality. When he chose reality she binned him off. Likewise the prisoner sees what Arthur did with Joker, but is willing to go further than Arthur is/ was, and so you see him cutting the smile in his face after stabbing Arthur as (I assume) in this universe (although I don’t expect another film) he will become the new ‘real’ Joker
.

And so I think a lot of the reaction to the film, they maybe expected, because this is what the film is about! People project ideas & judgments about what they think something should be, and then reject it when it turns out to be different.
 
The first movie was on tv the other night and I didn't really get it, thought it was pretty crap.
 
Bit tonedeaf to make the sequel to a movie that mostly seemed lik a sort of nihilist incel wet dream hero journey into a musical.

I actually like musicals (and Joaquin Phoenix), but feck this.
 
Was going to go cinema later tonight to see this but think I’ll give it a miss now after seeing all these awful reviews about it all over the internet.

Disappointing though on how they have massively fecked up on what was a very good 1st film to build from.
 
It's one of the worst films I've ever seen, and that's no hyperbole. I feel genuinely unfortunate to have seen it. It's fecking horrible. Just offensively bad. I hated it. Genuinely hated it. It's depressing, and not even well written to counteract that. I heard Lady Gaga had to tone down her singing a lot in order to not leave a chasm between her and Phoenix.....which is fair enough.....but the result is that the singing is all pretty shite. And that's before you even consider why the feck it's in there in the first place. Sometimes the musical numbers come so fast and thick that it doesn't leave any clear plot narrative to shine through.

feck me, this was just awful. 1/10. 0/10 if that's an option.

This was purely made to indulge Todd Phillips and keep him on board. I guess they think that with the reboot, audiences will write this off and be ready to start again next year with Superman: Legacy. But I think they underestimate how much this film will piss people off, and how much it erodes trust with their target audience. They've taken a beloved film (by many) and character, that was a huge hit, and sodomized it.
 
Saw it tonight. Hated it as well. It felt like the story was competing with the songs for screen time, as neither propelled the other which is the essence of good musicals. The result was a mishmash of concepts with no cohesion nor time to develop, let alone work.

The Arthur/Joker struggle could have been a good story but it was very poorly executed. I felt that the inclusion of Lady Gaga's character (even when her performance was OK) actually hurt the movie as Lee's actions often broke the suspension of disbelief, halted the progresion of Arthur's arc and she wasn't even that well developed in the first place. It felt that they tried to explain her presence for a while and then just gave up.

The songs were very forgetable. I had forgotten every single one the moment the movie ended. The musical numbers also failed to leave an impression. Maybe the aesthetics were the thing that failed the least, but that's hardly a merit on the Gotham universe.

Ironically, some of the best moments of this movie were the bits that reminded us of the heart that the first one had. Sophie and especially Gary's bits were powerful. The acting in general was the movie's biggest strength.
 
The first movie was on tv the other night and I didn't really get it, thought it was pretty crap.
Same. Well I watched it ages ago but it was just ok/decent. Then I read the reviews/opinions and people were inventing stuff that wasn't there to elevate it. Or making out it was a lot smarter than it was.

I think it just became cool to say you loved it because batman.

I would pity anyone who went to see the sequel, but it's possible they deserved for doing something as dumb as agreeing to go and see the sequel..
 
I'd give it a 3/10

3 or 4 too many bland, poorly performed musical numbers that didnt do anything for the story. The story itself is poor. The characters make negative progression if there is any at all. It just stays in that sad self pitying spot that you would imagine is hitting the bottom so you can have that character progression to a satisfying climax. Nope. Its just 2 hours of gutter trash with poor singing and the few things that actusally happen in the movie, most are just in Arthur's head so makes little impact in the real world.

A movie where he goes from the character at the end of the first movie to one of the most feared criminals in Gotham would have been interesting.This was the opposite and as a result extremely boring, sad and with nothing satisfying to resolve an ending.
 
Haha what, it's a musical??? Like Sweeney Todd or something?

What a shit idea :lol:
 
Haha what, it's a musical??? Like Sweeney Todd or something?

What a shit idea :lol:
Perhaps they worked backwards by securing Lady Gaga and then subsequently realising she's not a good actress.

Disclaimer: I've only seen her act in a couple of things from almost a decade ago but she was unbearably bad back then.
 
They didn't go balls in, that's the biggest problem with it.

There's no theatricality, no madness, it's all so restrained. Especially the songs.

You have Gaga, and she never once goes crazy or sings with any power, you have an on form Phoenix but never let him show any real insanity, it's all just so shallow and safe in itself. Again, especially the songs.

I don't think it's quite as bad as some are saying, it certainly doesn't have as many songs interrupting as we've been led to believe, it's just flat and disappointing. It is more of a waste of the Joker they could have built on, Phoenix and Gaga than anything.
In the sha ha sha ha low. Sorry, couldn't resist.
 
The director has come out and said that Arthur in the movie isn't actually Joker, which is hilarious considering he did say it was Joker before this movie came out.
 
I'd give it a 3/10

3 or 4 too many bland, poorly performed musical numbers that didnt do anything for the story. The story itself is poor. The characters make negative progression if there is any at all. It just stays in that sad self pitying spot that you would imagine is hitting the bottom so you can have that character progression to a satisfying climax. Nope. Its just 2 hours of gutter trash with poor singing and the few things that actusally happen in the movie, most are just in Arthur's head so makes little impact in the real world.

A movie where he goes from the character at the end of the first movie to one of the most feared criminals in Gotham would have been interesting.This was the opposite and as a result extremely boring, sad and with nothing satisfying to resolve an ending.

This would have been the way to go, and what people would have wanted to see. It was the only “sequel” that made any sense.
 
Decided to just go and see it for myself earlier this afternoon despite my reluctance to do so. Absolutely terrible & justifiably it is getting the stick all over the internet as feck knows how this got signed off other than just for the money. A few folk left about an hour into it and a group of teenage girls a few rows down from where I was sitting ended up just having their eyes glued to their phone screens rather than the cinema screen. One of them every time I seen Lady Gaga appear on the cinema screen, my initial reaction was “feck here we go again & I wonder what the song is going to be about this time”.

Was it the same directors and producers from the first film? If so, then I just don’t know what the feck was on their minds to turn this into a musical when the first one was a pretty good first movie to build a sequel from.

Won’t be surprised if their reaction to the deserved stick this film is receiving is of complete utter disbelief and confusion. Basically not what they were expecting.
 
I am and I’ll tell you why - as per my first post I think this is a GREAT movie about idols and the dangers of (a) creating false idols and (b) projecting your own needs onto another person.

Arthur Fleck is a weak character, not in the cinematic sense but in reality. He is physically weak, low IQ, beaten down by the abuses he suffered. In fact it was one of the criticisms of Joker, that ‘Arthur Fleck is THE Joker?!?!?’. This movie essentially confirms that, and displays that ‘Joker’ on Murray Franklin was the ‘best’ that Arthur Fleck would ever be.

But what I think Folie à Deux does brilliantly was show how other people create a monster out of Joker, far beyond what the person, Arthur Fleck, is or was ever capable.

This is a great cautionary tail, for both the creator or a ‘character’ and the followers. Take
the prisoner who eventually is killed by the guard. He is a loyal, unquestioning follower of JOKER, not Arthur Fleck. He sees the extravagance of the singing etc and is by his side even when he can’t follow where Arthur goes. Then, ultimate, he pays for that cultish following with his life
.

Likewise it’s a great cautionary tale against populism / cult of personality / idolising characters because the pressure is then on the ‘idol’ to always be escalating your rhetoric or flamboyancy etc. we see this in both Harley &
the prisoner that ends up killing him. Harley created a picture in her head of what Joker was, again not what Arthur Fleck actually is. She builds him up and builds him up and then Arthur had a choice to make, between fantasy and reality. When he chose reality she binned him off. Likewise the prisoner sees what Arthur did with Joker, but is willing to go further than Arthur is/ was, and so you see him cutting the smile in his face after stabbing Arthur as (I assume) in this universe (although I don’t expect another film) he will become the new ‘real’ Joker
.

And so I think a lot of the reaction to the film, they maybe expected, because this is what the film is about! People project ideas & judgments about what they think something should be, and then reject it when it turns out to be different.
This is unhinged.
 
Same. Well I watched it ages ago but it was just ok/decent. Then I read the reviews/opinions and people were inventing stuff that wasn't there to elevate it. Or making out it was a lot smarter than it was.
It wasn't that well reviewed, really. 59 on Metacritic and 68 on Rotten Tomatoes.
 
If they were going to do a Joker sequel where Arthur spends most of it in a mental institution and
at the end he dies
then maybe they should have taken a page from the first film's "Scorsese inspirations" and simply ripped off One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Hell, Jack Nicholson played the Joker too.
 
Probably will never see it but I didn't mind the first one for a one off viewing. Hopefully there won't be a third by the sound of it financially it sounds like it's a complete turkey.
 
I am and I’ll tell you why - as per my first post I think this is a GREAT movie about idols and the dangers of (a) creating false idols and (b) projecting your own needs onto another person.

Arthur Fleck is a weak character, not in the cinematic sense but in reality. He is physically weak, low IQ, beaten down by the abuses he suffered. In fact it was one of the criticisms of Joker, that ‘Arthur Fleck is THE Joker?!?!?’. This movie essentially confirms that, and displays that ‘Joker’ on Murray Franklin was the ‘best’ that Arthur Fleck would ever be.

But what I think Folie à Deux does brilliantly was show how other people create a monster out of Joker, far beyond what the person, Arthur Fleck, is or was ever capable.

This is a great cautionary tail, for both the creator or a ‘character’ and the followers. Take
the prisoner who eventually is killed by the guard. He is a loyal, unquestioning follower of JOKER, not Arthur Fleck. He sees the extravagance of the singing etc and is by his side even when he can’t follow where Arthur goes. Then, ultimate, he pays for that cultish following with his life
.

Likewise it’s a great cautionary tale against populism / cult of personality / idolising characters because the pressure is then on the ‘idol’ to always be escalating your rhetoric or flamboyancy etc. we see this in both Harley &
the prisoner that ends up killing him. Harley created a picture in her head of what Joker was, again not what Arthur Fleck actually is. She builds him up and builds him up and then Arthur had a choice to make, between fantasy and reality. When he chose reality she binned him off. Likewise the prisoner sees what Arthur did with Joker, but is willing to go further than Arthur is/ was, and so you see him cutting the smile in his face after stabbing Arthur as (I assume) in this universe (although I don’t expect another film) he will become the new ‘real’ Joker
.

And so I think a lot of the reaction to the film, they maybe expected, because this is what the film is about! People project ideas & judgments about what they think something should be, and then reject it when it turns out to be different.
Ah yes, the Metal Gear Solid 2 defence.