Joker Foile à Deux review (Content warning for mentions of sexual abuse. Also Spoiler warning.)

(content warning for mentions of abuse and sexual assault.)

 

 

 

(Admittedly, I'm not sure how sensitive it is to make this the thumbnail but I've been seeing this meme all fucking weekend leading up to the movie and I can't get it out of my head so here it is.

Hey, turn that frown upside down you costumed clowns because you’re killer kroc is back! That’s right, your precious pudding Kolonel Krank is here with a review of Joker: Foile à Deux and uh…yeah, I’m not gonna lie here, I’m at a bit of a loss here. I’ve had movies inspire joy, frustration, disappointment, and even slight disgust but Apathy, especially at this level, is rare. Even Borderlands, a film I described as ‘cinematic Novocaine’ managed to summon more emotion from me than Joker Foi…fuck it, I’m just calling this thing Joker-2, did. I suppose I should try to collect myself and start with the parts that actually stand out in my mind, as few and far between as they are! Lady Gaga delivers a fairly decent performance as Harley Quinn, oh I’m sorry, “Lee” Quinn, God fucking forbid you remember these are technically Batman characters. Regardless, Gaga does her best to add some depth to otherwise shallow material, she imbues Lee with an air of mystery while still coming off warm and genuinely affectionate towards Arthur, you can see why he falls in love with her so quickly and passionately. Gaga’s acting does more to make the romance believable than anything in the script alone.

 

 

(Have to admit, I do love some of the costuming choices in this movie. Especially for Harley, so many of her outfits in this movie not only look striking but have fun little references to her classic suit. You can tell there were at least some fans of the characters in this movie

  The way Gaga snaps from quiet and almost demure to boisterous and confident her not makes her feel wholly unpredictable but mean she’s easily the most captivating out of anyone in the cast. My personal favorite scene with her (and the film in general) came early in the film, as Harley and Arthur attempt to escape Arkham after setting it ablaze. Dancing through the courtyard while ducking past spotlights, the contrast between their joyful display and the chaos spreading around them not only made for a striking scene, but actually felt appropriate for Harley and The Joker. I could easily imagine this scene playing out in a comic or even the animated series in which Harley first appeared. For all of the attempts both this film and its predecessor have made to distance themselves from their comic-book routes, this scene felt unapologetic of those routes and in doing so, injected some life into what otherwise a dreary flatline of a movie. And, unlike some of later scenes, actually does so in a fashion that isn’t a jarring excuse for the set designer to go off the fucking rails in such an intellectually masturbatory fashion that it felt like they were allowed to do whatever they pleased while the story awkwardly bends itself into any and every direction imaginable to accommodate them but I’m getting ahead of myself.

 

(For a movie that purports to be a musical. The musical numbers feel like little more than a gimmick at the end of the day. The way they're just haphazardly stitched into the movie and fuck off as quickly as they arrive makes them feel like they're simply there to differentiate this film from the first because otherwise, it's a fairly similar follow-up. Equal in its blandness, its sheer self-importance, and how much it borrows from much better films  )

Another pro of Gaga’s performance is that she’s also the only member of the cast who can actually fucking sing. While the rest of the cast are fairly flat and just sort of belt their tunes like their 3 shots deep at a karaoke night. Gaga’s voice has a wonderful range to it and her singing has a powerful energy to it that makes her musical numbers actually enrapturing in a way that no-one else in the film even comes close to achieving. As controversial as Gaga’s casting was after its initial announcement, she’s easily the best part of this movie by far. With both a powerful presence both in the musical number and during some the film’s most dramatic scenes, even if this movie is kind of a wash, I genuinely wouldn’t mind seeing Gaga do a few more musicals after this, especially if she gets an equally talented cast that can actually keep up with her when she’s singing. It would almost certainly be a better use of her talents than the disjointed bores that Joker-2 offers as musical numbers.

Alright so, is there anything else I actually found enjoyable, or even notable about this movie outside of Gaga’s Harley? Well, there a few moments where Joaquin Phoenix shines as the titular character, particularly when he begins acting out during the court proceedings and delves deeper into the Joker persona. A small but stand out moment is when Arthur imagines himself beating the judge to death with their own gavel, examining the small hammer for a moment before literally bonking them on the head with it like he’s playing a game of Whack-a-mole. While far from a major moment or anything, that scene actually endeared Phoenix's Joker to me a little because it demonstrates that he could be a great Joker in a more traditional Batman film if he wasn’t so preoccupied with re-inventing the role and fishing for a best actor award. Unfortunately, these moments of charm come few and far between and most of Phoenix’s performance feels oddly understated. Even in scenes where he’s supposed to be boisterous and manic, he’s fairly quiet as seems more pre-occupied trying to strike cool poses for the trailer and deliver quotable lines that people will repeat for years after as they did with Jack Nicholson or Heath Ledger’s takes on the character (by the by, I struggle to remember any of Phoenix’s lines.) I honestly think that the biggest mistake both Phoenix and director Todd Phillips’ made is overthinking this story. Instead of trying to make something ‘deep’ and ‘cinematic’ or as Phillips put it in interviews ‘a real movie’ they ended up creating a indistinguishable mimicry of better movies when they could’ve used their talents to make a film that was truly unique and actually deserving of the praise and awards they so clearly sought. Overall, Phoenix essentially sabotages his own performance, holding himself back and delivering something with hints of greatness that can only be glimpsed behind a wall of boring quietness.

(It's a genuine shame that Phoenix turns up his nose at 'Superhero movies' so often. Were he cast as The Joker in a regular Batman film, he'd probably turn in a wonderful performance as the Clown Prince of Crime. Especially alongside a talented actress as Harley like Gaga, it's shame that his legacy on the character will be a pair of overhyped, dull little movies that spend more time seeking the approval of film bros than anything else)

Damn, even my attempts at listing positives turned into a negative, that’s not a great sign. Is there anything else I enjoyed about this movie...Well, that little cartoon at the beginning was actually fun, the parody of classic Looney Tunes that worked as a clever use of Warner Bros I.P….Okay, yeah that’s all I got. I’m sorry but this one ain’t great and not only that, but it’s also not even bad in the fashion of something like Borderlands or AfAId. It’s just suffocatingly bland more often than not and its attempts to liven things up with the musical numbers come out of fucking nowhere with the exception of the escape scene, and completely fall flat on their face. Proving to be just as unengaging as everything else. Other than the positives I listed above, the only other times the film actually captures interest was either when it threw in a out-of-place that came and went so quickly, it felt as if the editors of Robot Chicken were brought on to cut the film, or when it attempted to tackle some very real, very heavy issues and did so with the subtly and tact of a clown in a cancer ward. In fact, there’s one scene in particular where I must issue both a spoiler warning and far more importantly, a trigger warning for sexual assault because midway through the movie, the Joker is brutally beaten and raped by the guards of Arkham. While the movie stops just shy of showing us the actual rape, we see Arthur stripped down to his underwear and beaten beforehand, with the film then cutting a near-naked Arthur being dragged into his cell, being thrown on his bed ass-up and the camera sits there lingering before cutting back to the courtroom and just moving on. All the while, I was sitting in the theater silently wondering why the movie had taken this direction out of fucking nowhere.


All right, I don’t want to dwell on this scene for long, mostly because I know this is an incredibly sensitive subject that my goofy ass isn’t totally equipped to discuss in the most tasteful manner, I’m gonna be as careful as I can while talking about this as to not put my foot in my mouth or offend any victims of sexual assault in the audience. With that said, I don’t think rape or assault should never be used in movies, a talented writer or director can use it to powerful effect, highlighting the pain and trauma that such a horrific act inevitably inflicts upon its victim or show how terrifyingly cruel people can be to one another. I think that’s what Joker-2 was aiming for, and I’m trying to be chartable to writer Scott Silver and co-writer/director Todd Phillip, but I have to ask, was the inclusion of sexual assault necessary for this scene? Could you not have found any other way to exemplify the abuse Arthur suffers at the hands of the Arkham guards? If so, why not focus more on the way this has hurt Arthur, the genuine pain and long-lasting PSTD that sexual assault can leave? As it is, the scene is not only off-putting, but it feels gratuitous, only included in the film for a bit of cheap shock value before the movie moves on. The most impact it had was making Arthur unsure of embracing the Joker persona, but that’s already been demonstrated several times throughout the movie. In fact, Arthur just kind flips between loving being the Joker to suddenly having doubts far past the point he should really be having any doubts and there’s no real explanation as to why, at least before the rape. If the rape was the catalysts for his doubts, then maybe I could see the point, though I would still feel as if you could’ve found a better, less fucked-up, way to get the character to that point. But as it is, the scene ends up being pointless and ultimately feels as if it’s just there for cheap shock value and to make you feel bad for a character that up until that point, outside of one or two scenes, had been so fucking bland and unengaging  that asking the audience to form an emotional attachment to him is like asking them to have an emotional attachment to any of the random background inmates. This scene is at best ill-advised and at worst, grossly exploitative to the point of being a little sickening if I’m honest. Again, it’s not as if sexual assault can’t be tackled or explored in a move but ain’t the fucking way to do it and this scene probably should’ve been heavily rewritten if not cut entirely.

(Between this and Zach Snyder comments on how his Batman 'could be raped in prison' a few years ago. Why do people at Warner Bros keep wanting to inject sexual assault into the world of D.C comics? Can we not? Please? That'd be nice.)

 

 

Overall, Joker-2 is..well, it’s not realty anything substantial. It feels like everyone responsible for the first film’s success and thought ‘well we don’t really have an idea for a second film, but we do want more money so…songs? Yeah, songs, that’ll do it. That’ll make up for the fact we don’t a single fucking idea of what we’re doing.’ Other than one decent performance and bizarrely shocking scene, Joker-2 is unremarkable fluff that relies on pretensions of brilliance and some reheated Batman iconography to carry itself. Though films such as Borderlands and AfrAId are certainly worse, at least I’ll remember them when I reflect on the year but Joker-2? I can barely recall this film less than a day after seeing it, so I doubt it’ll remain when the cold months of December roll around. This film is little more than a forgettable detour on Warner Brothers desperate journey to their new ‘DCU’ as they try to stop repeatedly fucking up movies based of D.C comics. Thankfully, James Gunn’s Superman Legacy…oh…apparently, it’s been renamed to simply Superman…well regardless, however that film turns out. Let’s hope it turns out better, and more tasteful, than this Garish grinning guff.

(Well, at least Joker-2 wasn't so deplorable as to star a violent criminal even years after their crimes were known to the public. Not to mention ghoulishly puppeteering the likeness of dead actors for some cheap cameos towards the end of the film... dear lord, the past decade of D.C films have been so ridiculously fucked, Please let that new Superman movie next year be good)

Until next time, be sure keep a smile on that face, rev up your Harley, and always Krank up the Noise!