Joaquin Phoenix returns to the role of the struggling comedian Arthur Fleck in “Joker 2: Folie À Deux”. Credit: Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros. Pictures/dpa via TNS
Wanna hear a joke?
What do you get when you take a sequel that didn’t need to be made in the first place and force it to be a musical? You get “Joker: Folie à Deux,” a movie that takes plenty of risks and still ends up feeling disappointingly bland.
“Folie à Deux” is the direct sequel to Todd Phillip’s 2019 film “Joker.” It picks up right where its predecessor left off, with the titular character in prison for the various crimes he’s committed. Though Joaquin Phoenix (“Napoleon”) still plays Joker, he’s joined this time by Lady Gaga as his iconic partner in crime, Harley Quinn.
Much of the film is dedicated to being a courtroom drama, intercut with musical sequences involving the two leads. Some are diegetic — meaning they actually unfold in the context of the story — while others take place entirely in Joker’s head.
The role of Joker is highly sought after, given the broad acclaim and success that a performance as the legendary villain can bring an actor. For instance, the late Heath Ledger won Best Supporting Actor in 2009 for his portrayal of the character in “The Dark Knight.”
The character, however, can be tricky to pull off. Just look at Jared Leto’s flopped emo spin on the wisecracking villain in 2016’s “Suicide Squad.”
Phoenix was put in conversations with Ledger as an all-time embodiment of the villain after 2019’s “Joker,” but falls back to earth in a disappointing sequel, which cements him as just another iteration of a character who’s probably been played too much already.
That’s the biggest problem with “Folie à Deux” — it’s not good enough to leave audiences satisfied and not bad enough to be memorable.
The risk of spinning it into a musical, which is a respectably bold choice, doesn’t do enough to make the film stand out from other comic book adaptations. The song-and-dance sequences are enjoyable, but grind an already too-long film to a stop, contributing to an overall clunky pace.
Lady Gaga as Harley brings an interesting element to the film, but her role doesn’t extend much beyond the stereotypical femme fatale expected of Quinn’s character and feels too by-the-books.
The script doesn’t do Gaga’s relative inexperience with acting many favors. She’s best in the musical numbers, but given that they don’t feel necessary to begin with, it also leaves Harley herself feeling superfluous.
As for the plot, it all seems to happen just a bit too conveniently to uphold audiences’ suspensions of disbelief. “Folie à Deux” doesn’t commit enough to being a full-fledged court drama, which leaves many open plot holes about the legal process that continuously break the trance the film tries to place its audience under.
The film also uses the classic teal-and-orange color palette so as to appeal to viewers’ eyes, but suffers under the weight of attempting to make every shot look stunning and grandiose, which ends up giving off a pretentious feel of self-importance.
For instance, playing a drinking game where a shot is taken every time Phoenix took a slow puff of a cigarette and blew the smoke in front of a light would likely result in someone’s hospitalization.
There seems to be a societal fatigue with the excess of comic book films permeating contemporary pop culture, and “Joker: Folie à Deux” shouldn’t be protected from the fire just because it’s an edgy, R-rated film in contrast to many of the more family-friendly superhero blockbusters.
At the end of the day, the “Joker” sequel is much a deux about nothing.
Rating: 2/5
