Even though I thought that they could have taken out Gotham and all the references to the Waynes, I still enjoyed Todd Phillips’s 2019 Joker movie. I knew going in that Joker: Folie à Deux was supposedly a musical and I was ok with that. I thought that it sounded interesting and I do like Lady Gaga.
How to Download Joker: Folie à Deux
Joker: Folie à Deux was released on October 4, 2024. You can expect to be able to download or stream the film from Max in about 45 days from that date. Click on the Download button at the end of this review.
Joker: Folie à Deux Review – The Anticipation and the Reality
However, the more trailers I saw and the more stuff I read about Joker: Folie à Deux, the less interested I started to become. If I am being brutally honest, if it were not for me being so intrigued about Lady Gaga playing Harley Quinn, I am not sure I would have made the effort to see this in the theatre.
This is a direct sequel to Joker and this is 100 percent a case where you have to see the original Joker first. Let me start with the positives, the performances of Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga are fantastic. The acting in this movie is great and while Phoenix and Gaga are getting all the attention, I thought that Brendan Gleeson was a lot of fun as the prison guard. Also, even though it was a very small role this time around, it was great to see the gorgeous Zazie Beetz reprise her role from the first movie.
Plot Overview
Basically, there is this fancy lawyer woman who is trying to prove that Arthur Fleck is insane and that Joker is another personality he created to deal with his childhood trauma. The people on the outside are split with some people wanting him to fry and others seeing him as this anti-hero and there is almost a cult that has built up of people who worship Joker.
Add to this we have a character called “Lee” This is Harley Quinn and she is Harley Quinn in name only. If I watched this movie and did not know that this was set in the DC Universe and if they had not actually called Lee by her real name, I would have had no idea that this character was supposed to be Harley Quinn. Hey, Lady Gaga is fantastic and she certainly plays crazy really well, however, this is not a take on Harley Quinn that I love. Say what you will about the Suicide Squad movies, but Margot Robbie nailed bringing Harley Quinn to life.
Musical Fantasy Elements
The movie is like a courtroom drama with these musical fantasies sprinkled on top. The musical fantasy stuff is very well done, I love the style of it all, and the singing, dancing, and whole vibe of this stuff was something I thought was really cool. On the flip side of this, I can fully see why some people would say that it is dumb and makes no sense at all. As I said, I had no problem with this being a musical and the musical numbers were actually what entertained me the most while I was watching it.
Final Thoughts
For me, Joker: Folie à Deux was ok. This was not horrible, but at the same time, it just feels like a very pointless movie. I can see why some people will see this as pretentious, self-indulgent garbage and I honestly do not have an argument for anyone who says that is how they feel about it. All I can say is that while I think this is even less of a DC movie than the first Joker, I at the very least was entertained by the musical numbers.
