Movie Review - Joker: Folie a Deux

Joker: Folie a Deux (2024)

In the midst of the change in public attitude towards superhero movies -- and the extremely valid point of a 'superhero movie fatigue', various TV shows and movies that attempt to swap the formulaic action movies of the media juggernauts that are DC and Marvel have shown up a lot. And a lot of them were received well for bending the genre in new and surprising ways. We've got actual deconstructions like Invincible or The Boys, we've got attempts at genre fiction like Werewolf By Night or Runaways... and most famously, Joker. The original Joker, while deviating significantly from its source material, was still at heart a Batman/Joker story. It was focused more on the character's transformation and the mindscape of a mentally-unwell man oppressed by the system and society around it, a character-performance-driven show that still, at its core, worked as a superhero movie. 

Joker: Folie a Deux is not. It's an insane mess of a movie, where it can't really decide what it wants to be. It's most famously derided for being a musical, yes. But as a fan of the musical genre, I'd argue that it doesn't even work as a musical, since the songs in a musical would actually progress the plot and show something. In Folie a Deux, none of the musical numbers really add much that they don't immediately repeat in spoken form, or even matter to the progression of the story. 

A good chunk of the movie is divided into Joker being stuck in Arkham Asylum in the first half, and a courtroom drama trying to string Joker up for the events of Joker, but neither of them work particularly well. The courtroom drama was overtly long and was too referential to events from the first movie that the movie makes no real effort to remind us about. While the prison part is just... depressing, and went on for too long without anything to really move any plot or characterization forwards. There is some surface-level attempt to try to follow up on the fact that the Joker is now an idea, a figurehead for a movement, but it's really not followed up particularly well and feels more like an eye-rolling 'meta-commentary' on how well-received the first movie is, and how the fans want the next Joker movie to be like this or like that... which would be fine if there was any more substance to Folie a Deux, but there isn't. Not really. 

The side-cast, by the way, is extremely bland. Joker/Arthur's lawyer Maryanne Stewart is flat and I don't really know why she's even motivated to defend the Joker other than the script demands for a character to show up. Harvey Dent (hey, Two-Face!) barely exists, and so are the rest of the cast in the courtroom. The prison guards are nasty and assholish. And the second name on the poster, Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn... is Harley Quinn in name only. And, right, because this is one of those movies, she's called "Lee" almost exclusively. She's a rich girl who buys into the 'Joker movement', and gets Arthur to fall in love with her and the idea of becoming the Joker as the public envisions it. Which as I type it out, by the way, sounds like an amazing story hook! The execution... isn't. Lee's character is flat and confusing, and literally reduced to a cipher to just kick Arthur down even more. 

With the drabness of this movie, we also get a heavily-implied prison gang-rape done on Arthur which 'broke' him so much that he essentially breaks character in the courtroom, which loses him the support of Lee and his other 'groupies'. It really is eye-rollingly shoehorned in, and there's only really the shock value of 'wow, that was the source of the big emotional change'? to carry it forwards. The movie essentially ends with a very confusing message that "being the Joker sucks", and leads to Arthur being shanked by one of his disappointed groupies in prison.

Again, there is perhaps something cool and interesting that might've been done if the movie wasn't trying too hard to be pulled in all directions and ending up with a whole load of nothing over an almost three-hour runtime. I tend to try and see some merit in even the worst superhero movies, but all this movie does is to ruin the legacy of the otherwise excellent first one.