I went into Joker: Folie à Deux with such an open mind, ladies and gentlemen. After all, while I didn’t particularly like Joker, I found it to be pretty effective at what it set out to do. The film was doing something I didn’t care for, but it was achieving its goals. The musical element here, the trailers, it all pointed to doing something bold and different, which I more than appreciate. Alas, the movie we ended up with is dreadful and a complete slog. This is, without question, one of 2024’s cinematic lowlights.

Joker: Folie à Deux is awful. It’s not interesting in the slightest, overstays its welcome by nearly an hour, and leaves you in a terrible place. The success of the first film enabled the sequel to more or less go anywhere the creative process could take it. The fact that this is the movie that resulted is almost mind-boggling. Aside from solid technical work behind the camera and a nice performance or two, there’s absolutely nothing here.

In the aftermath of the first film, Arthur Fleck/Joker (Joaquin Phoenix) is locked up in Arkham and awaiting a competency hearing before his murder trial. Escorted by the guards (including Brendan Gleeson) to his lawyer (Catherine Keener) in a minimum security wing, Arthur catches a glimpse of Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga) in a music therapy class. He’s smitten, and when he’s allowed to take the class for good behavior, Lee is just as interested in him. Their relationship flourishes in musical interludes, while those around them debate if Arthur is mentally ill or just a monster.

Declared competent to stand trial, Arthur is more concerned initially with Lee having a good seat than what the case against him is. Lee has a plan for them both, which he goes along with, but as the trial proceeds, his lawyer argues that the separate Joker persona is to blame, while prosecutor Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) argues that Arthur is nothing more than a barbaric monster. How this all resolves I won’t spoil, but it’s deeply unsatisfying, actually building to a final moment that isn’t just awful, but could very well be insulting to fans.

Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga are the least of the issues here, though neither gets much of a showcase. Phoenix is far more passive of a character here, only coming alive during the musical numbers. Gaga has a very underwritten Harley Quinn interpretation to play with, and while she gives it her all, no one could save the character. Her sining is a highlight, at least. The pair have no chemistry, so the “love story” is never believable. It’s actually depressing to see Brendan Gleeson and Catherine Keener given this little to do. It’s nice that they presumably got paid handsomely, but it’s criminal to neglect their talents. In addition to Harry Lawtey, the supporting cast includes returning players Zazie Beetz and Leigh Gill, as well as newcomers like Steve Coogan (wasted as well), Ken Leung, Jacob Lofland, and Sharon Washington.

Filmmaker Todd Phillips actively torpedoes good returning technical work from cinematographer Lawrence Sher and composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, which is a real shame. Last time, with Joker, you left with the sense that Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver had seen The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver growing up, if not the sense that they fully got the point of those flicks. Joker: Folie à Deux makes Joker actually seem like The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver, by comparison. The musical numbers are bland and forgettable, the plot is threadbare, and the pacing nonexistent. Phillips’ direction lacks any sense of forward momentum, so by the time you reach the atrocious ending that he and Silver have cooked up, you’re long past the point of caring in the slightest.

Don’t expect the same type of awards attention this time around. I’d be very surprise for any above the line Oscar nominations, given the miserable lack of quality on display. Now, below the line, Guðnadóttir could once again be a factor in Best Original Score, while something like Best Production Design wouldn’t be crazy. Regardless, this flick will not be an Academy Award juggernaut, mark my words.

Joker: Folie à Deux is one of the worst films of the year, full stop. Fans of the first movie will be flummoxed by the choices made here, while anyone not previously on board won’t see anything worthwhile within. I hated nearly every moment of this film, which is something I rarely say. See it if you like and decide for yourself, but I never want to even think of this dreck ever again. Yuck.

SCORE: ★1/2

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We also meet Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), Crassus’ deeply cynical financial reporter-girlfriend, who has her sights set on reuniting with Cesar, while Crassus’ son Clodio (Shia LaBeouf) spends his time partying, inciting civil unrest, and posing in front of American flags. The mayor’s daughter, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), casually falls in love with Cesar after witnessing his ability to stop time. Yes, you read that correctly. When art is good, he explains, it resembles time stopping. 

Whether you find yourself capable of embracing the movie or not, you have to admire the 85-year-old Coppola’s go-for-it mentality here. Between the convoluted plot and the opulent visuals, you can recognize the influence of Fritz Lang (Metropolis), Stanley Kubrick (Dr. Strangelove), The Wachowskis (The Matrix and Cloud Atlas), George Lucas (Star Wars), Lars von Trier (Melancholia) and Fellini (Roma and Satyricon). Male characters wear toga-like garments; the women often wear flowing gowns. Cesar’s departed wife, Sunny Hope, haunts and inspires him. A Britney Spears-like character named Vesta Sweetwater appears, only to be undone by a deep-fake sex tape. American society descends into monochrome filth, as a Soviet era spacecraft hurtles toward the Earth. So many potential ideas. So many tangents. So many meaningless subplots. So little cohesion.

The actors’ line readings are just as undisciplined as the storytelling. Sometimes they speak in lofty tones, quoting Marcus Aurelius and William Shakespeare (including Hamlet’s most famous soliloquy). At other points, they speak in modern, derisive slang or in inflection-free outbursts. The eminent Dustin Hoffman, who plays Nush “The Fixer” Berman, fares very badly in that regard. Coppola veteran Laurence Fishburne, as Cesar’s driver and the film’s narrator, hardly registers. 

Mind you, Coppola does demonstrate vision here–vision, as in the opulent look of the film, with its rich color palette, architectural shapes, and wide array of special and stylistic effects. Cinematographer Mihai Malaimare, Jr. (The Master, Jojo Rabbit) bravely tries to match the director’s intentions. Unfortunately, his strong work often emphasizes the lack of rhythm and unfocused script, with many scenes choppily edited and almost discarded. 

As for the music, high marks go to Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov, one of the classical music world’s biggest stars of the past three decades. His orchestration is highly detailed, and his borrowings (Beethoven, Franz Liszt, Julius Fucik, Giacomo Puccini) are carefully chosen for effect. His Grammy Award-winning opera, Ainadamar, receives a new production at the Met in New York this fall.

Megalopolis has arrived on the scene with a wealth of negative advance publicity. An initial trailer with phony quotes from critics. A lawsuit filed by an extra. Production delays. All of those rewrites. Coppola himself has conceded that his movie may fail in the short term–it largely will–but he hopes that time will enhance its stature. 

If all of the above suggests a real dense, disorienting experience, you’re right. It will not leave you unmoved, one way or the other. Coppola passionately hopes to address several big-ticket issues in Megalopolis: the ills of technology, climate change, corporate takeovers, political apathy, cancel culture, his own relationship to art. Just like the creatively challenged Guido in Fellini’s masterpiece, 8½, Coppola wants to include “everything” in what’s probably his valedictory film. If only everything made more sense. 

A still from ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ 

There is an aura of Shakespeare emanating from Joker: Folie à Deux, the sequel to Todd Phillips’ award winning Joker (2019). Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), the party clown and aspiring stand-up comic, institutionalised at Arkham State Hospital, awaiting trial for his five murders — including one of talk show host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro) on national television — gives off a rather distinct Hamlet vibe.

Like the procrastinating Prince of Denmark, he is let down by his mum, which leads to him cutting a swathe of death and destruction. Though not dressed in inky clothes and stalking the ramparts of Elsinore, looking for the ghost of his father, Arthur in his motley colours and carmine smile, is good for plenty of soliloquies with different versions of himself in the multiverse of his mind.

It is two years since the events that put Arthur in Arkham, while his Joker persona incited the marginalised whom society had erased from the public consciousness to take to the streets demanding justice. The newly elected Assistant District Attorney, Harvey Dent, (Harry Lawtey) though determined to get Arthur to stand trial for his crimes, is not completely altruistic. As ambitious as they come, he knows the live telecast of the trial of the century, will definitely up his profile.

A still from ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ 

Arthur seems to be in his own worlds, being a model inmate playing along with guard Jackie Sullivan’s (Brendan Gleeson) jibes as well as the other inmates including one young man (Jacob Lofland), who is more than a little obsessed with Arkham’s most famous patient. On the way to meet his beleaguered lawyer Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener), Arthur walks past the music therapy class and as his eyes light upon Lee (Lady Gaga), an instant connection is made.

When Lee tells Arthur she grew up in Arthur’s neighbourhood and her mother treated her abominably committing her to Arkham  (for setting fire to the family home), Arthur feels she is a kindred spirit. As the trial gets underway, Lee escapes from Arkham and orchestrates a groundswell of support for Arthur. Over the course of the trial, Arthur meets ghosts from his past including his neighbour Sophie Dumond (Zazie Beetz), who he believed he had a relationship with, Gary (Leigh Gill), a clown co-worker Arthur was kind to, and his social worker (Sharon Washington).

Though director Phillips had originally conceived Joker as a one-and-done deal, turning the sequel into a musical (on Phoenix’s suggestion apparently) is a masterstroke. As is the wonderful animation sequence in the beginning of the film; it is a whole new direction while keeping the disassociation, isolation and social commentary from Joker intact, and those lush jazzy musical numbers are a delicious aural treat. For those of us brought up on rich diet of song-and-dance numbers at the movies, it does not take a big leap to immerse oneself in eye-popping, gorgeously mounted reimagined jukebox favourites from composer Hildur Guðnadóttir (who won an Oscar for Joker).

A still from ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ 

While Phoenix’ skeletal appearance (the protuberant spine and jutting shoulder bones that look like wings) continues to be distressing, he is riveting as Arthur Fleck/Joker. Even as you want to look away from his wasted body, your eyes are dragged back to the ravaged face, the glittering eyes, one step away from chaos or kindness, and the trembling, exaggerated mouth. In contrast Lady Gaga is strangely subdued even if you do not line her performance against Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn.

While not as tightly plotted or layered as Joker, (Folie à Deux could definitely have done with some tightening especially in the second half and the plot is rather thin), there is a special joy in watching an actor at the top of his craft through cinematographer Lawrence Sher’s languorous takes.

Joker: Folie à Deux is currently running in theatres