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.

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).

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

MONSTER SUMMER is a teenage horror movie in the tradition of GOONIES. Noah is a young teenager living on Martha’s Vineyard with his mother, who runs a boarding house. Noah’s father was a journalist, but died. So, Noah wants to be a journalist. Noah’s friend, Ben, goes swimming with a teenager girl and gets attacked by someone under the water and turns into a zombie. Noah recruits two of his friends to investigate what’s happening. He eventually finds out that Old Man Carruthers, played by Mel Gibson, is a former police detective who left the force to search for the man who kidnapped his young son. With his help, Noah and his friends search for the perpetrator whom Noah thinks us a witch.

In many ways, MONSTER SUMMER is very clean with no overt sex and almost no foul language. There are also Christian symbols and allusions. However, the movie reveals frightening things about witches, especially their ability to appear as normal next-door neighbors. Also, the final showdown with the witch is extremely scary. Therefore, MOVIEGUIDE® recommends caution for younger teenagers.

(Pa, BB, CC, OO, L, V, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Mixed worldview with a moral ending as well as Christian symbols throughout with lots of focus on witches, who seem incredibly versatile and strong, but the good guys eventually win;

Foul Language:

Two obscenities;

Violence:

Lots of scary violence though not bloody where an offscreen witch sucks the souls out of young people, sometimes in the water, sometimes in the woods and sometimes beside an old station wagon, which leaves the people as zombies, eventually a showdown with the witch concludes with strong violence where the witch attacks a man and three teenagers, and a character is shot several times;

Sex:

No sex (some light kissing);

Nudity:

No nudity;

Alcohol Use:

No alcohol use;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Man cracks frightening jokes, trespassing, lying, but all rebuked.

MONSTER SUMMER is a teenage horror movie in the tradition of GOONIES. The movie, which stars, Mel Gibson commends the search for truth and has good triumphs over evil, but the witch is very scary for many reasons, including its ability to appear as an ordinary person. So, the witch causes the viewer to be scared of everybody.

Noah is a young teenager living on Martha’s Vineyard with his mother, who runs a boarding house. Noah’s father was a journalist, but died, so Noah wants to be a journalist.

The movie opens with Noah being suspicious of Old Man Carruthers, whose son disappeared. Noah has written several articles about disappearing children, but the local editor doesn’t want bad news about Martha’s Vineyard. Noah’s friend, Ben, goes swimming with a teenager girl and gets attacked by someone under the water and turns into a zombie. Noah recruits two of his friends to investigate what’s happening. He eventually finds out that Gene Carruthers, played by Mel Gibson, is former police detective who left the force to search for the man who kidnapped his young son.

With Gene’s help, Noah and his friends search for the perpetrator whom Noah thinks us a witch. In fact, he thinks the witch is a woman who’s come to room in his mother’s house for the summer, but in an embarrassing reveal, this turns out to be false.

Eventually, other kids get taken and turned into zombies. Gene has mapped New England towns where other kids turned into zombies, and now only Noah can find out whodunnit. However, the witch is hot on Noah and his friends’ trail. The showdown between them is very scary. Who will survive?

In many ways, MONSTER SUMMER is very clean with no overt sex and almost no foul language. There are also Christian symbols and allusions. However, the movie reveals frightening things about witches, especially their ability to appear as normal next-door neighbors. Also, the final showdown is extremely scary.

This problem could have been alleviated with a little more humor and some judicious editing of the violent showdown. The jeopardy was strong enough that it didn’t need the prolonged showdown to hold the viewer’s attention. Furthermore, it would have been nice if there was more Christianity in the final showdown like the movie THE CONJURING.

Therefore, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for younger teenagers.

Joker: Folie à Deux, 2024.

Directed by Todd Phillips.
Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Zazie Beetz, Steve Coogan, Harry Lawtey, Leigh Gill, Ken Leung, Jacob Lofland, Sharon Washington, Troy Fromin, and Bill Smitrovich.

SYNOPSIS:

While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur Fleck not only stumbles upon true love, but also finds the music that’s always been inside him.

Co-writer/director Todd Phillips wants the last laugh with Joker: Folie à Deux. In some ways, it’s remarkable that something so anti-fan and experimental yet mainstream exists in a David Zaslav-run Warner Bros. world. None of this is the reason the movie is bad, mind you; that would be because, despite its initially intriguing, offputting nature that has no interest in being what anyone would expect from a Joker sequel, it is also crushingly boring and often feels like a 2+ coda to that film. The movie has a point to make, which could have simply been Todd Phillips making a statement online. Then again, perhaps it’s funnier to make people, especially fans, endure something so aggressively subversive and oppositional to what those fans believe. Either way, the film isn’t good.

Joker: Folie à Deux (penned by Todd Phillips and Scott Silver) is a courtroom drama that follows Arthur Fleck (a returning Joaquin Phoenix, once again unnerving and convincingly unstable) at Arkham Asylum whenever not on trial for his psychotic break and subsequent murders throughout the first film. Unsurprisingly, the guards (led by Brendan Gleeson) dish out inhumane treatment from time to time and reduce him to a source of cruel entertainment or personal gain. If they aren’t demanding to hear jokes, one of them is asking for an autograph under the impression it will be worth a hefty sum of money once he gets the death penalty.

Occasionally moved around the asylum, Arthur comes across a music room. He meets fellow inmate Lee (Lady Gaga), a disturbed individual who has developed an odd obsession with him and his actions. They quickly start falling for one another and planning a future that involves getting Arthur off trial, escaping, and building a mountain on the hills. At one point, Lee starts a fire because everyone working in this facility is incompetent (really, the movie makes everyone in New York City look incredibly irresponsible at their jobs), which leads to the two almost escaping while singing and dancing outside. It’s a sequence that plays like part of it might be inside Arthur’s head, but it is soon confirmed as full-on reality. So, too, is the scene where a guard lets Lee into Arthur’s bedroom at night.

Not only is there something wildly off and illogical about what’s happening here, but Arthur starts getting in touch with his musical side to express certain emotions. Most of these scenes depict Arthur retreating into his mind to sing and behave freely, especially when the courtroom pressure gets to be too much for him, but it mostly feels like a cheap tactic to get some Joker scenes in there alongside a scene or two of fantasy violence to be shoehorned into the marketing to muster up extremely misleading interest. Again, that’s not bad, but this movie is between interesting and boring across its entire running time.

Even with popstar sensation Lady Gaga in some of those musical sequences, the direction here is flat and makes no visually compelling use of real-life or fantasy surroundings. It’s one thing to make a Joker movie pointing and laughing at everyone who believes the character is some misunderstood symbol of good in the face of a selfish, greedy world looking down on the lower class, essentially making fun of Joker fans. That’s also one hell of a questionably cruel creative choice to make about a character who has been physically and sexually abused as a child, regardless of the murders he committed and cult following he amassed. It’s another thing to decide to make a musical that is a forgettable musical, aside from occasionally recognizing the lyrics from familiar songs. Fortunately, Hildur Guðnadóttir has crafted another brooding, unsettling score, trying and failing to do some heavy lifting from the rest of the lackluster narrative.

Speaking of Lee, this universe’s take on Harley Quinn, there isn’t much of a character here. She is infatuated with Arthur, but there’s never any sense of why since the screenplay spends most of its running time clouding whether or not this is a fresh interpretation of the character or something with slight familiarity with the source material. Is part of the joke here also casting Lady Gaga only to give her nothing memorable to do?

It truly is a baffling experience watching Joker: Folie à Deux, a movie certainly not made for fans but also seems to have been made for no one. By the time it tries to recreate some of the chaotic feel of the climactic first film, eventually taking a few admirable crazy swings, one can’t help shrugging one’s shoulders. It’s a film that wants to explore the extent of whether Joker is a second personality or an extension of Arthur, starting with a Looney Tunes-inspired cartoon to set up that concept but mostly slogs along aimlessly. It doesn’t know what to do with these ideas, characters, or subgenres. Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga are let down and left hanging in this mess.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist