When Todd Phillips — previously best known for the “Hangover” trilogy — helmed the first “Joker” movie in 2019, the comic book-adjacent film became one of the year’s biggest critical darlings against plenty of odds. Phillips picked up an Academy Award nomination for his directing and the movie ended up in the race for Best Picture; though it lost to “Parasite,” star Joaquin Phoenix won his first Oscar for playing everyman turned supervillain Arthur Fleck, and Hildur Guðnadóttir became the third woman in cinematic history to win for her astounding score. Still, at the time, a sequel seemed unlikely, thanks in part to the pandemic that shut down the world and in larger part to the fact that everyone largely assumed Arthur’s story was finished.
They were wrong, and “Joker: Folie á Deux” just premiered at the Venice Film Festival. So what do critics think of the ambitious sequel, which brings Oscar winner Lady Gaga on board as Harleen Quinzel and turns the whole enterprise into … a musical? They have a lot of thoughts, actually — and they’re sort of all over the place. Some critics think it’s a brilliant return to form for Phoenix and Phillips, while one critic wondered if it’s “bad on purpose.”
Critics don’t really know what to make of Joker: Folie á Deux
It’s safe to say that “Joker: Folie á Deux” will inspire quite a lot of (potentially irritating) discourse, largely because critics did not fall in line behind Phillips’ vision. Some liked it, like /Film’s own critic Bill Bria. Though Bria says in his review that though the musical style makes it “the most compelling comic book movie of the year,” he also calls some of the satirical elements “toothless” and ultimately concludes, “‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ may not be able to encapsulate the totality of the character, and may attempt to bite off more than it can chew. Yet it feels remarkably honest and true to itself, demonstrating again that taking such a popular character seriously is nothing to laugh at.”
Then there’s David Ehrlich at IndieWire, who was pretty unequivocal about the whole thing both in his review and on X (formerly known as Twitter). The review, which also says that Lady Gaga is utterly wasted in her role, says the film is “an excruciatingly — perhaps even deliberately — boring sequel that does everything in its power not to amuse you,” which is about as clear as one can possibly get. The Wrap’s critic William Bibbiani fell somewhere between the other two critics and seemingly struggled with whether or not he likes the film, writing, “It’s a sad, pensive, and impressively odd motion picture that uses the theatricality of movie musicals to undermine its hero’s ambitions instead of elevating them.”
It’s clear that Joker: Folie á Deux will be just as divisive as the first film
Over at Vulture, Alison Willmore, who calls the sequel “punishing” in her review, agrees with David Ehrlich that Lady Gaga is underutilized overall and eventually concludes, “‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ is Arthur’s movie, and Arthur just isn’t that interesting, despite how much effort [Joaquin] Phoenix puts into rendering the character in exquisitely anguished mental and sunken-chested physical detail.” Nicholas Barber went further than “punishing” for his BBC review; giving the film two stars out of five, he calls it a “dreary, underwhelming, unnecessary slog” and says even the musical numbers don’t quite gel. “And instead of moving the story along, as songs in musicals should, they slow it down,” Barber says. “You’re left with the feeling that [Todd] Phillips simply didn’t have enough of a plot to fill another two hours without them.”
Unfortunately for Phillips, Siddhant Adlakha joined the crew of “Joker: Folie á Deux” detractors in his review for IGN. Noting that the courtroom scenes dragged down the movie’s already uneven pacing, Adlakha offers up a verdict and says “the worst thing about ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ is its unfulfilled potential […] Unfortunately, the DC sequel gets bogged down by a lengthy courtroom saga, which not only keeps the dazzling Lady Gaga away from the spotlight, but centers the movie entirely around its own predecessor, without doing or saying anything new.”
The critical consensus for Joker: Folie á Deux is all over the place — just like Arthur Fleck would want, probably
Then there’s Pete Hammond at Deadline, who calls the film “brilliant” in his review and has particular praise for Phoenix, who he says “tap dances, sings, and sells this role like no other, if not topping his Oscar winning turn in ‘Joker,’ at least finding a way to take him in different, wholly surprising direction.” Over at Variety, Owen Gleiberman’s review agreed with many others that the concept is “ambitious” but also says it’s a “desperate-to-be-darkly-irreverent but actually rather clunky and earthbound musical sequel” and concludes that while Todd Phillips’ idea is “audacious,” it doesn’t pan out. “It’s one that demands an audacious execution,” Gleiberman writes. “And for the most part, that doesn’t happen in ‘Folie à Deux.'”
Despite the fact that he did give the movie three out of five stars in the end, Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian also detailed some of his misgivings in his review. After addressing his dislike for the first movie, Bradshaw says that “though [‘Joker: Folie á Deux’] ends up as strident, laborious and often flat-out tedious as the first film, there’s an improvement. It’s a musical, of sorts, with Phoenix and others warbling show tune standards, often in fantasy set pieces […] This gives it structure and flavour that the first film didn’t have.”
Anyone who’s surprised that a “Joker” sequel is leaving critics divided probably didn’t pay attention to the tiresome discourse surrounding the first movie — and fans will just have to decide whether or not it’s a worthy sequel for themselves. “Joker: Folie á Deux” hits theaters on Friday, October 4.
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