Joker: Folie à Deux

Joker: Folie a Deux is a masterpiece. Not a once-in-a-generation masterpiece but an ambitious and emotionally intelligent film that challenges everything it touches.

I was often bored, occasionally disgusted and only mildly entertained.

Set on tediously considering its predecessor, Joker: Folie à Deux offers nothing to the franchise.

Dramatically inert, devoting 138 very deliberate minutes to revealing what was undeniable from the first film.

It is a very strange film... and I mean that as a compliment.

The falloff in quality from "Joker," a genuinely searing innovation in comic-book movies, to this one is so steep that it’s comparable to the dropoff between “The Hangover” and “The Hangover Part II.”

“Folie à Deux” doesn’t go far enough. Give us the pomp, give us the spectacle. Then pull the rug out. But Phillips refuses to commit to the grandiosity, so the harshness of the reality doesn’t feel cinematic in its revelation. It feels too subdued.

a courtroom drama, musical hybrid that puts the Joker character and Joker the film itself on trial. Sadly, and surprisingly, this is conducted in quite safe fashion, the more inflammatory elements of Joker a distant memory

Todd Phillips delivers an inspired, thought provoking and challenging sequel that works so well until it completely falls apart in its final third with confounding character choices and plot resolutions and a final twist that insults fans of 2019's JOKER.

There’s little to zero point to any of it! Ask me what this sequel produces for the people who wanted more of the brilliant chaos from the original, and I’d have to think on it while trying to decipher if a shoulder shrug would suffice as an answer.