Joker

The film owes a great deal to Joaquin Phoenix's performance as Arthur. Phoenix uses his body as a weapon, even before the transformation into the Joker.

Looking at Joker for a kind of microcosmic version of melodrama giving way in the end to something better, however inchoate, is absolute wishful thinking. But like I said before - it's the perfect Rorschach inkblot.

Phoenix supercharges this Martin Scorsese-lite polemic with a bombastic, electrifying portrayal of unyielding sympathy for Arthur, whose desperation to connect with others descends into despair.

The movie tells its story without apology, and Phoenix plays it to the serrated edge, conjuring a modern take on Milton's Paradise Lost, where we're asked to find sympathy for the devil after being cast out of heaven...

it is over before it begins because there is no other possible outcome than what we eventually arrive at, and Phillips and Silver don't give us an interesting enough trajectory to make up for that loss

If Arthur Fleck reflects the same cultural alienation that creates mass shooters and serial killers, the movie cuts away too often to establish a cogent argument.

Todd Phillips can dump two cups of Taxi Driver into a bowl and slop in a cup and a half of The King of Comedy, but that doesn't make him Scorsese.

It's hard to say if Joker entertains. It's dark and downbeat. There are good, even great, things about it, but overall it's just a little flat. It's one of those movies you can respect, though it's a little harder to like.

Like "The Dark Knight", this film demonizes the mentally ill. It also distorts NY realities in the early 80s.

Even though it is most certainly not your traditional approach to this character. Definitely breaks ground.