It is 2019 and the smell of popcorn pervades the theatre as you walk out perplexed, even amazed after watching the first Joker movie directed by Todd Phillips.
Fast forward to 2024 and the sensation after watching the sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, is completely different.
The original Joker won 121 awards, among them two Oscars and had 247 nominations in the United States, France, United Kingdom, Spain, Japan, Germany and Italy, among others.
The second edition has seen a loss of $200 million, making only $37.7 million in the opening weekend. Compared to $96.2 million domestically and $284 million worldwide, three days after the release of the first edition.
Now, Warner Bros has decided to take the “box office disaster” out of movie theatres.
The question that everyone who watched both movies is asking: how do you go from a worldwide acclaimed movie to a joke of a movie?
Let’s go piece by piece and try to give the Joker: Folie à Deux a fair shot.
When the trailer finally came out and showed those amazing shots of Arthur Fleck smiling through window glass and breathtaking transitions, I believed this was going to be another world-class movie.
Well … the joke was on me.
I do not consider myself a highly qualified movie critic, but going to the movie theatres is something that I have enjoyed since I was young and I can say with all confidence that I have never had a worse experience in a cinema.
The movie starts where the first Joker ended; Arthur Fleck was in Arkham Asylum awaiting trial for all his crimes. At the same time, the Joker meets the new love of his life, Harley Quinn, played by Lady Gaga.
So far, so good. Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, ‘That sounds awesome,’ I thought. Poor me, little did I know what awaited me.
Nonetheless, I will give it to Phillips; the shots, colours, atmosphere and lighting of the movie were unbelievably good. I truly enjoyed the cinematography of it. But, a great movie is not only composed of that.
According to In-Depth Cine, what makes a story great is a combination of an engaging story that connects with an audience in a mass cultural impact, technical innovation, creative synergy, suspending disbelief and casting.
So, the movie checks the technical innovation, casting and creative synergy aspects, but it fails in the most important field.
The story does not connect with the targeted audience.
I would dare to say that it is the complete opposite. With a 1.8 rating on Beebom, 32 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes and 5.3 out of 10 on IMDb, this movie is a beautiful disaster.
“This is a slap in the face to fans of the original. We didn’t ask for dancing and singing – we wanted more of the same unsettling atmosphere, not a Broadway-style number in the middle of Gotham’s madness,” said one of the many reviews of the movie across the internet.
And it didn’t stop there. Some called it a “Complete waste of time” and another one said, “Joker: Folie à Deux offers nothing to the franchise.”
If nothing else, the Joker proved one more time to be an agent of chaos. This time, it was chaos among Joker’s fan base.
If you are a hardcore fan of DC comics, you probably will not enjoy the movie. However, it’s a movie that if seen from the outside spectrum of what the Joker is, it’s a fairly-produced sequel. It did not live up to the expectations of the fandom.
Maybe with time, the movie will become more appreciated among the DC fans, but for now, Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix will have to deal with the disappointment of fans.
