As additional reviews of Joker: Folie à Deux, the 2019 Joaquin Phoenix film, are being released, the movie has an unfavourable Rotten Tomatoes score. The first reactions to the film’s screening at the Venice Film Festival in September were divided, some people thought it was “dull” and “laborious,” while others described it as “ingenious” or “beguiling.”
One reviewer who gave the movie high marks was Geoffrey Macnab of The Independent, who gave it four stars and wrote: “The darkness at the core of the film is underlined by its very brutal ending, which rejects comic book conventions in favour of psychological depth. Phoenix’s performance remains powerful and stirring, too. The genius of it is that we can’t help but care for Arthur despite his neediness and derangement.”
According to Forbes, the musical movie, which also stars Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, the Joker’s romantic partner and sidekick, started off with a low Rotten Tomatoes score of 61%, matching the number of the critically panned Black Adam. That has since decreased to just 39% as the story, songs, and highly discussed ending have received negative reviews from most critics.
As of now, the general agreement review on Rotten Tomatoes is: “Joaquin Phoenix’s eponymous Joker takes the stand in a sequel that dances around while the story remains still, although Lady Gaga’s wildcard energy gives Folie á Deux some verve.”
Critic Manohia Dargis of the New York Times cites: “The big non-news about Folie à Deux is that it’s a half-baked, half-hearted musical complete with one star who can sing, Lady Gaga as Lee Quinzel aka Harley Quinn, and another (Phoenix) who can’t or won’t.” According to Looper’s Audrey Fox: “Even fans of Joker are unlikely to find much to redeem this chaotic, profoundly stupid mess.”
Kevin Maher of The Times referred to the movie as “messy, lifeless, derivative and exactly what you’d expect from a film that simply doesn’t want, or need, to exist.” In his assessment, Richard Roeper of the Chicago-Sun Times stated: “There’s always a joker, there’s always a clown — but if he doesn’t morph into something bigger and bolder and more terrible, it starts to feel like we’ve seen this show before, only without the musical numbers.”
The Financial Times’ Danny Leigh described it as less “dislikeable than its forebear” in one of the film’s more positive reviews, while Ireland’s RTE declared that “the film is effortlessly claustrophobic, dreamily undramatic and all the better for it.”
The movie is supposed to be Phoenix’s final Joker flick. When a journalist questioned Phoenix about his weight loss for the movie after its opening, he replied that it was more “complicated” than it had been for the 2019 original. In order to create the lanky appearance of the primary character in the original Joker, Phoenix had to shed fifty-two pounds, which he did by consuming a diet high on steamed vegetables and lettuce.