Joker 2: Shared madness 

Greetings to all readers, this is my opinion about the second release of the new Joker movie.

Joker: Folie à Deux.

I must confess that it took me a while to see it. I had heard unfavorable comments about the movie, but I had to see it with my own eyes to know if I really agreed with the opinions of others.

I always wondered what “Folie à Deux” would mean.

According to the definition, it translates to “Shared Insanity” and is a disorder in which two people share the same delusional, and sick fantasy with each other, creating an alternate reality that is ultimately impossible to break.

Actually, I've never been much of a fan of the Joker, I'm not usually a fan of antagonist characters, I'm more of a fan of Batman and other superheroes. However, I watched the first film expecting to see Batman, and even though he never appeared, I found the character development of the Joker to be excellent. I even felt compassion and frustration for what had happened to him during his origin. The movie represented the origin of the famous and iconic Joker. Joaquin Phoenix's performance was superb.

Another reason, having seen the first Joker release, initially, was to compare it to Heath Ledger's Joker (The Dark Knight), for me, the best of them all.

Musical?

Normally, when I go to catch a second part, of this type of movie, i.e., about an iconic character, I assume that now the good stuff will come. Since, usually, the first parts focus on the origin, the problems, the mistreatment, and misunderstanding by society, and all those things that created this monstrous character. It is obvious that he must have gone through such exhausting traumas that would lead him to create an alter ego, so contrasting, that would end up eliminating the true personality of the subject. Producing, in this way, what we know as that maniac, disturbed called the Joker.

But in this second installment, unfortunately, the good things never came... I expected in this second issue, the majesty of the Joker, I expected to see Gotham City terrorized by the Joker's sick tricks and to see the authorities scared just by hearing the Joker's name. Instead, we were treated to a laughingstock in the form of a musical.

A musical? A musical is “Moulin Rouge,” a musical is “La La Land.” But this, this was not a musical. I'm one of those people who couldn't stand musicals in movies, I mean, if I wanted to “watch” music in an audiovisual medium, I'd watch MTV (Did it cease to exist?, then I'd watch YouTube 🤣). But, don't get me wrong, I don't hate musicals at all, I fell madly in love with “Moulin Rouge”.

The musical parts only offered us Arthur Fleck's (the Joker's real name) abstraction of the terrible world of pain and despair in which he lived.

The introduction of Harley Queen's character was forced in my opinion, in what universe does a penitentiary allow dangerous killers to join a group of people who are being treated psychologically and some of them have entered of their own free will? Well, this is indeed Gotham, that's saying a lot. Even the people in charge of treating the sick are sick.

I'm sure you'll tell me: But you're wrong, that's not a penitentiary, it's Arkham Asylum. Still, we already saw at the end of the first movie that the Joker murdered his doctor, or at least that's what we were led to believe when he was running away with his feet full of blood.

So I wonder why the hell are they ruining movies nowadays? They did it with the superhero one and now with the antiheroes?

Did any of you like Captain Marvel?

I'm getting off-topic already. But, there's something strange with this, as it's what we assumed we'd see in this second installment: the rise of the Joker as Gotham's #1 enemy. Plus seeing his unhealthy relationship with Harley Queen, who must have been a character madly in love with the Joker and who would never, ever for any reason in any universe ever leave him.

At all times during the movie, I was anxious, waiting for that moment when he would become the real Joker. But it never came😢. It was like a mockery to the audience. Idk.. That's what I felt…

Here we see the opposite, we see the end of this character. We see a manipulative message, that we must resign ourselves to follow the rules, that we are nothing special, and that no matter how hard we try to go against the system, we will end up dead and forgotten.

I have always thought that nowadays we always see the same thing, you realize that the movie is a copy of some other movie that was shown 50 years ago. Have they run out of imagination? Can't they invent other characters? If it's not the Joker, it's the Hulk or any other character we are tired of seeing. Repeating the same story, but from a different point of view. For God's sake!

Will we eventually have to use AIs to get new movies made for us?

Very grateful that you made it this far

Thanks for watching!