When the original Joker film hit cinemas it was an absolute phenomenon, and 5 years later Todd Phillips has returned to give us the highly anticipated sequel and it's a... musical?

Now to be honest, I didn't really care much for the original Joker. It had pretty shots, great acting, but felt like a very shallow portrayal of mental illness. In my opinion, it treated the titular Joker more like a cautionary tale or ticking time-bomb than as a character in his own right.

With that said, when I heard the new musical with Lady Gaga, it actually peaked my interest. I love musicals and was very excited to see Phillips do something so absolutely different. So how did it pan out?

Very badly. It's hard to imagine who exactly this film is for. It fails as a sequel to Joker and as a musical! When I found out this movie had no test screenings, it all made sense.

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Going into the film, I knew of the bad reviews but still went in with an open mind. I assumed, "maybe people didn't like it because it was a musical." So I went in, not expecting a satisfying Joker sequel, but just a good old-fashioned musical that I can walk out with at least one song stuck in my head.

The Joker fails so bad as a musical, that I honestly don't know if the director Todd Phillips had ever seen a musical picture before making this. In most musicals, characters are supposed to break into song to further the plot or reveal emotional information about themselves in a bombastic fashion. This does not happen ever in the Joker. Instead every musical number is relegated to the "crazy" dream sequences of the characters and never move the plot forward in any way.

It's also a jukebox musical with almost no original songs, and almost all the songs are just meaningless romance songs between Joker (Joaquin Phoenix) and his new love interest Lee Quinzel Lady Gaga. The selection of songs is also weird including the song The Carpenters - Close to You which felt as out of place as it sounds. The licensed musical numbers are accompanied with boring visuals too. Instead of extravagant dance numbers and stunts, we get boring slow dancing and close up shots of characters smoking cigarettes. None of the songs are preformed that well either, with them going for a more realistic vibe. So they have their singing talent, Lady Gaga, purposefully sing worse than she could with mumbling and voice cracks to be "realistic"

Overall, it feels like the director wanted to make a musical just because it sounded wacky on paper, but wasn't willing to actually go the mile and make a proper one. So, you can remove almost all the singing and lose nothing.

I really wanted to just enjoy the film as a musical and be on my way, but since the musical aspects suck I guess I have to talk about how it treats its actual story and characters. But first, some needed context:

In real life, many people took the original film to be a rallying cry for oppressed people and turned Joker into a symbol. Was it cringey in retrospect? Yes. Were some of the outcasts that related to Joker bad people like incels? Yes. Regardless, many people interpret the original film with Joker being understandable in his murders as he had pretty much lost everything. The only ones he killed were very explicitly bad people like abusers and oppressors. And, within the text of the film, the violence incited was the only way that the concerns of the poor were finally brought to light. Before the clown killings, no one cared. I think it's a valid interpretation that Joker had no choice but to be violent in order to be heard.

Todd Phillips clearly did not like this interpretation, so this film's plot is essentially just hammering the point home constantly that "Joker is a bad guy, you're not supposed to idolize him!" Much of the political background of the first film is sidestepped to focus more on Joker having built a cult following in-universe of anarchists that want to follow his footsteps and tear the world down, like his love interest Lee Quinzel for example.

It's hard to discuss this without spoilers so we're going to get into it. I would not recommend watching the movie so I don't think you should care about spoilers:

As the film goes on, the Joker essentially has a redemption? arc kind of where he realizes he accidentally radicalized a bunch of people, apologizes for killing those 6 guys in the first movie, and owns up to the consequences. Even saying the line, "There is no Joker. It was just me." This leads to his radical fans abandoning him and eventually him getting killed by one at the end of the movie, with his killer saying back to him "you get what you f%#@ing deserve".

This whole apology ending just feels so forced and lame. The original film felt like it was saying "when people are pushed to their absolute limits, violence is inevitable" and this film feels the need to clarify "okay but don't rebel violently. you're making your own side look bad." Throughout the entire film, we barely get any proposed alternative to the violence Joker commits in the first movie. He is just constantly pushed through more and more traumatic experiences and then decides "my bad, I went too far."

I think the worst part is that after he owns up to his actions, even then redemption is beyond his grasp. He has to be killed by one of his fans at the end as some sort of cosmic punishment for his misdeeds. What is the film trying to say with this? Is there no possible redemption for him beyond death?

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• CONTENT WARNING: sexual assault There's a part of the film where the Joker doubles down on Joker-ing and then comes back to the prison to be beat up and (I'm not kidding) SA'd by the guards!! After this traumatic experience is when he comes back to the courtroom and begins his redemption arc, realizing he took it too far. Todd Phillips... what the hell did you mean by this? Did he have the morals SA'd into him!!??? You will likely see this specific, awful scene brought up a lot in discussions because it's baffling. I really want to know what the intent was here...
• Harvey Dent is in this movie, the lawyer from Batman comics who eventually becomes Two-Face. The actor plays him so smarmy, it's unintentionally hilarious. My friend in the theater said he acts like a Phoenix Wright character and I almost burst out laughing.
• There's a really cool animated intro that plays in the beginning of the movie like an old Looney Tunes short. It was the only scene I liked in the whole movie. I wish the film experimented more with mixed media like that.
• You may notice I barely mention Lady Gaga's character because in the end she doesn't really amount to much.

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I understand the director's want to distance himself from the incels that may have ruined the original film's reputation, but it feels like he then just throws everyone else under the bus too. Like it or not, the original film was relatable to many oppressed people and outcasts (not just incels), and this film craps all over that and gets mad at audience members for supporting the revolt against the rich in the first film. It's just Tone Policing: The Film.

Watching the sequel, actually makes me like the original less, as it removes much of the nuance. The director pretty much comes out and lays out the message without any room for interpretation. "We need to improve mental health services so that mentally ill people don't go crazy and kill us all." The mentally ill aren't meant to be related to, they are meant to be feared, reprimanded, and hopefully redeemed through comformity.

If you enjoy:	musicals about criminals	watch Chicago instead

If you dislike:	uninspired music excrutiatingly boring plot neoliberals	yeah, nah.