Fans excited for the sequel to Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar-winning Joker are, apparently, going to be disappointed. Joker: Folie à Deux, an incredibly annoying movie title to have to type out in Google Docs, premiered Wednesday at the Venice Film Festival to dismal reviews. It turns out that not even Lady Gaga in a musical is enough to paint a Joker-esque smile on critics’ faces.
Despite trailers teasing the sequel as a movie-musical epic, IGN’s Siddhant Adlakha wrote that the movie is “actually more of a courtroom drama, and not a very interesting one at that.”
Vulture’s headline is that the movie “commits the mortal sin of wasting Lady Gaga.” Alison Willmore wrote, “Her Lee isn’t an equal partner to Arthur but another accessory in his grand tragedy — a supercharged, scary-eyed take on a serial-killer groupie.”
