For all its shortcomings, Joker thrummed with mad volatility. Thus, it’s deflating to discover that, despite being a musical co-starring Lady Gaga, Joker: Folie à Deux tamps down any potential explosiveness, delivering only dreary courtroom drama and perfunctory song-and-dance numbers.
Todd Phillips’ follow-up to his 2019 hit, in theaters Oct. 4, is so determined to avoid satisfying fans that it’s borderline antagonistic, as actively hostile to genre conventions as its protagonist is to the world at large. Worse, the fact that it’s self-conscious about this denial (“I got the sneaking suspicion we’re not giving the people what they want,” remarks its protagonist) doesn’t help alleviate its dullness, lethargy, and dearth of unsettling laughs.
Joker: Folie à Deux is the addendum nobody wanted, a long-form footnote in which the events of Joker are literally relitigated before a jury and the public. Incarcerated in Arkham Asylum following his murder spree, Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix, reprising his Oscar-winning role), aka Joker, is now a glum inmate who can’t even muster a joke for guard Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson).
