Joker: Folie à Deux

Un maniérisme autosuffisant et impuissant. La meilleure blague et la scène de meurtre la plus remarquable associées à ce film sont celles commises sur le spectateur. Todd Phillips ne m’a jamais vraiment impressionné en tant que réalisateur, mais ici, il montre que quand il ne peut plus copier Scorsese une deuxième fois d'affilée, il ne sait plus quoi faire à part une déconstruction fatiguée et bizarrement orchestrée. Joker : Folie à Deux prend son élan à partir du premier film, mais échoue à faire le saut dans les deux. Son idée centrale, et en fait la seule, est si banale qu’elle ne peut en aucun cas tenir sur les 138 minutes du film, au cours desquelles Phillips ne développe que deux nouveaux personnages dans la vie de Fleck, sans mener aucune de ces relations à une conclusion satisfaisante. J’attendais vraiment de voir le traitement musical du film, mais chaque fois qu’une chanson commence, l’intrigue, déjà très lente, se fige complètement et stagne. Les chansons correspondent à peine à ce que vivent les personnages, et les scènes musicales manquent de tout attrait visuel ou de chorégraphie inventive ; la caméra tourne mollement autour des personnages, presque comme pour s'efforcer de meubler. Joaquin Phoenix fait de son mieux, mais cette fois, ça ne suffit pas. Ce film est vraiment candidat au titre de suite la plus inutile de ces dernières années. (30/09/2024)

The absolutely worst-written and most poorly executed studio film of the year. And the most needless, because it does nothing more than rehash ideas from the first Joker (in a certain way, it is a remake rather than a sequel). It’s essentially an atrociously filmed prison/courtroom drama with all of the clichés found in those subgenres, to which redundant musical numbers are appended without any apparent reason. It has about five endings, each one worse than the next, no fluidity and the same intellectual and psychological depth as the introductory animated slapstick by Chomet, which is the only entertaining segment of this otherwise hellishly tiresome masquerade. 20% (30/09/2024)

Collective psychosis made Todd Phillips believe that he is a great director and saviour of the comic-book film genre, so in his new movie he came up with a feeble-minded courtroom drama, a comically flat psychothriller set in a prison, a psychotically stiff musical, allusions to a dark superhero film and a clichéd cherchez la femme romance, which is perhaps supposed to elicit compassion for the chaotic incel in the lead role. Of course, none of this is good and the individual genre elements don’t help. Joaquin Phoenix is definitely a great actor, as he lost a lot of weight for the role and constantly pretends to be a martyr because, yes, in this film he is primarily a victim of the will of others. Perhaps in the years to come, the Joker films will be seen as the greatest collective dissonance of recent years. This playfully toxic phantasmagoria is a good start to getting sober! (07/09/2024)

Nothing less urgent, suffocating, depressing or brilliantly played. Just the magic of the new is gone and scenes for exhibition (laughter in the rain) therefore logically obstruct. The plot is heavily dependent on the first episode, unnecessarily often recapitulates it, and before it carves out its own path, it veers off to songs. Sometimes they are interesting, often even inspiring, but in the last third they tend to delay and mainly start exactly at the moment when the dynamics of the central relationship have a chance to crystallize into a new level. Folie à Deux thus shoots itself in the foot several times, most notably at the very end. Until then, I only doubted if anyone could be obsessed with a sequel like the masses were five years earlier, but the final scene, in my opinion, decides that it cannot. It is precisely poised between provocation and uninhibited paraphrase of already torn templates and at least provokes me by mocking me in the face. (10/10/2024)

Are they alright? Joker was the best film of the year in every way at the time, Joker: Folie à Deux is the biggest spit in the face of all audiences this year. Joaquin Phoenix is fine, but he just can't top his performance in the first film, Lady Gaga is so bland that if you don't count their ten musical numbers, it feels like she warmed up for all of 10 minutes on set and if anyone else, even a no-name aspiring actress, had been in her place, no one would know it. There’s zero build-up the trial is boring and about nothing, the whole first half is actually an incredibly infantile wait for "something" that for a while towards the second half looks like it's finally going to veer into murky waters, but then Todd Phillips throws another musical number. A disastrous experience, two hours of pure boredom and an ending pulled out of thin air. Anyone who loved the first movie should definitely give this one a miss, as they will not be be happy with how diametrically different this film is. (02/10/2024)