Joker

So I had no high expectations for this. I only watched it for Phoenix. He was amazing as usual, and the movie itself is surprisingly well made. I loved the score and the way the film was shot and executed. Todd Philips is actually a good director. It's no comic book movie, it's an origin story. One that left me pleased. You actually feel for the main character and hope that he doesn't become a monster. Symbolic, dark, and thought-provoking, and the biggest surprise this year. Great film!

Frustrating. It's beautifully shot and scored, and Phoenix delivers a performance for the ages but the film around it falls short of the mark. It has a lot on its mind and tries its best to talk about a host of issues from mental health to income inequality, but it also lazily and brazenly steals from the best of Scorsese and when asked to articulate its big ideas with the nuance and deftness of the films it admires it lazily settles for "Eh, society, amirite?" Still worth a watch.

I don't give out 90's very often, but "Joker" deserves every ounce of praise it gets. We've seen dark takes on comics before, but this is something else entirely. "Joker" is a comic book villain adapted into reality, and then adapted into a movie. He is insanity personified, and never has mental illness been depicted more acutely than in this movie.

Halfway through my screening of Joker, an incel ran into the theater with an AR-15 aimed at the audience and shouted "Gamers rise up!" But upon seeing Joaquin Phoenix's excellent acting, he lowered his gun, sat down and watched. At the end of the film, he stood up, with tears in his eyes, and apologized to everyone. "I'm sorry," he said. "I guess we really do live in a society after all."

Really took a nosedive for me the second time. Everything, including Joaquin's performance, felt empty, vapid, and hollow. The film's meaning is incredibly convoluted because it's scatterbrained and unfocused, yet so wanting to be impactful and potent. It honestly feels like Todd Philips watched other great films and told everyone involved to do what he saw in those other films because it ends up feeling like a caricature of the character studies that inspired it.

You can't read three sentences about this without Taxi Driver coming up. I thought it was way closer to Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Todd Phillips goes full Rob Zombie and acts as if he hates that anyone likes the Joker. A superhero movie without a superhero and about as grim as that could be. Spoiler Alert!!! My friend posited that he never got out of the fridge which makes WAY more sense.

yah can i get a ????????? ?????? King of Comedy combo meal with a side of Taxi Driver?? visuals cooked well-done? yea.. and slather it- just drown that shit in DC-sauce. mm, yea- and can i get the third act kinda muddled and messy? cool, thanks! see this isn't like other fast food. it's made with actual good performances, and tastes more like classic movies!

I was wondering what was going on with Joaquin's shoulders and then it dawned on me that it must have come from carrying this film on his back.

An truly astonishing lead performance, amazing visuals, and a haunting score can’t disguise the fact that this is, at its core, a fundamentally stupid movie with haphazard ideas about society, class, and mental illness that feel like they came straight from the mouth of the nearest Tyler Durden superfan dumbass. And yet, when Phillips and his script get out of the way, it’s striking and genuinely effective. 66 for 666 because it’s sOoOoO dArK aNd dEmOnIc

Pained, dark and brilliant origins story. My sales pitch? The psychosis of 'Taxi Driver' meets the sympathetic but ultimately sociopathic 'Talented Mr. Ripley'. But it's also a blood-stained picture of our zeitgeist. In 'The Dark Knight Rises' the masses would want to revolt against the rich. In 'Joker' they are willing to flat out kill them. I might adjust the score for this, but only upwards. There's a lot to process.

Unbelievably bad. It's an incoherent mess of a film that has no point of view. Well, I guess you learn that Joker doesn't like to ash his cigarettes.

I don't know how much - if much at all - I'd say I really "enjoyed" it in the sense of like, yeah, I'd pop this in on a lazy Sunday afternoon. But it's certainly fascinating, in its exploration of a journey into darkness and in that a franchise as huge and mainstream as Batman allowed something as bleak and wild and twisted as this to be released attached to it, side-universe or no. Joaquin's performance is a tour de force; can't take your eyes off him.

This was decent. I really like Phoenix's mad, physical performances, and this is another fine example, even though it was hard to sympathise with the character. Hildur Guðnadóttir's score was sublime; probably the thing I liked the most about the film. The look of Gotham, the filming and style worked for me. I don't think the other themes and setting really connected with me, though; just felt a bit superficial and farfetched. Well worth seeing, although Cesar Romero remains the king.

This doesn't feel like the Joker to me. Fleck is simply a loser who never truly becomes frightening. I didn't believe for a second that this sad existence could ever become an evil mastermind who could challenge Batman for the rule of Gotham. A bit predictable, but well-crafted and intensely acted nonetheless. Phoenix is probably the actor of his generation.

Fails on all levels. How do I know? Cos I'll rewatch Nicholson, Ledger and Hamill's Joker any day, but I already forgot about this. By trying to construct a realistic drama out of a comic book, they have managed to turn it into an utterly unrealistic and unoriginal comic book origin story. Side note: Phoenix's acting is superb, my problem is with the character and its politics. They just completely missed the mark.

(2nd viewing) Bearing in mind the film's turn of events this time around, my initial admiration for it has now shifted into unshakable, utter unease. Phoenix's great performance notwithstanding, his character now came across as a narcissistic, delusional freak rather than this tragic "victim of society" whom the makers desperately, if not wrongfully attempt to humanize. I totally understand why anyone would hate this film, because it's honestly f'd up.

If you're going to do a comic book villain origin story, then by God have someone besides the Hangover's director make it. This feels like a Youtube Mashup trailer of 70's Scorsese & Lumet movies. But what's unforgivable is the "apolitical" philosophy--comparing Occupy Wall Street with Incels. The unreliable narrator gimmick, anachronistic viral videos, and tv murder coverage play like a first year Creative Writing student's assignment. And don't get me started on the ending. Avoid at all costs.

Not brilliant by any means; there's a frustrating lack of nuance/subtlety here and it doesn't have as much to say about mental illness or violent populism as it thinks it does. That being said this is a well-made, vivid and potent piece of work (maybe one of the grimmest major studio movies ever). Phoenix absolutely tears into this character (as if you'd expect anything else) and it just works really well as a desperate, upsetting horror-tinged thriller. More comic book movies like this, please.

What it gets right is that one can be both a victim and a villain, and the former does not have to excuse the latter. Although questionable in its psychology, the broad strokes are there and it packs the emotional weight it needs to. Hard to imagine anybody other than Phoenix could pull off this version of Joker (maybe Crispin Glover?). A small detraction is that it's nearly impossible to imagine this Arthur Fleck becoming a truly formidable supervillain.

?Phoenix BRILLIANT [save poss voice 4 SMALL bit of 2nd TV-set scene]: Pathetic,compelling,heart-breaking, skincrawling & frightening | Perfect homage to Taxi D + King of Comedy - thus DeNiro | Wish = pure standalone, might've = true modern classic | ?Father plot NOT needed. Rich boy ? my heart sank | Worry when DC stumbles onto quality, grab it ? may throw $ @ JP to do Batman film. He's SUPERB but that might taint this searing portrayal | PS No more damn SlowMo pearls, pls