'Joker: Folie à Deux' is not the movie anyone needs, but the one 'Joker' fans deserve

Do you remember when the Joker made jokes? At this point, I barely do. 

Last week, in preparation for watching and reviewing “Joker: Folie à Deux,” I finally bit the bullet and watched the first “Joker.” Despite being a lifelong comics reader and fond enough of Batman-related properties (though I’ve always been more of a Superman guy), I’d put off watching “Joker” because, well, because of the people who liked it. 

“Joker” became a bit of an incel holy text, skyrocketing to popularity as a movie that otherwise amounts to very little outside of one nice performance and some faux-arthouse plot beats ripped from Martin Scorsese films. 

I do not like the first “Joker.” However, when early reviews started coming in for “Joker: Folie à Deux,” many of the incel Joker-ites who so adored the original labeled the sequel an unfaithful rug-pull that condemns both its protagonist and fans of the first film. This piqued my interest. If “Joker” fans don’t like “Joker: Folie à Deux,” and I don’t like “Joker,” I'd probably like “Folie à Deux,” right? Wrong. “Folie à Deux” is a complete dumpster fire in almost every direction. 

The film has a plain and simple ground-floor tone problem. Since the first “Joker” was so entrenched in being an homage to — or a rip-off — of Scorsese’s films (notably “Taxi Driver” and “The King of Comedy”), the sequel is mired in an aesthetic established to uphold those stories without the stories there to fill it in. This leaves the film listless and disjointed before it even begins. 

And when it does begin … does it even begin? Does anything happen in this movie? Nothing that happens to the Joker in this movie matters until the abrupt ending, which could have happened just as abruptly in the first 10 minutes. Hell, it could’ve happened at the end of the last movie. At least then I’d have two hours of my life back. 

Then, unfortunately, there is the Joker himself. I have never wanted Batman to be in a movie more just so someone could beat the stuffing out of this wet blanket. I mean, say what you will about the first movie, but at least the character himself is entertaining in that one. At least he does stuff. The Joker probably wore his clown makeup for 20 minutes of this 138-minute movie. It’s a two-hour whimper with no actual payoff.

I haven’t even mentioned Harley Quinn — if I can even call her Harley Quinn. This movie definitely didn’t. Harley was hardly in the movie. Outside of the musical sequences, which, admittedly are very well-done (breaking news: Lady Gaga can sing) — Harley's character is utterly wasted, and goes essentially nowhere.

Then, there's the “main message” of the movie. And what a message it is.

Picture this: Director Todd Phillips, the man that called Batman an “alpha male,” can’t take that he’s so associated with the incel crowd. Phillips has an idea. A terrible, wonderful idea.

If the incels love the Joker so much, he’ll have to spend most of the sequel discrediting their twisted “Jokeristic” belief system, the same system the first film upheld. A noble pursuit, and an idea I have nothing against. I’d like to take a moment here to make it clear that I am all for discrediting incels. 

But there are a few big problems with this. For one, Phillips writes like he’s never seen a movie in his life. Every bit of symbolism and allegory (I feel almost sick using those words to describe the “Joker” flicks) in these movies is so ham-handed.

Moreover, the movie doesn’t do anything else. Whether or not the self-loathing anti-incel messaging worked (spoilers: kind of?), “Joker: Folie à Deux” has nothing else to offer. I haven’t seen a more hollow, meandering picture in a very, very long time. 

And lastly, this messaging is completely undermined by how opposite that of the first film was. “Joker: Folie à Deux” seems to despise its own audience, but the first film went out of its way to say how cool they are. What do you want me to think, Phillips? The last thing I want to see on the big screen is someone’s rambling identity crisis played out in real time. 

“Joker: Folie à Deux” is very bad. It’s a half-cocked mixed message scotch-taped to a story less than that of a Little Golden Book. 

I’m tired of these self-obsessed movies that think they’re way smarter than they are. I’m tired of gritty, serious Batman stuff. I’m tired of incel Joker. At least, I guess, Todd Phillips is too? Cold comfort, because I seem to disagree with everything else the man does.

DC executives, if you read this, can you bring back the kind of Joker that kills people with shark tanks and joy buzzers and exploding cigars? If I wanted to watch a sad clown shoot people point-blank, I’d just go see whatever movie Mark Wahlberg’s been in lately.

Oh, and, Lady Gaga, can you please make pop music again? What the world really needs now is another album like “Born This Way.”