Review: Joker

Joker, directed by Todd Phillips, tells the tale of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a washed up clown-for-hire hoping to one day become a successful stand up comedian. But the joke’s on him when one bad day sets off a chain of events that will change Arthur’s life and outlook of life forever.

This is the latest film from Todd Phillips, who also directed War Dogs and The Hangover Trilogy. Now looking at his filmography Phillips doesn’t have the best of track records; a lot of his films are not exactly good movies. So when he announced his next film was a character study of one of the most iconic comic book villains that Martin Scorsese was at one point attached to produce I was more cautious than excited. Well we wouldn’t really know for sure until we saw it for ourselves, and the end result was thankfully great.

This is not like previous incarnations of the Joker we saw in the past; this is a pretty unique take on the character that’s been portrayed many times. Joaquin Phoenix not only gives one of my favorite performances this year, but his portrayal of the Joker is incredibly interesting. This is a performance that’s not like Heath Ledger’s or Jack Nicholson’s, but something that Phoenix can really call his own.

What’s also impressive is that Phoenix’s performance is not the only thing about this film that’s impressive. Phillip’s direction was surprisingly fantastic. There wasn’t really a bad performance to be had throughout the film. The cinematography is very stylish, the editing was great, the music was amazingly beautiful and haunting at the same time, and this film’s Gotham City is filled to the brim with personality.

The only real complaint I had was, ironically, Joker himself. While Phoenix’s portrayal of the character was fascinating to watch, the character himself wasn’t very interesting to say the least. Arthur Fleck had no real character flaws in general to make his turn to the dark side fascinating. He’s just a regular nice guy who got crapped on by society and now he’s crazy.

This film borrows heavily from Scorsese’s films like Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, but what made those films great was because their main characters (who incidentally are both played by Robert De Niro who also stars in this movie) were incredibly complex and unique individuals all equipped with their own flaws and quirks. Arthur compared to those guys is kinda flat. Couple other issues I had involved mainly the film’s writing. A lot of the dialogue is a little too on-the-nose, several scenes in the film feel more like an excuse to make it R-rated, and the Batman aspect of the film is not exactly great.

Overall this was a pretty great film to check out. This is one of the better comic book films to come out lately and it’s also one of the better films of 2019. If this sounds like a film you’ll like then I highly recommend you check it out. Don’t let the controversy or what the media say about it affect your feelings about it cause to be honest those arguments don’t hold much weight here. Let’s not judge a movie before we watch it and actually watch the movie before accusing it of something that it’s not.

Final Verdict: 8/10