Hey, everyone. Moviethony Reviewtano here, the internet's movie-est movie nerd.

Yeah, it's time for something I do every once in a blue moon on this channel, and that's review a movie. This movie over here that I'm talking about has been quite polarizing, highly discussed, plus it's a musical. That puts it in my turf. I mean, why not? I'm a music guy. I could review a musical. I don't see why not. Couldn't hurt.

But no, in fact, the process of watching this movie did hurt. It hurt a lot. Before I get deeper into this review, I want to say two things. One, there are going to be spoilers in this. Big, fat, gigantic spoilers. So if you hope to see it, maybe don't go any further.

If you've spent any amount of time online peeping the discourse around this film, you know the reception has not been all that positive. But I went into this movie with maybe some high hopes for it because of a few different factors.

One, full disclosure, I was never a massive, massive fan of the first Joker film with Joaquin Phoenix. I mean, it ends well enough, and I feel like the entire second half of the film is pretty great. But the lead-up and set-up that brings us to that point, personally, I found very dull, even if Phoenix's acting throughout the film is pretty great.

On top of that, again, was this music tie-in there, Lady Gaga. Sometimes I mess with some Lady Gaga. And the entire idea of switching up the film genre in a way for the sequel seemed like a really wild and out there risk. Maybe it's a case where it's just like normies hating the film because it's too out there and it's not what they expected it to be.

But no, in fact, this movie sucks. This sucks. However, what's interesting is this is one of the few films that I could think of where I think it wanted to suck. Actually, I would say it's quite transparent that the writers and the director of this film didn't really want it to be enjoyed, especially by a particular group of people. The supposedly huge and very loud and annoying social media-based fandom for this film that many film and cultural critics, both professional and amateur, have categorized as being lonely, sad, incel-type men.

And to rewind a bit here and talk about this discourse around the first Joker movie. Personally, I found it really annoying and obnoxious on both sides of this coin, because obviously, I don't think the Joker movie was intended specifically to appeal to angry, sad incels. On top of it, deciding to not like or distance yourself from or negatively review a movie because of the crowd of people that it might appeal to, is frankly just whack in a really shitty way to interact with art because there are tons and tons and tons of films and pieces of popular media that have been adhered to by people with less-than-good political intentions or heinous ideologies.

Am I supposed to ignore every single one of them? Avoid them completely out of fear of what? If I watch the Joker movie enough times, is it going to turn me into an incel? What exactly are we afraid of here? Because, again, there are Conservatives who rage against the machine. Transphobes and right-wing red-pillers are heavily into the Matrix trilogy. And we, and when I say we, I mean well-adjusted people, don't allow that to prevent us from enjoying those pieces of media or acknowledge the things about them that are good. So Why should we do that with Joker?

And while this was very much the dominant back and forth around the film on the Internet, what I feel is important to remember is that this likely represents the minority of experiences collectively that people had around the film. What I'm trying to say here is that your average person probably just went into the movie expecting it just to be a comic book movie, enjoyed themselves, thought it was cool, thought it was well shot, and written, acted, whatever, and just didn't glean any of this incel shit or anti-incel shit from it and just went about their lives afterward.

Which is why, personally, I think it's weird that the filmmakers would base almost the entire creative process of this sequel around that discourse, because quite transparently, that's what Folie à Deux is. Pretty much everything about the film is designed to piss this incel audience off or piss off anybody who just doesn't want to have this discourse projected onto them from the storyline, which I will quickly spoil right now. Because it's really basic, drawn out, and this movie, by the way, did not need to be two fucking hours. You could have easily told this story in one. I don't even think this movie should have been 90 minutes. This could have been a short, honestly.

Ultimately, for reasons that are not very well spelled out through the film, Joaquin Phoenix or Arthur Fleck, in the midst of this trial that from the outset, seems like he's going to lose. He pretty much decides 'Joker is bad. I don't want to be Joker. I am not Joker. I actually am the guy who did all those things. I don't want to be this Joker character. I reject it.' And saying that openly pretty much pisses off all of Joker's loyal followers and cult members who, if you guys remember, were pretty much portrayed as being obsessed with him at the end of the first movie.

Lady Gaga's character is a member of this contingent. She's completely head over heels for Joker, which, mind you, in her head, is pretty much not Arthur Fleck. So the moment that he smashes this façade, she loses interest in him, as do many of his followers. And this leads to Arthur Fleck just getting unceremoniously fucking shivved in the stomach at the end of the movie, at the end of two goddamn hours. And then he just bleeds out and dies.

And again, it's made very, very clear that all of these people obsessed with Joker are supposed to be the exact incel weirdo types that everybody's talking about being obsessed with this movie. So again, it becomes clear this entire film just exists to look that group of people directly in the eye and say, 'fuck you', which honestly is obnoxious because, with something as huge and as big budget and as far-reaching as a film, there's not really a way to do that surgically because you're inadvertently also saying, 'fuck you' to all of just the regular normal-ass people that wanted to see a cool Joker movie.

And look, I think there may have been potentially interesting and creative ways of addressing this supposed incel obsession with the first film. Sure, maybe even playing it out in a way Joker's cult, loses interest in him. That's a compelling narrative, sure. Did we have to do it in a way where we just make the movie unpalatable for everybody? With character motivations that make no sense, with narrative plots that are just too goddamn on the nose, with all these musical breaks that are not very well-sung sometimes. Considering the mission of the film, they come across as just insincere and crass.

Furthermore, what's offensive is a lot of great old-school vocal jazz and soul-type songs are being used throughout the film in a really gross way. These renditions aren't being engaged in as a means of celebrating the music they're based on. They're being thrown into the mix with the hope of, 'Oh, man, I bet this is going to piss off the incels.'

I haven't even really gotten that deep into the music yet. But I will say the incorporation of musical elements at the start of the movie is actually okay and low-key makes sense. These breaks throughout the film are portrayed as being a part of Arthur Fleck's psychosis, and it seems like a thing that he's experiencing, but the world around him isn't. It's mostly just in his head, and it's only people who are as crazy as him, like Lady Gaga, who are in on the Joker fantasy that seem to be in it with him.

But these musical numbers really start to get very tacky and go completely off the rails, to the point where we're getting a musical number where they're doing a Sonny & Cher bit. And then another one where they're trying to do a big, almost like soul rock spiritual number with Lady Gaga on the keys, and she's doing her best tacky-ass soul singer performance. And then, Joaquin Phoenix, who is mysteriously not singing all that much during this number, decides to do a fucking tap dance.

So yeah, again, with the way the film starts, it seems like there is some merit to going in a musical direction with it. But then as we move further into the film, these musical bits become less and less impressive. The entire movie turns into a shitty theater kid version of La La Land. Sadly, the whole musical angle of this film is frankly just an abuse of the format because, again, it's not pulled off very well.

Ultimately, it all just serves to a film that its creators are very well aware is not good. Because if it was, I don't think the movie would be packed with so many bad self-references, audaciously stupid scene ideas, and offensively cliched characters. Lady Gaga's character is essentially just the manic pixie dream girl turned up to 11 in the most obnoxious and unlikable way possible.

Also, of course, one of the main guards at the prison in the movie who we see all the time is Irish. 'Oh, Arthur, do you have a joke for us today?' What the fuck is it with Hollywood just portraying cops and guards as Irish constantly? There's also a part where Lady Gaga or Harley Quinn puts Joker makeup on Arthur Fleck's face and then has him fuck her. Yeah, and you watch the whole sex scene. He essentially gets six thrusts in and cums.

I'll leave this review by saying, jazz didn't deserve this. Why did you guys do jazz like this? Jazz, musical musicals, the whole institution of musical theater did not deserve this. They really did the whole genre wrong.

I feel bad for anybody who has very little or no experience with musicals who might have this be their first time with one. You might actually get the impression that they suck and that they're annoying and that they might be out to low-key piss off the audience of people watching them. When no, that is not the case. There are a lot of amazing, sincere, well-executed musicals out there.

Look, I'm not even a big musical guy. And yet I could see very clearly how badly this film was going about executing this format. But yeah, Joker: Folie à Deux. This movie sucked. Kind of seemed like that was the point. So good job making a movie that nobody wants. You totally nailed it.