Joker
While originally the new Joker sequel, Joker: Folie a Deux, seemed to be tracking a little bit behind the original, 61% critic scores compared to a 69% score, that has now changed drastically with more reviews pouring in for the sequel.
The film’s scores have crashed all the way down to a 44% on Rotten Tomatoes one day ahead of its official release on October 4. It’s rare to see scores fall that much as more reviews come in past the initial batch, but critics are really not enjoying what they’re seeing, it seems.
The film has been criticized for its story, musical numbers and extremely controversial ending, but mainly that it doesn’t feel like it needs to exist at all. Here’s a sampling of that criticism:
- New York Post – “For nearly two and a half hours, director Todd Phillips’ pathologically unnecessary movie cycles through so many potential reasons to exist… it ultimately never finds a satisfying one.”
- Indiewire – “Folie à Deux simply tap dances in place for the majority of its listless runtime, stringing together a series of underwhelming musical numbers that are either too on the nose… or too vaguely related to its characters to express anything at all.”
- Times (UK) – “Phillips and co smashed back into the self-contained world, shook all the contents out on to the carpet and… had another go. The result? Messy, lifeless, derivative and exactly what you’d expect from a film that simply doesn’t want, or need, to exist.”
Joker: Folie a Deux
This low of a score means that it is far, far below that majority of DC offerings over the last decade or so. Here’s the bottom ten list in that regard:
- Aquaman – 65%
- The Flash – 63%
- Wonder Woman 1984 – 58%
- Man of Steel – 56%
- Joker: Folie a Deux – 44%
- Justice League (Whedon) – 40%
- Black Adam – 39%
- Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom – 33%
- Batman V Superman – 29%
- Suicide Squad – 26%
So yes, that makes it the sixth worst film in recent DC memory, behind some of the worst offerings of the DCEU like Shazam: Fury of the Gods and Wonder Woman 1984. And behind both the original Joker (69%) and The Batman (85%) which are DC “Elseworlds” projects now.
When the Joker sequel was announced with Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, it just didn’t seem like it was necessary. Now, that seems to be explicitly clear, and it will get a lower box office result in turn, despite costing four times as much. It seems obvious this should not have been greenlit at all.
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