I’m writing this post because it’s getting very low ratings. From the reviews that I read, many people say it doesn’t meet their expectations of what a superhero movie should be.
I’m not a capeshit enjoyer. I chose to see Joker 2 because Joker 1 had vague themes of “defunding welfare programs is bad”. In the first movie, Joker loses access to his mental illness medication because the politicians defund the welfare programs and that leads Joker to start doing crimes.
What I liked about Joker 2 is that everyone around him wants to make him miserable, but instead he chooses to be happy. In my opinion, it is the most pure example of absurdity. The whole world wants to make Joker miserable and he is powerless to change other people, but he can deny giving the world what they want so he chooses to laugh. I find that to be entertaining.
The movie was about 60% musical. Whenever Joker starts to hallucinate, everyone starts singing. I think it was okay, but other people did not like that. You probably won’t like the movie if you are expecting it to follow the superhero movie formula.
I think the Joker movies don’t do well because everyone has their own idea of who these characters should be.
Go into it just expecting to see a story, with no preconceived notions of these characters, and you’ll see a film with beautiful shots, dramatic use of light and shadow, excellent use of music, and interesting performances.
A lot of people didn’t like it, but a lot of people are idiots who miss all subtext.
Go see it for youself as a fan of films, and don’t try to compare to whatever head canon for your version of the characters.