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Until now, it seemed Francis Ford Coppola’s insane “Megalopolis” and Kevin Costner’s interminable “Horizon: An American Saga” would stand as the year’s most reckless cinematic statements by celebrated filmmakers.
Then along comes Todd Phillips with “Joker: Folie à Deux,” as if to say, “Hold my beer.”
His ill-considered sequel to the Oscar-winning and billion-dollar-grossing “Joker” from 2019 goes out of its way to be everything the compelling first film wasn’t.
Which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing — nobody wants another formulaic followup — except writer-director Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver obviously had no idea what kind of movie they were trying to make. “Joker” had something to say to the world; “Folie à Deux” (the title means “madness of two”) just seems to be muttering and warbling incoherently to itself.
Packed into the film’s wearisome 138-minute running time is a jukebox musical, a courtroom procedural, a soapy love story, a disorienting identity quest, a violent cultural commentary and a Looney Tunes-inspired cartoon. The last, represented by a short segment that opens the film, reprises the violence of “Joker” and is by Oscar-nominated animator Sylvain Chomet (“The Triplets of Belleville”).
The most bizarro move of all was to pair Joaquin Phoenix with Lady Gaga in a musical riff on the Joker and Harley Quinn crazed romance familiar to fans of DC Comics films and publications. (Harley becomes “Lee Quinzel” in this version.)
Phoenix can’t really sing or dance (though he gamely attempts both), and Gaga is one of the world’s greatest pop divas and entertainers. Putting them together for intermittent and ironic song-and-dance numbers set to familiar pop and show tunes might charitably be called an interesting idea carried to extremes.
The two only occasionally click — their version of the Bee Gees’ “To Love Somebody” isn’t terrible — but Gaga sabotages the effort by trying to sing like an untrained amateur so as not to upstage Phoenix. (This is unlike her winning strategy in “A Star Is Born,” where she sang like the pro she is to better support co-star Bradley Cooper, another nonsinger.)
The film is a disappointment rather than outright disaster. Phoenix remains a highly watchable actor, reminding us of his nightmarish “Joker” performance that won him best actor at the Oscars. Gaga holds her own in the co-starring role, although she’s not given enough screen time.
The production values remain first-rate, especially Lawrence Sher’s expressionistic cinematography, Mark Friedberg’s exuberant production design and composer Hildur Guonadóttir emotive score, which builds from the “Joker” music that won her an Oscar.
“Folie à Deux” is set circa 1983, two years after the events of the first film, in which Phoenix’s social outcast, Arthur Fleck, in his guise of killer clown Joker, went on a murderous rampage on live TV.
He’s now incarcerated in Gotham City’s Arkham Asylum, awaiting trial. He joins the asylum’s music club at the urging of oddly upbeat prison guard Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson, terrific). Arthur meets Gaga’s arsonist Lee, a besotted fan of his awful acts who immediately becomes his girlfriend.
The two are “crazy in love,” as the newspaper headlines will later scream, which suggests the film could become like “Bonnie and Clyde” or “Natural Born Killers” and set Arthur and Lee on the kind of bloody crime spree such movies are known for.
“Folie à Deux” instead morphs into a courtroom procedural, deadening the action as Arthur acts as his own attorney, pleading his case as much to his own troubled mind as to the court.
In “Joker,” he made peace with being a monster and revelled in his public notoriety, which had all-too-believable resonance with the troubled modern world. In “Folie à Deux,” he may have had a change of heart — love will do that to you — but it’s hard to know for sure because his thoughts are expressed in both real and imagined terms.
Another potentially rich narrative path is blocked by the incessant and increasingly annoying musical numbers.
Phillips has said repeatedly he had no plans or desire to make a “Joker” sequel prior to the film’s smashing global success. His track record with sequels isn’t great, as his two anemic followups to the comedy hit “The Hangover” attest.
He recently told Variety his goal for “Folie à Deux,” having changed his mind about revisiting “Joker,” was to “make it feel like it was made by crazy people.” Viewers can judge the merits of that attempt.
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