Joker (2019): Yay! Joker 2 (2024): ???

Warning! Spoilers ahead!

I absolutely loved Todd Phillips’s 2019 film Joker. Arthur Fleck’s journey from miserable and mentally unwell victim and loser into a nihilistic and homicidal clown was perfect. Also perfect is Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar-winning portrayal. It’s magnificent. One for the ages. Worthy of comparison to Heath Ledger’s portrayal.

I also love how Fleck’s descent into despair, madness, and violence was mirrored in the city of Gotham itself. Sick societies who have lost their way produce miserable and sick individuals, often prone to nihilism.

Most aren’t quite as flamboyant and murderous as Fleck, of course, but it’s important to note that culture and individual mental health are correlated. It’s a very good thing to keep firmly in mind — especially nowadays.

There were aspects of the film that troubled me, though. It was weird that Fleck was a full-grown adult when Bruce Wayne was just a child. Is the Joker supposed to be that much older than Batman in these stories?

Also, Fleck’s character was quite a bit different than the Joker(s) we are more accustomed to, like Jack Nicholson’s version or (especially) Heath Ledger’s brilliant version. Fleck is much more neurotic and prone to hallucinations and flights of fancy.

But hey, it’s an origin story. People change, right? Even murderous archetypal villains.

So, I give Joker an A+. Magnificent. Loved every frame.

I was therefore very disturbed when the sequel, Joker: Folie a Deux (which I will call “Joker 2”) came out (also directed by Phillips) and it was broadly panned. Fans were furious.

They complained that Phillips had ruined the brand by adding Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn and having the pair sing a bunch of stupid songs to each other while Fleck displays a bunch of boring, non-Joker-like behavior.

Even worse (massive spoiler alert), Fleck is murdered at the end of Joker 2. Dead. Gone. Never to return. Fans howled in fury. They blamed Phillips for selling out to whatever woke, lefty, disgusting demons have possessed Disney and much of the rest of Hollywood for the last several years.

Well, hearing that disappointed me. I didn’t rush out into the theaters to watch Joker 2. I finally got around to watching it at home just a few weeks ago.

Wanna know what I think?

I loved it.

First of all, the singing (much of it imagined — Fleck hallucinates, remember?) fit in perfectly with his behavior in the first film. Remember all the “jazz” dancing Fleck was prone to? Those scenes were amazing. Adding musical numbers to his fantasies is perfectly in line with his character.

The weird thing is, of course, that it doesn’t fall perfectly in line with the Joker’s character as we know it from comic lore and previous movies.

Well, that’s no accident. We’re supposed to notice that. Harley Quinn definitely notices it. That’s why she turns her back on Fleck in a heartbreaking case of “never meet your idols.”

Fleck is nothing like the steely-eyed nihilistic psychopath Quinn was so attracted to from afar, so she walked out on him.

All that non-Joker behavior that so turned off Quinn and the fans just made me grin. I was starting to get it: Fleck is not the Joker.

That fact becomes crystal clear when Fleck is shanked to death at the end of Joker 2. We are led to believe his murderer is, in fact, Heath Ledger’s Joker — “our” Joker. We are led to this conclusion at the very end when Fleck’s killer takes a knife to his own face in a very familiar way.

So, if Phillip’s isn’t just pulling our leg, Fleck was never the Joker. He just inspired the Joker — and half of Gotham — to worship the killer clown and embrace nihilistic destruction just for destruction’s sake.

Brilliant. Love it. Pathos, pathos, and more pathos on the screen. All portrayed brilliantly and right on time. Our society needs to see some warning signs depicting the dangers inherent when cultures (and people) lose their values, their purpose, their aim.

When we lose these things, we embrace what’s left over: barbarism and despair, nihilism and mayhem. Without the light, we sink into the dark… and the depths.

So, thank you Todd Phillips. I loved what you created. Ignore the haters.

Naturally,

Adam