First ‘Joker 2 Reviews Are Extremely Mixed

Joker: Folie à Deux just made its premiere at the Venice Film Festival — to less than enthusiastic reviews.

The first Joker, directed by Todd Phillips and starring Joaquin Phoenix as the iconic DC villain, also premiered at Venice, where it was received very positively by critics and won the festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion. While subsequent reviews elsewhere were a bit more mixed, the film went on to become one of the highest-grossing R-rated films in history, and an Oscar winner.

We’ll see what happens when Folie à Deux premieres in theaters next month, but the early word out of Venice this time is extremely mixed, and in some cases, downright negative. Even some critics who loved the first Joker had harsh words for the sequel. The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney, for example, called the original Joker “arguably the best Batman-adjacent movie since The Dark Knight.” Of Folie à Deux, he said it “feels narratively a little thin and at times dull.”

READ MORE: Joaquin Phoenix Wanted to Do a Joker Broadway Show

Similarly, Screen’s Tim Grierson tweeted that he still thinks “the original Joker is terrific. And let the record show I think Joker: Folie à Deux is most decidedly not.”

There were some positive reviews; Deadline’s Pete Hammond said it’s a musical unlike anything else he’d seen. Here’s a sampling of the Joker 2 reviews so far, the good at the bad.

Pete Hammond, Deadline:

With song, dance, comedy, darkness, animation, drama, violence and more, this is a musical — if it even is a musical — like no other.

Geoffrey Macnab, The Independent:

Just as bleak and daring as the original.

William Bibbiani, TheWrap:

It’s a sad, pensive, and impressively odd motion picture that uses the theatricality of movie musicals to undermine its hero’s ambitions instead of elevating them.

Owen Gleiberman, Variety:

The concept is audacious but the execution less so.

Tim Grierson, Screen Daily:

Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix fail to spark in Todd Phillips’ musical sequel.

 

Siddhant Adlakha, IGN:

Too often insists on returning to familiar territory (and on occasion, familiar footage) instead of blazing a new path.

Alison Willmore, Vulture:

Commits the mortal sin of wasting Lady Gaga.

David Ehrlich, Indiewire:

Todd Phillips’ musical sequel feels like it’s bad on purpose.

David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter:

Even more than its predecessor, the sequel reduces the archvillain to a hollowed-out product of childhood trauma and mental illness.

Jordan Farley, GamesRadar:

A bold departure from its lauded/loathed predecessor, but it’s also a far less effective vehicle for its tragi-comic subject and lead actor.

Joker: Folie à Deux is scheduled to open in theaters on October 4.