Taxi Dr-I mean, Joker was... a bit of a mixed bag.
There's a lot to like here, Joaquin Phoenix absolutely owns his role as the damaged protagonist Arthur Fleck. Watching him transform the character on screen is deeply unsettling in just the right way. Phoenix makes the character his own and gives a performance as incredible as Ledger's in The Dark Knight.
The cinematography is also phenomenal, so many great shots that serve to do much of the storytelling themselves without a single word being uttered. It also serves to differentiate itself from the typical superhero film look that all seem to use the same color palette and lighting.
Where the film starts to lose points for me is in its heavily borrowed screenplay. This movie wears it’s influences on its sleeve using entire sections of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver & The King of Comedy as the framework for the film. It's no accident De Niro plays a significant role in this film as well. Now cribbing from Scorsese is not inherently bad, the man's a genius after all. But Phillips does little to differentiate the material here, the narrative is about a different sort of mental instability sure, and Phoenix’s performance stands on its own. Nonetheless, it feels more like a retread than it should.
The script is also a bit hit or miss, I think it works decently well until about the halfway point and then a lot of the lines really start to sound overwritten and artificial.
There's a disjointedness to the entire film that I really liked because it's occupying the headspace of Phoenix’s Fleck for nearly the entire runtime. I really appreciated the commitment to the character's perspective. I just wish the movie had more to say about it. Clearly Joker is pointing the finger back at society and saying "you created me" this isn't exactly new territory for the character, but aside from a viscerally effective depiction of that origin, the film kind of left me cold.
Overall, I think Joker has a few great elements, especially Phoenix’s performance and the way they shot it, but it's obvious influences, somewhat padded runtime, and failure to really say anything new. Well, let's just say I'd recommend you watch Scorsese’s work first.
6/10 Hahahahahahahahahahahaha