Why 'Joker: Folie a Deux' is proof that sequels don't always need to exist

"It's so silly." The moviegoer was right. Why was $200 million wasted on this?

The good news is that it’s not all bad.

Yes, there are parts of Joker: Folie a Deux, Todd Phillips’s follow-up to the Oscar-winning, billion-dollar-grossing 2019 original, that work well enough to recall a few hours later. They put my favorite Frank Sinatra tune-That’s Life-to wonderful use not once but twice, and carried an extra score-infused beat. It has some Lady Gaga lightning, even if she is sadly underused. The movie is impeccably shot, and has an inspired soundtrack and sound. Joaquin Phoenix goes for it, and the cast buys in.

There’s just little to zero point to it… any of it! Ask me what this sequel produces for the people who wanted more of the brilliant chaos from the much better Joker, and I’d have to think on it while trying to decipher if a shoulder shrug would suffice as an answer. Picking right up shortly after the first one’s epic finale, the audience finds Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck sulking in prison, a place that he would admit shares a resemblance to his place in the outside world.

Joaquin makes you climb into it. Against all odds, including a conclusion-less script, the actor goes for it big time here. A dead man walking a bag of bones again-his shrunken and undernourished figure is the first thing we see-Arthur drifts from one room to the next, ordered around by angry guards led by Brenden Gleeson’s slow-burn tyrant. It’s not until he lays eyes on Lee Quinzel (Gaga, aka Stefani Germanotta) that a candle is lit inside his head again.

Right here and there, the film could have tied itself to a rocket ship of charisma that does exist between the two actors, both of whom get to show off their lyrical pipes later on. Instead of wasting so much screen time on a Law and Order gonzo courtroom drama, it could have hung with Arthur and Lee inside the prison’s crazy wing; a couple psychos falling in love at Arkham.

As Ray Donovan would unenthusiastically say, “sure.” But Phillips and company never really build anything outside of Fleck’s guerilla warfare-loving followers trying to make him a martyr while everyone else looks at him with pity. The only provocative beat from the screenplay (written by Phillips and Scott Silver) is the idea that a person’s mental health is only taken into serious consideration when it can shave a few years off a sentence, or find a more suitable (less guard abuse) home for the mentally ill.

The problem is that the match is never lit on fire, and used for purpose. Phillips takes the audience nowhere, and sheds nothing new on Fleck’s dilemma. He doesn’t go bonkers or give us a prison break, but the filmmaker also doesn’t use the bigger platform to say something about mental health and the stigma surrounding it. This one will be a disappointment for both DC fans and regular movie fans who wanted more meat on the bone.

The 2019 film took chances, showed us something new, provided a hearty finish--and should have been left alone. Folie a Deux only tarnishes its legacy with this useless follow-up. The pacing doesn’t help at all. Dullness is one way to describe the majority of the film, overlong at 138 minutes. Another, more fitting, way is to say it simply has nothing to say and doesn’t care to fill in the blanks with action.

Gaga makes you lock onto Lee, who does share things in common with Harley Quinn, but the role and plot she’s in does her few favors. Underutilized and more of a gimmick than necessary casting, the actress breathes credibility in a movie that doesn’t care about her character much.

She’s more interesting than Phoenix’s inspired yet also half-asleep Fleck, but the movie ultimately spins an unsatisfying yarn on their well-known mad romance. As far as the musical element is concerned, it only carries the mere aesthetic of a musical and never truly buys into that genre. Like most things and themes here, it’s a prop. The more she sings, the more her Lee loses substance and just becomes a variant of the actress’ real life persona.

Like most of the movie, it doesn’t have a reason to exist and fails to entertain. With a budget that triples the cost of the first film and a low box office projection for Monday, you had to at least do one of those things, if not both. Joker: Folie a Deux is the rare big budget film that carries a low critical score (Rotten Tomatoes is currently 33%) and an even lower audience score (31% this morning on Fandango).

The people and critics agree: Instead of a worthy sequel, this “madness in love” is proof that they don’t always need to exist. Some ideas are best kept in the mind.

My advice: Skip this one entirely, and just rewatch the first one.