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Joker with Joaquin Phoenix may disappoint on some levels
As I watched the dark cello playing violence of Todd Phillips' Joker unfold, I rode with it mostly because I followed it as the story of how Batman's Joker became the messed up criminal that he is - taunted since youth, suffering from mental illness real or prescription drug exacerbated, driven by society to the fringes of darkness, yes, it all made sense. Joker as victim who turns on society.
But then it turns out that Joker, with his truncated name same as The Bat became Batman in Batman Begin, might have nothing to do with The Joker of Batman, at least according to hints dropped by too talkative director Todd Phillips who couldn't just leave things alone for viewers to figure out on their own, a la David Chase and his refusal to nail down the ending of The Sopranos. Why couldn't Phillips, too, just keep his mouth shut and not try to explain things too closely? Did he have to tell us that this Joker might not even be The Joker?
What are we to think then of a movie set in Gotham City where Thomas Wayne is murdered same as in Batman Begins and other Batman movies - all drawn from the original comics - where the parallels are all there, and the obvious conclusion that this is a Redux of The Joker's story, turns out to be the wrong? So we suffered through all that gratuitous darkness and violence just to follow the story of some psychotic who isn't even a Marvel Comics character? In which case, largely a waste of time, in my opinion. If I wanted to watch a movie about some character who isn't even a Character, I'd do that, I wouldn't try to inject a Marvel Comics storyline into the movie.
And this is why, if I haven't already been redundant enough, I feel like Joker becomes a bit of a letdown. I actually enjoyed my train of thought in explaining away The Joker's existence through the formative years expressed in this movie, and resented that the Director would try to jerk such thoughts and such an obvious interpretation away. If this guy isn't The Joker, who is?
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