Joker (2019)
18 January 2020
Joker (2019) currently has 11 Academy Award nominations, slightly ahead of other nominees (Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, 1917, and The Irishman) with 10 apiece. This past week it came up in conversation at the office, so I wanted to watch it while my coworkers abstain from giving their full opinions.
It didn't really offer me any surprises, as it was what I expected based on reviews: Joaquin Phoenix stands out in his performance as the Joker / Arthur Fleck; the movie is very,
For a character study of the Joker it does a good job, but that's about on par for Phoenix, given that he's had nominations from the Academy for Gladiator (2000), Walk the Line (2005), and The Master (2012) in the past. I do find it interesting that there was inspiration for this story from the graphic novel The Killing Joke (1988), which is considered one of the definitive stories of the Joker and one of the best Batman stories ever told. It's a great examination of the Joker as a somewhat sympathetic comedian, getting the short end of the stick for a long time.
It's definitely the most artsy comic book-based film that's come out. It's written to be a standalone film, which I greatly prefer over the bombastic blockbuster superhero films getting released. The superhero genre is worn out at this point, although the good thing about the Batman franchise is that is can stay away from a lot of the unrealistic aspects pretty easily (see The Dark Knight trilogy). I probably would've given this a higher rating if it came out a few years ago. I also think although this is a solid film, I don't think it has a very good pace for rewatching often. If you want this style of film you'd likely prefer to go back to the Dark Knight films, or V for Vendetta over this and have a similar experience but with more action. I suspect in a few years my rating will fall to a 7/10, but for now I'm happy movies like this are being attempted and that'll influence my opinion more positively. 8/10
