First of all, I would like to state that this will be a SPOILER-FREE review. With audiences still pouring in, and only a week since its initial release on October 4, 2019, I felt it best to be tight-lipped about the details and instead provide a general outlook on how my movie experience turned out to be.
As you all know by now, I’m a huge comic-book fan. My loyalties lean toward DC though I also enjoy several titles from Marvel and the MCU. Among the pantheon of DC and Marvel superheroes and villains, Batman and Joker rank as my favorites.
The Joker has been brought to life on the big-screen via the acting chops of several actors including Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill (voice-acting), Heath Ledger, Jared Leto, and now in Joker, Joaquin Phoenix. Being a huge fan of Ledger’s work in The Dark Knight and after the promising trailer for Todd Phillip’s Joker, I had some pretty high expectations walking into the theater.
Joker met my expectations and even more. In short, Joaquin Phoenix hit it out of the park. Two hours later, as the credits swung over the screen, I couldn’t help but feel elated about revisiting some of the best titles in the Joker compendium, many of which served as subtle inspirations for various elements in the movie.
Joker does not match the present stereotype of popular action-oriented comic book movies and is vastly different in the portrayal of its pivotal character compared to The Dark Knight. Phoenix’s performance serves more as a character study of a super-villain, whose psyche has thus far been explored at least in the context of movie adaptations, from the perspective of his rival, the Batman. This trope is overturned in the Joker where we get a tour-de-force of his psyche in what can only be described, as Batman himself put it in The World’s Finest, “With the Joker, expect the unexpected.”
Joker presents a world in limbo largely framed within the closets of Arthur Fleck’s unhinged mind. It is a world where truth and falsity, reality and illusion all coexist making the audience’s perception of the character vary wildly from pity, remorse, fear, and a certain sense of justice. These emotions are further amplified by Phoenix’s portrayal of the Joker as a reflection of the society in what serves to be a glorious “killing joke” of Arthur Fleck’s descent into insanity.
While it still remains up in the air if this particular rendition of the Joker will carry over into the DCEU, its a promising run of the major titles that DC have released with Wonder Woman, and Aquaman. Joker is a must-watch for all comic book and neutral fans alike. In my humble opinion, Joker ranks on par with Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (though in very different ways) and is an enthralling, curious, transcending, and riveting journey and study of one of the most iconic super-villains ever created in popular culture.
My Rating: 4.5/5
The Pensive Reverie 