Fellman's Movie Reviews

What’s it about? 

Joker: Folie A Duex is a psychological thriller/musical that is the 2024 sequel to the 2019 smash hit “Joker”. It brings back Joaquin Phoenix from the first film as The Joker and introduces Lady Gaga as his love interest, Harleen Quinzel. Arthur Fleck, AKA The Joker, is in prison for his horrific crimes and awaiting trial. He meets Harleen, “Lee”, Quinzel in a music class in another part of the prison and they spark a relationship. They form a love story throughout the movie while Arthur is having his trial trying to defend himself from murdering the five people that got him put away in the first place. The many musical numbers and singing interruptions really break up the pace of the movie. And it all turns out to be a hallucination anyway, making the whole movie pointless in a dues ex machina sort of way. 

What’s good? 

The acting is pretty good, for the characters they’re playing. Lady Gaga really is a talented singer. You have to at least give her that. But aside from that, there really isn’t a whole lot to look forward to. 

What’s bad? 

A lot. The plot, for one, is horribly written. Terrible when you compare it to the first movie. The dialogue is certainly nothing to write home about. And despite being a musical, the music itself is actually quite irritating. The songs themselves are just no good. And as there are so many of them, they break up the movie so frequently, that it becomes very annoying, very quickly, and it keeps happening, over and over again, to the point that you just want the movie to be over so the singing stops. 

The acting? 

Despite the dialogue itself, the acting isn’t terrible. Joaquin Pheonix is too good of an actor to make a complete bomb out of something. It’s a shame that he got roped into something like this.  

The effects?  

The effects are pretty standard for anything else you would see these days. Simple cuts here and there to different places. Fade in and fade out. There’s an explosion at the end that uses special effects that look sort of second rate. Not exactly Industrial Lights and Magic type special effects, but they got the job done. 

The cartoon in the beginning is weird. 

The cartoon that starts the movie is a weird way to begin. It’s a Looney Tunes type cartoon called “Me and My Shadow” where The Joker’s shadow separates from him and impersonates him to get on TV, where it then does a song and dance number with The Joker. I told you it was weird… 

Murray Franklin is in The Joker’s dressing room. 

In The Joker’s dressing room, in the opening cartoon, there’s a bloody, real-life picture of Murray Franklin, AKA Robert DeNiro, hanging on the wall behind The Joker, commemorating when he shot him in the first movie. 

Was the cartoon just a hallucination? 

The cartoon ends with several guards coming and beating The Joker with clubs. This often happens with Arthur in prison as he doesn’t listen to authority and gets beaten in response. You have to wonder if the cartoon was just a hallucination of Arthur’s that he was having until several guards came and started beating on him until he came out of his stupor. 

Joaquin Pheonix is emaciated again. 

Once again, as in the first movie, Joaquin Pheonix is emaciated and bony in this movie. He can’t look like that all the time. It has to be for the movie. And if it is, that’s dedication to the craft. Because that can’t be healthy. 

The guards keep asking if Arthur has a joke. 

The guards are always asking Arthur if he has a joke for them, and reward him with cigarettes when he does. It seems like a bad idea to keep asking a clown themed murderer if he’s got a joke. You’re literally giving him an opportunity to give you a violent punchline. 

The umbrellas change color. 

When they’re walking through the rain from one section of the prison to the other, in one scene, all of the umbrellas are multicolored and bright, and then, when they get to the door, all of the umbrellas are black. 

Harley does the gun motion. 

Harley does the “blowing her brains out” motion right in front of the guards while The Joker is handcuffed at the music class and nobody says “hey, stop doing that” or “that’s weird” or anything like that. They just go about their business. 

The light in the room gets brighter. 

When Arthur is being interviewed by the doctor and she asks him if The Joker would like to talk to her on camera, the light in the room suddenly gets brighter. 

Arthur’s nose starts bleeding. 

During the music class, when Arthur and Harley are outside talking, Arthur’s nose starts to bleed after talking to Harley for a little while. It wasn’t bleeding when he first got to class. It just starts to happen for no reason. 

Harvey Dent is on the TV. 

Harvey Dent is the prosecutor in Gotham City and becomes the prosecutor for Arthur’s trial. It was an obvious opportunity to introduce Harvey into this movie’s storyline. And if you don’t know who Harvey Dent is, you’re not a fan of The Joker. 

The song break in the common room is a hallucination. 

The song in the common room where he sees Harvey Dent is a hallucination because after the song is over, he goes back to standing in front of the TV. 

Why is he tied to a pole? 

After the scene in the common room where he hallucinates singing and sees the story about himself on the TV, for some reason, the next scene is him tied to a pole, standing in the rain. Why is he suddenly tied to a pole? What happened? How did we get there? 

They had no intention of escaping. 

After Harley sets fire to the piano while everybody is watching the movie, her and The Joker escape the prison while everyone else is distracted. They eventually get caught because they were singing and dancing in the rain and having too much fun. 

The Joker and Harley Show. 

The Joker and Harley Show where she shoots him in the stomach is another hallucination after he finds out that she lied to him and she isn’t really who she said she is. 

Smoking like the 50’s. 

Everybody is always smoking like it’s the 1950’s in Gotham. Even in court, there are ashtrays everywhere, and people are holding cigarettes while talking to the jury. Putting their cigarette out before getting up to talk to the witness. That’s not how things work today.  

He hallucinates in the middle of the trial. 

The Joker hallucinates in the middle of the trial with the song “There’s Always a Joker”, where he kills several people in the courtroom. He eventually wakes up and ends up firing his lawyer in the middle of his trial.  

The guards kill Ricky. 

The guards killing Ricky is obviously a hallucination because Ricky is the one who kills Joker at the end of the movie, making the whole movie a hallucination, going full circle in the first place.  

Half of Harvey’s face is burnt. 

Half of Harvey Dent’s face is burnt after the explosion in the courtroom, giving an opening for a Two-Face origin story, just in case… 

He says he doesn’t want to sing anymore.  

When he’s talking to Harley at the top of the stairs, he says he doesn’t want to sing anymore as she continues to sing her goodbye song to him and he can’t get her to stop. 

You find out the whole movie was a hallucination. 

At the end, you find Arthur, sitting in the common room, watching TV, and realize the whole movie was a hallucination. Even the bad things that happened to him. Making the entire trip pointless. And seeing as it’s a pretty bad movie, it kind of pisses you off.  

I’m not saying I didn’t like Joker: Folie A Duex. I’m just saying it’s not a good movie. It won seven Golden Raspberry awards. You don’t win those for no reason. So, see it if you want, but just know what you’re getting yourself into. And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…