After the huge success of the first Joker film, all eyes were expectantly on Joaquin Phoenix and Todd Phillips for the sequel, but unfortunately it has been met with scathing reviews.
Musical Joker: Folie à Deux is set to be released in cinemas on October 4, with Joaquin and Zazie Beetz reprising their role as Arthur Fleck and Sophie Drummond, alongside Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Steve Coogan and Harry Lawtey.
In the second outing, Arthur is now a patient at Arkham State Hospital and awaiting trial for the murders he committed in the previous film.
While in the facility, he meets Gaga’s Harleen ‘Lee’ Quinzel – aka Harley Quinn – and they quickly fall in love, while his loyal followers attempt to free him.
Despite a huge amount of fanfare, including a compilation album from the Bad Romance singer and a truly stunning selection of outfits on the press tour, the follow-up has fallen flat with reviewers so far.
It currently has a 56% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, with many branding it ‘dull’ and ‘pointless’.
The Times UK’s Kevin Maher slated: ‘Phillips and co smashed back into the self-contained world, shook all the contents out on to the carpet and… had another go.
‘The result? Messy, lifeless, derivative and exactly what you’d expect from a film that simply doesn’t want, or need, to exist.’
Jo-Ann Titmarsh from the Evening Standard agreed: ‘Despite its fascinating and complex main character, the film is ultimately dull and plodding, taking us nowhere, slowly.’
‘Depending on how you look at it, this demythologising exercise is either daring or it’s irritatingly smug, but it’s definitely not much fun,’ the BBC’s Nicholas Barber wrote.
‘Despite its initially intriguing, offputting nature that has no interest in being what anyone would expect from a Joker sequel, it is crushingly boring and often feels like an aimless 2+ coda to that film [sic],’ Robert Kojder from Flickering Myth penned.
Richard Lawson from Vanity Fair fumed: ‘It’s startlingly dull, a pointless procedural that seems to disdain its audience.’
As Scott Mendelson from the Outside Scoop added: ‘Lady Gaga can’t save a lethargic slog of a self-loathing follow-up that defiantly withholds anything that might entertain comic book fans, Little Monsters or musical theater nerds.’
Joaquin netted the best actor Oscar for his first stint as Arthur in 2019, and underwent a huge transformation ahead of the sequel.
Unpacking the grueling weight loss at a press conference at Venice Film Festival, he insisted that it’s ‘not really that dangerous when you work with a doctor’ to achieve the look he needed for Joker 2.
He refused to share the amount of weight he lost, but conceded: ‘This time it felt a bit more complicated just because there was so much dance rehearsal that we were doing, which I didn’t have last time.
‘So it felt a bit more difficult.’
‘It is safe, but you’re right. I’m now 49, I probably shouldn’t do this again,’ he added. ‘That’s probably it for me!’