For all the flack that Hollywood gets for rehashing material, you have to give it to its elements when they’re combined accordingly, and in a way that resoundingly fits.
The new Joker movie looks like everything you could possibly want from a film about the infamous DC Comics-based clown prince of crime. This is especially from a production that firstly set out to make a film with no direct connections to its preceding Justice League canon.
Director Todd Phillips “Joker” centers around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone fictional story not seen before on the big screen. Phillips’ exploration of Arthur Fleck, who is indelibly portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix, is of a man struggling to find his way in Gotham’s fractured society. A clown-for-hire by day, he aspires to be a stand-up comic at night…but finds the joke always seems to be on him. Caught in a cyclical existence between apathy and cruelty, Arthur makes one bad decision that brings about a chain reaction of escalating events in this gritty character study.
This is also coming from the guy who gave us The Hangover trilogy. Keep that in mind while realizing that it took a known comedy director to tap into something comic book-related and flesh out the best he could with doses of originality birthed in the course of things.
The reverence, the brilliance…it’s amazing and pretty damn cool. BUT, now we wait and see what the reviews say.
Nevertheless, if you weren’t wooed by the first trailer, prepare to have your cockles nice and warmed by this one. It’s performing for festivalgoers in Venice soon and is readying a theatrical release on October 4.
