I brought the Joker movie more than a year ago, when the Joker movie was released for everyone to buy on October 4th in 2019. Still, I have not found the time or was not in the mood to watch the Joker movie produced by Warners Bros/DC Films directed under Todd Phillips, Bradley Cooper, and Emma Tillinger Koskoff. The casting in the Joker movie is none other than Joaquin Phoenix as the main actor for the Joker himself, and the supporting acting is none other than a very well-loved actor Robert De-Niro. Joker movie is two hours and two minutes long; it combines crime, drama, and thriller genres into one. The movie is rated R and was released October 4th in 2019 here in the United States of America, which I already mentioned above.
As we all know, who Joker is, at least as a character from DC Comics. If you were a Batman fan who read Batman comic books since a child’s age, you know who exactly Joker is and what he does. If you don’t follow DC comics, especially Batman, and actually don’t follow movies made by DC Comics, then you wouldn’t know who Joker is, but you would still know who Batman is, thanks to its name is very popular everywhere. Joker is known as a supervillain in DC comics, every superhero has their most enemy villain who is obsessed to destroy them, such as Lex Luthor or Doomsday for Superman, Eobard Thawne aka Reverse-Flash for Barry Allen aka Flash, Deathstroke for Oliver Queen aka Green Arrow, Sinestro for Hal Jordan of Green Lantern and more. Batman’s supervillain is none other than the Joker himself, which the movie focuses on – Joker. That is the movie that I am reviewing, other movies have Joker, but the one I am reviewing is the Joker one with Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker.
I want to warn you that there are a lot of spoilers here; if you do not want to know the spoilers of the Joker movie but would like to know a brief opinion of mine on this movie, please scroll down a bit and read the bottom line in the review box.
At the beginning of the movie, it started with Arthur Fleck giving us the tour of his career, and that career of his is to be a clown. He is one of the clowns from an agency; the agency offers clowns for hire where a consumer would go to the clown’s agency to hire one or more clowns for whatever reason they want the clowns for. Some would hire them for a birthday party, an event, visit a children’s hospital, and others to bring laughter to the audience. Arthur Fleck was an aspiring clown who struggles to make a name for himself in that industry, as he has a problem with laughing impetuously, and he abruptly does it very often. He has a card where it says that he has a medical condition, and on both sides, it says: Forgive my Laughter: I have a Condition. MORE ON BACK on the front of the card. The back of the card says: It’s a medical condition causing sudden, frequent, and uncontrollable laughter that doesn’t match how you feel. It can happen in people with a brain injury or certain neurological conditions. Thank you! KINDLY RETURN THIS CARD. At first, watching Arthur Fleck burst laughing spontaneously, I thought it fitted since he is the Joker character because the Joker is known for his evil laughter. Still, as the movie goes on, his laughter started to creep me out more and more because he would laugh a lot more in the worse way, but this time it was at the expense of harming others. As I mention that Aurthur Fleck struggles to make a name for himself as a clown in that industry, he was mistreated by different people as we know that in the real world the people like to mock clowns, so this makes no different than what was happening to Arthur Fleck dressed as a clown whom a store hired to do a spinning advertisement banner for the store in New York and these young boys robbed that spinning advertisement banner from him, so Arthur Fleck as a clown begins to chase them down with the hope of retrieving it. Sadly, he was unable to retrieve the spinning advertisement banner because when he was in the process of chasing these ruthless young boys that stolen the banner from him, they went into hiding in the alley. As Arthur Fleck approached them unknowingly, they smashed Arthur Fleck as a clown with the spinning advertisement banner, so it splattered in different pieces. After they smashed Arthur Fleck as a clown, he went down, and these young boys began stomping/kicking him everywhere while Arthur Fleck was grounded.
After lying on the ground in the alley in New York for a while, he stood up, seeing the broken spinning advertisement banner in pieces knowing that there is nothing else that he can do, so he went on home. When he arrived home, I discovered that he does not live there alone as he lives with his mother in an apartment somewhere in New York, and his mother has mental issues, so Arthur Fleck was caring for her. The next day, he arrived at the clown’s agency, where the boss asked him to bring that spinning advertisement banner back or dock some of the money out of his check to reimburse the store who hired a clown from the agency for that spinning advertisement banner. The boss wasn’t aware that the banner was severely damaged but knew what had happened to Arthur Fleck, and so did his co-workers. One of his co-workers decided to gift Aurthur Fleck a revolver gun to defend himself, and Arthur Fleck mentioned that he has a condition where he should not have a weapon, but that co-worker encouraged him to have it anyway. Fast-forward, a children’s hospital decided to hire one of their agency’s clowns, and Arthur Fleck was it. Arthur Fleck went down to the children’s hospital, being tasked to bring the laughter to the room where the ill children are and to cheer them up. While he was in the process of doing just that, in his acting like a clown, he accidentally dropped the revolver gun that one of his co-workers gifted him a few days ago, and Arthur Fleck looked down immediately to grab the revolver gun, declaring that it is just one of his props. Of course, the children’s hospital reported Arthur Fleck’s action to the agency, so with that spinning advertisement banner incident and now with that revolver gun dropping in the floor at the children’s hospital right in front of many children with doctors/nurses watching the clowns agency decided that it was time to fire him.
From there, it went downhill for Arthur Fleck as he was becoming something else, and instead of being a cheery clown that he was at the beginning of the movie to an evil clown, which is where he was becoming the Joker. During his difficult journey, he met a woman who happens to live down the hall from his apartment, and both of them took a liking to each other. Arthur Fleck and his mother, who lives with him at the apartment, have some tradition to watch a television show named “Live! with Murray Franklin”. Arthur Fleck dreamed of having an appearance on that television show; he daydreamed that he appeared on the show where he was welcomed with an open arm from both audience and Murray Franklin, aka Robert De Niro, when Arthur Fleck said,,, that he takes care of his mother. So, Murray Franklin, aka Robert De Niro, invited Arthur Fleck to the stage to introduce him to the audience, and when all that it did, Murray Franklin, aka Robert De Niro, would tell Arthur Fleck that all of the lights, audience, etc. that he would give all up in a heartbeat to have a kid like him (Arthur Fleck).
After being fired at the clown’s agency, he decided to become a comedian and went to a comedy show in a small building where he would share his jokes for the first time. His so-called laughter condition pretty much took it over, but he was able to share a couple of jokes, and all of them weren’t funny at all as no one in the audience laughed except that new girlfriend who lives down the hall from Arthur Fleck’s apartment. He was on his way home; he was taking a train as his transportation means, and one evening, there were three rich young boys on the train who was bothering a woman passenger. This somewhat bothered Arthur Fleck, as he shows it, but he didn’t look upset because he was laughing uncontrollably, and at first, I wasn’t sure if he was laughing with these three boys or laughing at them to anger them. They finally backed off from bothering the woman; they came over to Arthur Fleck to ask why he was laughing and what he was laughing about. He tried to tell these three boys that he has a condition, but these three boys were too angry to care and decided to gang up on Arthur Fleck. But what these boys did not realize was that Aurthur Fleck carried that revolver gun that one of his former co-workers gifted him, so in defense, he started shooting them. After pulling a trigger on one of them, as he was shooting at all of them, but after he has gone down, he realized he like doing that, so he murdered the second, and then the third was escaping but injured. The third boy was shot in the leg, so he was trying to escape by limping as fast as he could, and Arthur Fleck was walking creepily with a smile on his face toward the third boy then shot him in the back then decided to give it one more shot to make sure that he was dead.
That was very creepy, but that moment was a turning point of Aurthur Fleck becoming the Joker. He went on to kill his mother while she was in the hospital recovering, he then killed that co-worker who gifted him the gun for mocking his other co-worker who was most friendly out of all to Arthur Fleck, and that other former co-worker was mocked because he is a dwarf. It occurred at Arthur Fleck’s apartment; a day later, he received a surprise phone call, and it was someone from “Live! with Murray Franklin” show inviting Arthur Fleck as one of their guests. He has never been on that television show; he only daydreamed that he was, so this was his first time to appear on the television show in reality. He, of course, accepted the invitation, so he showed up there where Murray Franklin introduced him, and the entire time he was down there at the television show, he had his face painted as a clown. I guess he thought he would be there to talk about his clown career or maybe do what a clown does and whatnot, but while he was waiting for his name to be called to come out on the stage, he found out that it was not the case. He was invited to appear on the television show to be mocked for his lame jokes and how he acts on that stage at a comedy club where he laughs uncontrollably. So, this upset Arthur Fleck; when he was introduced by Murray Franklin himself, he had asked Murray Franklin to present him by the name “Joker” when Murray Franklin called him to appear on the stage in front of the audience. Sure enough, Murray Franklin, with others, was subtly mocking him at that comedy club as someone recorded a video of everything that was happening with Arthur Fleck at the comedy club.
Because of that, Arthur Fleck shifted his focus to something else; instead of talking about his journey as a clown or doing some acts, he decided that he would do revenge instead. He had his revenge right in the front of the audience while that television show was on live air and what had happened is something that you would have to find out yourself because I have spoiled almost too much, so I am leaving this one to all of you to find out what had happened. Of course, I didn’t spoil everything, but I believe that I did too much, and there are other things that I haven’t spoiled. Hint: Was this entire thing a dream or a reality?
What do I think of this Joker movie? Many of my reviewer’s community are right about this that the Joker movie is not as edgy that everyone made the Joker movie to be. It is not as hype as the other Joker actors, especially like it was with Jack Nicholson as Joker in the Batman movie or Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight movie and even Cesar Romero in the 60s Batman series! Joker with Joaquin Phoenix, I think that he was a good choice for the character, but I believe that the script for the movie could be a lot better than it was. All we were seeing in this Joker movie was how did Arthur Fleck become the Joker; what many people don’t realize that there was also another name for the Joker in different movies such as Jack Napier, but really it was Arthur Fleck when it was at the very beginning especially when he first met up the very young Bruce Wayne thinking that he could be his brother as he thought that Bruce Wayne’s father Thomas Wayne was Arthur Fleck’s long-lost father Thomas Way showed in this Joker movie. This movie pretty much shows you how and where it leads a person to be the supervillain named Joker. At the very end of the Joker’s movie, you immediately will recognize something that would eventually make someone a Batman as well. The movie’s end was fitting, but the other parts of the movie have some rooms to improve, especially the script. This is not a Joker movie that we see from previous movies; you know the character Joker that goes psycho and leaves everything destroyed in its trail. The character Joker in this movie is more relaxed, although he does show crazy but not as bad as the other Joker movies, and it is more of the journey of Arthur Fleck, who is to become the Joker in the future instead of who Joker is.
Overall, I think this Joker movie starring Joaquin Phoenix is pretty good. Still, it is definitely not the Joker that you would expect because again, as I said, this is pretty much focused on the journey of Arthur Fleck, who is to become the Joker character in the future, and how it gets him there before he becomes the true prince of the crime. So, if anyone wants to see how the person goes from nobody to the Joker, this movie is the one to watch, but this is not the movie to watch if anyone wants to watch the Joker movie. This movie focuses on Arthur Fleck rather than the Joker character himself, who happens to be Joker later. I would recommend this movie Joker; however, I would remind anyone who watches the movie to remember that this Joker movie is not a Joker movie that you would think. Still, it is about a person who is to become or influenced to be the Joker eventually. It shouldn’t have been titled Joker; instead, it should be titled something like “The Becoming of the Joker”. For these reasons, I am giving the Joker movie a 3.6 out of 5, which translates really good.
Not A Joker Movie But The Person Who Become One Later
Movie title: Joker
Movie description: Set in 1981, it follows Arthur Fleck, a failed clown and stand-up comedian whose descent into insanity and nihilism inspires a violent counter-cultural revolution against the wealthy in a decaying Gotham City.
Date published: October 4, 2019
Country: US
Duration: 2H 2M
Director(s): Todd Phillips, Bradley Cooper, Emma Tillinger Koskoff
Actor(s): Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Overall
Bottom Line
This Joker movie is not a Joker movie; in my opinion, it is more of a film of a man named Arthur Fleck who is to become the character Joker eventually. This Joker movie focus on the beginning of Arthur Fleck, as we get to see his struggles with his life, especially when it comes to his mentality. This movie focuses on the journey of Arthur Fleck. He is a clown working for a clown’s agency that goes to a different place that needs a clown to lose his job due to the incident at a children’s hospital and becoming more obsessive with a live television show named Live! The Murray Franklin’s show. Also, trying to make a name for himself when he went to a comedy club, he tries to become a comedian. While he isn’t out to make a name for himself, he would often hunt down who he thinks is his long-lost father named Thomas Wayne, who happens to be the father of young Bruce Wayne, who is to become the Batman eventually. He always laughs; sometimes it gets to the point of it is too much even for the viewers because he would laugh for wrong reasons in some areas, but he uses the excuse of having a condition where he would laugh for no reason.
Again, this movie focuses on Arthur Fleck, who becomes the prince of crime known as Joker later. What influenced him to become one and why? Joaquin Phoenix as an actor for Joker was good, but some areas in the script need some improvement and some additional in the script that would paint Arthur Fleck, who is to be the Joker, eventually better. This movie shouldn’t have been titled “Joker”; instead, it should have been titled something like “Becoming Of The Joker.”
I recommend this movie, but I would remind whoever wants to watch this movie not to expect that this movie will be a Joker movie that we have seen from other films such as the 60’s Batman series, the Batman or the Dark Knight movie. It isn’t the hyped-up and edgy Joker movie that we expected it to be because it is almost bleak, but Joaquin Phoenix’s acting makes it a bit better. This Joker movie is more sobering and a bit of a comedy movie throughout as we watch the journey of a man named Arthur Fleck, who happens to be the one who becomes Joker eventually. It is still a really good movie, and for that reason, I am giving Joker movie a 3.6 rating which translates really good.
Joshua “Joshie” Sullivan.
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