‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ first reviews tease a ‘scrappier and stranger’ sequel
The Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix-starring sequel had its premiere yesterday at the Venice International Film Festival.
The first reviews of upcoming Joker sequel Folie à Deux have landed after the film’s world premiere this week, with mixed opinions.
The Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix-starring sequel had its premiere yesterday (September 4) at the Venice International Film Festival ahead of its release on October 4.
A review from Empire promised a “scrappier and stranger” sequel to the box office hit from 2019, saying: “Comic-book fans should not come to Folie À Deux expecting a conventional superhero approach here, then — just as musical-theatre fans should not expect world-class standards of singing and dancing. It’s something scrappier and stranger.”
The Independent‘s review added: “The darkness at the core of the film is underlined by its very brutal ending, which rejects comic book conventions in favour of psychological depth. Phoenix’s performance remains powerful and stirring, too.”
Elsewhere, a three-star review from The Guardian criticised the film’s “laborious narrative gradient” which doesn’t give Gaga’s Harley Quinn “much of a chance at development,” while the BBC called it “a disappointing film — but I suspect that’s exactly what it’s meant to be.”
The two-minute trailer for Folie à Deux landed in April and opens with Phoenix’s Joker seeing Gaga’s Harley Quinn for the first time as he walks through the hallways of prison as a slowed, creepy version of Gene Wilder’s ‘Pure Imagination’ plays.
The end of the trailer sees Gaga visiting Phoenix at Arkham Asylum, telling him: “I want to see the real you.”