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2019’s The Joker was not like other superhero movies. Borrowing heavily from Martin Scorsese’s intense 1982 drama King of Comedy, Joaquin Phoenix, as unhinged clown Arthur Fleck, offered a stand-alone Taxi Driver style descent into criminal madness that bore no resemblance to the original Batman supervillain. In an age of collapsing superhero cinematic universes, how could Hollywood follow that? Joker: Folie à Deux is the answer. Fleck is being held in the infamous Arkham Asylum as he awaits trial. There, his destructive spiral back to the Joker is aided by Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn. And she does so with a song in her heart. Because this film is a significant tonal change that fans of the original may find confusing. At its core, it’s a jukebox musical. It’s basically a 15-song extravaganza and it sits uneasily in the world of the Dark Knight, even for the biggest of musical fans. But if you like the sound of a musical courtroom drama set in Gotham, this is the film you’ve been waiting for.
