- Knock, knock.
- Who's there?
- A collection of moments from better films shoved together in a half-assed unintelligent, empty, and unnecessarily long waste of time.
- A collection of moments from better films shoved together in a half-assed unintelligent, empty, and unnecessarily long waste of time who?
- Joker.
Aggressively uninteresting and without a point, this movie just steals moments from other, better movies and doesn't handle them nearly as well. The two main influences are Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, both of which are overrated and yet still much better than this trash.
The worries about violence are overblown, mainly because the movie doesn't even have a real point of view. Does it want to be an exploration of someone with a mental health issue? There's only occasionally surface-level rumblings. Does it want to be a villain origin story? We've already had multiple, better origins for Joker. Does it want to be a superhero take on The King of Comedy? De Niro is barely in the film and not realistic in the slightest as a character. Does it want to be a Psycho-esque story of a crazy boy and his crazy mother? It hits all the wrong notes. Does it want to be about a woman who finds out her boyfriend is insane? The neighbor shows up rarely and without logic - there's no reason to have her in the movie at all. Does it want to be a Breaking Bad sort of story of how one man goes bad and starts murdering? He was never good to begin with; the story is almost pointless. Does it want to be a commentary on modern rich v. poor, conservative v. liberal protests and issues? There's nothing remotely close to any substance there, and any relation to the real world is extremely convoluted and poorly thought out.
Every plot turn is easily seen a mile away but treated like it needs a huge buildup. All of the relationships are hollow and unearned, the characters being mere pawns for plot machinations that aren't even worth the time. Joaquin Phoenix is great in the role, so I guess there's that.