Critics split over ‘daring’ and ‘dull’ sequel starring Gaga and Phoenix

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Critics split over ‘daring’ and ‘dull’ sequel starring Gaga and Phoenix

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Lady Gaga stole the show in typical fashion on the red carpet, with an eye-catching outfit

Film critics have offered a range of views about Joker: Folie à Deux, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, calling it both “bleak and daring”, but also “depressingly dull and plodding”.

Folie à Deux, directed and co-written by Todd Phillips, premiered at Venice Film Festival, and

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as “just as bleak and daring as the original”.

But

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that “Phillips’ musical sequel feels like it’s bad on purpose”, adding that it was “boring, flat, and such a ********* waste of Lady Gaga that we should demand a public hearing.”

Critics were

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, which came out in 2019 and

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.

It also

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at Venice and

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at global box office.

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Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga and director Todd Phillips attended the Venice premiere

Lady Gaga plays Harley Quinn, Joker’s love interest, and she also sings in the film, along with Phoenix, who returns as the troubled Arthur Fleck who transformed into murderous clown Joker.

Speaking at the premiere, which she attended with her fiancé Michael Polansky, she said she decided to co-star in the film to “help people feel good about life” and allow them to “escape into another world”.

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, in its upcoming October edition: “Harley Quinn is a character people know from the ether of pop culture. I had a different experience creating her, namely my experience with mania and chaos inside – for me, it creates a quietness.

“Sometimes women are labelled as these overly emotional creatures and when we are overwhelmed we are erratic or unhinged.

“But I wonder if when things become so broken from reality, when we get pushed too far in life, what if it makes you…quiet?”

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Lady Gaga and Michael Polansky generated a lot of interest on the red carpet

Joker meets Harley Quinn while they are incarcerated at Arkham State Hospital, and they later pursue a dark romantic adventure together, which includes some musical numbers.

But in his review, Ehrlich added: “Phillips seems physically incapable of – or actively uninterested in – ********* a musical setpiece with any visual panache to it whatsoever…

“It certainly isn’t interesting to watch, as most of the tunes are pared down into dull cabaret arrangements and shot against the ****** void of the characters’ shared imagination.”

However, Macnab gave the film four stars, saying it stars “a stirring, emaciated Joaquin Phoenix and an appealingly cruel and feline Lady Gaga”.

He said Phillips is “clearly having fun” with the film, which opens with “some inspired, Looney Tunes-style animation… then becomes a Shawshank-esque prison movie, then a musical, then a courtroom drama.”

He added that while the “lines between fantasy and reality aren’t always made clear”, the movie is “just as edgy and disturbing as its forerunner, replicating the idea of modern ********* cities as terrifying powder kegs perpetually on the cusp of **********”.

‘Impressively odd’

But

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called the film “frustrating”, saying it was “most electric when Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga sing, dance and romance”.

In

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added that the two leads “fail to spark”, and the movie is “without the insight that made the original film so engrossing and unsettling”. But he noted that it still “seems poised for strong box office”.

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said the film “spirals out of tune” and called it “claustrophobic and repetitive”.

But he preferred it to the first film, saying: “Though it ends up as strident, laborious and often flat-out tedious as the first film, there’s an improvement.

“It’s a musical, of sorts, with Phoenix and others warbling show tune standards, often in fantasy set pieces, a little in the way of Dennis Potter’s Pennies from Heaven. This gives it structure and flavour that the first film didn’t have.”

In

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said the film was an “audacious and head-spinning follow-up” to Joker, and he praised “production values across the board” as “excellent”, including the return of

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, who won an Oscar for the first film’s score.

“With song, dance, comedy, darkness, animation, drama, ********* and more, this is a musical – if it even is a musical – like no other,” he added.

But while

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called the film “impressively odd”,

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said it was “depressingly dull and plodding”.

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Rain Phoenix attended the premiere with her brother Joaquin

Phoenix lost weight for the first film, and was asked about it again when he reprised the role.

Ehrlic commented in IndieWire that “Phoenix looks even skinnier here than he did in Joker, his shoulder blades threatening to cut two holes straight through his back”.

Variety said the actor

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that his weight loss was a ‘”bit more difficult” for the sequel because of the dance component, saying it was “safe” but “I probably shouldn’t do this again”.

“This time, it felt a bit more complicated just because there was so much dance rehearsal that we were doing,” he said.

Director Todd Phillips

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he wanted the Joker to look “malnourished and thin and hungry.”

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added the film was a “cracked jukebox musical – but it doesn’t let Joker be Joker enough”.

“The concept is audacious but the ********** less so in a movie that takes a step back from the danger of Joker,” he added.

The film is released in *** cinemas on 4 October.

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#Critics #split #daring #dull #sequel #starring #Gaga #Phoenix

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