There's always a joker, and the joker is us.

What do you get when you make a sequel to a stand-alone film that you left open for interpretation, and you're more interested in responding to reactions to the first film than you are in developing the story? I'll tell you what you get. You get whatever the hell this was.

Todd Phillips' Joker was never meant to have a sequel, but studios love money, so it happened anyway. But instead of developing an interesting continuation of Arthur's story, Phillips decided to make a 2+ hour film telling audiences that they interpreted his open for interpretation story wrong. Look, I get that Joker has a lot of really toxic fans who idolize the character in a way that they should not, but did we need an entire movie to tell these people to fuck off? Couldn't Phillips had just tweeted about them instead? I get that the point of the film is that fans don't actually care about Arthur, and instead want to use Joker as a glorified figure to look up to. Arthur is a sad and lonely guy who did bad things, but is still someone we should look at with empathy without justifying his actions, and people aren't willing to do that. Did we need an excessively miserable and cruel movie to get that point across? Folie a Deux goes out of its way to be unentertaining and not "what the people want". It disempowers the title character as a means to remove the glorification the audience had for him, and it does not care that you're not having a good time. Then, why was it made? Why spend $200 million dollars on a story that exists to tell audiences that they watched a different story incorrectly?

Also, why was this a musical? I am a huge musical fan, so I was intrigued by how this film was going to utilize the genre. I know Joaquin Phoenix isn't a singer, but I could excuse bad singing if the songs gave us insight into his character that goes deeper than dialogue. But I personally found the musical numbers pointless. We aren't told anything about Arthur or Harley that we didn't already know, and they're unpleasant to listen to. I enjoyed Arthur's number in the courtroom, but that was about it.

Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga are both fantastic in their roles, and there are some gorgeous moments of cinematography (especially with how lighting is utilized). The score is still nice, even though it doesn't have the same impact as the first film since it fails to build to anything. I also respect the boldness of the ending, even if I dislike the direction this film went in. Folie a Deux has its strengths, but it is a sequel that should not exist, and one that makes its predecessor worse.