Violent and gratuitous tastelessness. An empty vessel.

Rating: 2/10 (7 November 2019)

Pretend we live in a world where people don't watch everything that is released, where people discriminate their media consumption, where a movie bomb means the end of your career as a writer and director, a world that would not tolerate even one movie of the Hangover or Knocked Up variety. Can you imagine that world? Would this latest Joker be made in that world? Would an adult gamble his career on a mature movie about a clown who is Batman's nemesis? A movie that ends up pandering to every mental illness myth and victimized/bullied syndrome trope and actually removes Batman's universe from fantasy and dresses it in hand-me-down plot points stolen from NY Post tabloids? No, it wouldn't be made. But we don't live in that world. So we have this pile of waste to watch. And we watch it and fulfill The Joker's prophecy because we are plague rats running over piles of garbage. And tomorrow a new pile of garbage will hide today's excrement.