Masterpiece? No, but Phoenix makes it as close as we can get

Rating: 8/10 (6 October 2019)

Gonna start off by saying that i adored Joaquin Phoenix's performance here. His acting is fantastic and the way he controls his body in such a specific and creepy fashion is just unbelievable. He CARRIES this movie, and gives Ledger a legitimate run for his money. I wish I took more specific notes during the film, so I'll keep this short and sweet. The plot is pretty solid, the acting is Oscar worthy and the directing is pretty damn good. The way Phillips directs makes us feel like we are in a Gotham city where crime goes mainly unnoticed. So he does a good job there and in a lot of other aspects as well, but it just borrowed a bit too much from Dark Knight. If Phillips didn't have Nolan's trilogy to work off of, he would've been completely screwed. While Joaquin's performance was absolutely amazing and worth the ticket price alone, he's not the same smart joker that we are used to seeing. A lot of his plan just seems to come to him last moment, he is very short sighted and almost lucky, where as the DK's Joker is always one step ahead. There were no schemes and no tactical genius. Ledger benefited significantly from having Nolan as his writer and director; Phoenix clearly didn't have the same circumstance. While his performance is amazing, Joker just doesn't have the same intelligence that the Dark Knight's Joker has. All of it just seems to kind of fall into his lap and Phillips gives us this weird anti hero dichotomy. Great movie, but without Joaquin it could have been much, much worse..