Kind of... Disappointed

Rating: 4/10 (10 November 2019)

I was really excited to see this, but coming out, I felt rather disappointed. I mean, yeah, it gave us what it promised, Joker's backstory and how he descended into madness and became the Joker, but it was just... I don't know, I didn't care for how they handled it. I mean, I knew there would be some tragedy and I expected it, but I felt like they pushed that angle too much. I guess I was sort of looking for a descent into madness similar to how Jack Torrence in The Shining went crazy (minus the ghosts and supernatural) as opposed to what they did. And I'm not really sure I can even consider this a DC movie, since it had next to nothing to do with it. They could literally change the name of the Wayne family and change the name of the city from Gotham to something else, and it would have been a completely original, stand-alone, non-DC movie, that's how little involvement in it there was.
But now for the big thing. Joaquin Phoenix's take on the Joker. Don't get me wrong, he did a fabulous acting job and was great for the role he was given, but that's just it, for the role he was given and the direction they took the Joker's character. But this just didn't feel like the Joker. It's like they just took some random character with a mental illness, slapped some clown makeup on him and called him the Joker. For sake of argument, lets just say they took the good Terminator from T2 and dressed him in a bat-suit then called him Batman, but he still acted like the Terminator. That's not Batman. Same here. Ok, maybe that was a bad analogy, but you know what I'm saying. This wasn't Joker. The character was far too anger, sad, pitiful, and fragile throughout the entire movie, even when he made his final "transformation" into Joker, it just wasn't him. Now, I know that there's never been one true, clear-cut origin for the Joker, which is part of his appeal, and those that do have one are always different, but this, I just can't see this being who was Joker beforehand or how he became Joker along the way. Parts of it, yes, but as a whole, no. One of Joker's biggest/greatest aspects is that we're all just one bad day away from completely snapping, and that life is just one big joke, so you should laugh at it. But this is just some sad, angry guy with a mental illness who has tragedy after tragedy fall upon him until he finally gives up and decides to go out with a bang while trying to take down the oppressive upper-class. That is not Joker. Again, I think Joaquin Phoenix did great for the part he was given, but like I said, I was expecting more of a Jack Torrence going crazy kind of origin as opposed to what they gave us.