Good movie, but not great.

Rating: 7/10 (21 February 2020)

I will skip over all the good things here as they are all covered in other reviews (such as the great acting, cinematography, buildup, underlying themes etc).
The movie, of course, is a point of view take on an already familiar world/story. It shows what the world and the "good guys" are like to the mentally ill antagonist that we already know as evil. It shows how he came to be and why he came to be as he is. That part of the story is impressive, the buildup to the joker's final acts were executed well, and the city riot was well forshadowed throughout. But if you can look past the extremely sad, cringe, and violent shock of it then the story has a gap in it. People don't just suddenly worship a person who is a known mentally ill serial-killer, and it just feels cheesy when they do. Perhaps the madness of Gotham needed to be portrayed more in order for this to work. People don't just spark into a city-wide riot because they are inspired by a serial killer. The story trys to tell a very possibly real story in a similar society to ours (even though it is a make believe world and characters) and because of that angle that it takes, it shoots itself in the foot with this gap in reality and story.
The other part of that gap is in the joker's actual character. This is not a knock on Joaquin Phoenix by any stretch. Amazing acting on his behalf. However, the Joker in the Gotham universe is a very smart character who always stays one step ahead of Batman and Gotham police. I cannot marry that character with the character in this movie, who only got away from police by pure luck (events out of his control). The Joker's love for chaos: nailed it. The Joker's believable backstory: nailed it. The Joker's pure wit: non-existant. I believe this gap could become non-existant however, because if the writers were to continue with this Joker in the Batman movies, then they could clean him up in the next movie and show him becoming a smart antagonist.
Anyway it's a good movie, just not great. Just my opinion.