Missed Opportunity

Rating: 4/10 (12 October 2019)

I had been very excited to see this movie ever since I had 1st heard about it, and was anticipating its release.
But when it started getting the type of hype and press that it was, I became a bit apprehensive, as the things that were being said about it, which seemed outrageous, mostly, were things that were said about other moves I had been looking forward to seeing, and that had ended letting me down.
The Joker, sadly, turned out to be one of those movies for me.
Now, as I know it has been said many times before, Phoenix's portrayal of man with mental health & depression was very very good & convincing.
But the story and the plot seemed like a big missed opportunity to deliver an anti hero origin story of one of the most coveted villains in comic book lore.
I liked the quasi mirroring of a failed system whose middle & lower class revolt against the rich, in a sort of "if we burn, you burn with us" type of way that has been done many times before.
I'm sure people can see glimpses of that today in our US culture.
And who knows, maybe the studio execs got their fingers involved, and are the ones that watered it down a bit too much.
Maybe there will be a directors cut that is darker than the theatrical release.
I certainly hope so.
Because for all the reviews I have read that speak of people walking out of theaters because of the dark feel and psychological overtones being too much for them to stomach; all I felt was a sense of wanting it to be bigger and grander than what I was seeing.
I would recommend seeing this movie so that you can formulate your own opinion, but I gave it a low rating, because when it was over, I walked out feeling like I just saw a movie I've already seen many times before.