Joaquin done the Joker proud despite this discount 'Taxi Driver'

Rating: 5/10 (26 January 2020)

A few friends told me that I'd like this movie. My brother told me I'd hate it. I'd have to side with my sibling on this one.
I'll just say that Joaquin has been one of my favorite actors for a while now. Her and The Master catapulted him to the top of the list for me.
He took this Joker role and he completely owned it. No qualms in that department. But overall this movie just felt like a discount Taxi Driver.
Once you remove what everyone and their grandmothers decided to get upset about - heavy handed portrayals of mental illness, public shootings - you really don't get an entertaining or believable movie.
In my opinion, if you are going to sacrifice validity, you need to inject some entertaining qualities within the movie, but there were neither of those elements.
Yes, mental health awareness is an important topic, but if anyone went into a superhero movie expecting to get an illuminating, lucid look into madness, you were setting yourself up to be disappointed.
Yes, public shootings are terrible and tragic, but this movie is a non-sequitur in respect to shootings because it's a superhero villain origin story. It never really moves beyond its own lore to be anything but a caricature of insanity and sociopathy.
There are important things to be gleaned from this movie, if you look hard enough. But as far as being a believable or entertaining film...it fails on both accounts.
Good acting though.