As The Times said it ''Joker wants to be a movie about the emptiness of our culture. Instead, It's a prime example of It''

Rating: 1/10 (1 September 2019)

Until now, the only review of this movie that I 100% agree with is the review from The Times. I stole the title of this review because it just hits the nail on the head.
In the first impulse, I didn't even want to watch this movie, because I'm just fed up with the Joker. DC has many, much more interesting villains than Joker. It's time to tell stories about them and not constantly repeat the Joker's story, where there is no chance to say anything new, because in fact the Joker is not an interesting story at all. A rejected, angry man, who fails in life, a clown who becomes a killer - history as old as the world.
Everything that could be said about Joker, said Nolan in the Dark Knight, plus various comics and yes - Batman and Joker cartoons too. Nolan also told the Joker story more subtly than this movie, not only by the whole story structure, but also excellent dialogues, Nolan's dialogues are simply in their own league. People who, I already see, claim in the reviews, that it is this film, that fully reflects the depth of the Joker character, or that it is such a successful '' artistic '' film - they simply try to cast a spell on reality, giving the film a meaning that doesn't exist .
I know what Phoenix tried to do here - he chose the form of 'performance' as acting, that is, there is performance in the performance. The depth was supposed to be inside, between the lines, but unfortunately the effect is quite different - the whole film, like this role, is a Russian babushka: empty inside, you can open subsequent layers and there is nothing, no message, there is just another empty doll, which in the movie is just another empty, technical exercise in acting and filmmaking.
I will quote the Times review again, because it is excellent at exposing the shallowness and pseudo-artistic nature of this film : ''Joker - which was written by Phillips and Scott Silver - doesn't have a plot; it's more like a bunch of reaction GIFs strung together. When Arthur gets fired from his clown job, he struts by the time-clock, deadpans, "Oh no, I forgot to punch out" and then, wait for it, socks it so hard it dangles from the wall. Make a note of the moment, because you'll be seeing it a lot in your Twitter and Facebook feeds.
The movie's cracks - and it's practically all cracks - are stuffed with phony philosophy. Joker is dark only in a stupidly adolescent way, but it wants us to think it's imparting subtle political or cultural wisdom. Just before one of his more violent tirades, Arthur muses, "Everybody just screams at each other. Nobody's civil anymore." Who doesn't feel that way in our terrible modern times? But Arthur's observation is one of those truisms that's so true it just slides off the wall, a message that both the left and the right can get behind and use for their own aims. It means nothing.''
I could leave it here, but I'll add one more thing : what was great about Nolan was that Nolan was able to combine the features of commercial, mainstream and independent film in one and what he said was authentic. This accusation, which Nolan haters often repeat - that Nolan is pretentious is not true, especially in Dark Knight trilogy (because I can agree that Inception is terribly pretentious). In TDK Nolan doesn't arrogantly run away from mainstream, because he fully understood what it takes to make epic, successful superhero movie, but at the same time, he added depth to this story, by exploring both the dark and the humanistic side of Wayne / Batman's soul. And revolutionized the genre.
Whereas Joker by Todd Philiphs is the quintessence of pretentiousness and fakeness. There is nothing authentic in this movie. It is a collection of cheap fanfiction, quotes from movies like Taxi Driver, poured with sauce of pop culture tricks. Phoenix battered body twists and turns on the screen, but there is no soul in this creation. This role is empty, just like the whole movie. Time to say goodbye to Joker, DC. You have much better villains in your stable, whose story can be fascinating to tell. The Joker ceased to be interesting long time ago. Btw, Batman has always been a more interesting character to me, because although he is a superhero, he is also the only such a popular superhero, who has so much darkness, killer impulse, but also humanity from his father, inside of him (and Bale showed all of this masterfully in Nolan trilogy). The ambivalence is fascinating here. The Joker is a wounded clown, nihilist, murderer. This story is told in the cinema several times a year. There is nothing fresh or interesting about it.