Great, almost fantastic. If it weren't for all the self-pity

Rating: 7/10 (7 October 2019)

Joker is brilliantly directed, written, acted and shot. It's the clown-world meme bred with Taxi Driver, and it works well, especially so as a standalone film (I hope they DON'T make more films in this universe). My only issues with this movie are that there are perhaps one or two too many slow dance scenes that may decrease it's re-watchability (not to mention the shocks, tense scenes and twists in the plot won't be as effective), and I'm not a big fan of how even after the character is fully transformed into his "Joker" persona, he still seems to express his sadness over how he's been treated by society, when, by this point, you'd think it would be more Joker-esque for him to view everything as a comedy and only laugh at all the absurdity in the world. He just still seemed a little too bitter and self-pitying at the end for my liking. That said, it's still one of the best comic-book movies out there, mostly because of how gritty, dark and unalike your average superhero/villain movie it is. I'd certainly like to see more films like this.
Ahead of seeing the movie, I read enough about it to be excited for its Taxi Driver elements, but concerned about how pretentious it could be. My concerns turned out to be mostly unfounded. Despite some minor character-related issues.
7/10.