First Emotional Comic Movie Since Logan

Rating: 8/10 (26 October 2019)

Marvel Studio's productions are generally liked by most people. They've got their ups and downs, but for the most part they're all really solid, fun movies to watch. With the exception of a few movies, none of them really resonate emotionally with me. Some of them have their moments that do nearly bring a tear to your eye, but apart from some deaths they really never have much in terms of moving me emotionally.
Nolan's Batman series and Logan are really the only superhero movies that I can think of that really made me feel something while watching them. Joker is now another one that I can add to that list. Not all the emotions were describable, but this movie definitely effected me.
Most of the reason it got to me is Joaquin Phoenix's performance. Take that away from this movie and replace it with an okay performance, and it'd be just an alright movie. The plot isn't the strong point of the movie. The strength of this movie is the titular character. His performance mixed with the powerful score and beautiful cinematography are what elevate this movie. The plot on it's own is alright, nothing too complex. Lack of complexity is what makes this work. It's a simple story about a man driven to become Joker and not much more.
What works best about this movie is that how grounded it feels compared to most other comic book movies. Strip the DC license from it, remove Gotham, Joker, the Wayne family and replace them with just normal non-licensed characters, it still works. This could be a movie about Joe Smith living in Detroit with the same stuff that happens in the movie and it'd still be extremely compelling. What brings it a level higher is the fact that it is about DC characters and that they even let them take a risk and do this movie.
We've had dark super-hero movies like Nolan's Batman, and we've had violent ones like Logan and Deadpool, but nothing has felt quite as grounded as this. As "realistic" as Nolan's Batman movies were, they were still stuck in the fantastical comic world. That's not a bad thing, but they just don't feel quite as real as Joker does.
Part of me really wants to see Joaquin appear again and go head-to-head with some version Batman, but part of me doesn't. At the end when he fully adapts the Joker persona I was left wanting to see this fully converted man battle it out with Batman, but also with everything else happening it really works beautifully as a one-off story. This movie shows that we don't need to have every property in a cinematic universe. It's amazing that Marvel worked out and we do have a 25+ movie cinematic universe, but not every property has to go that route. We could use a one-off story here and there, no need for sequels or adjacent movies where they all team up.
Honestly would be kind of weird to see Phoenix's Joker have a scheme similar to the one Ledger's had in TDK, but I would also like to see what kind of Director Todd Phillips would do as a follow up. How he would do his own Batman v Joker movie set in the realistic world he created for this movie.
Whether they decide to make a sequel or never do another one, I think I'll be happy either way.