Tired, Tedious & Tragic Turkey - Give It A Miss!

Rating: 3/10 (5 October 2019)

Joker
Words completely fail me, I just had to sit through two hours of watching an alcoholic in Judy and now I am made to sit for two hours watching a lunatic in Joker. In both I was neither educated, entertained or informed. Both movies were utter cobblers and should be cast into the void where they will find the ultimate turkey that is Carry-On Columbus.
This purported to be an origin story of master villain extraordinaire, Joker. We got zilch on how he became a master criminal, he had no henchmen, we had no bank robbery, we had no car chase, we had no joker, and on top of that his arch nemesis Batman was a small boy when they were contemporaries. This was incoherent nonsense.
Joaquin Phoenix's performance had so many problems,
1, he dominated the movie by being in every scene, true, but the story was so unfocused it became an interpretation of a man struggling with a mental health condition. The main problem was the Joker was not an interesting character, he was bland, predictable and revolting.
2, his characterisation rested upon physicality, he lost weight, he was half naked, he contorted his body, with the inference twisted body twisted mind, does Hollywood really think an audience can be duped by such an obvious trick, this was no Raging Bull or Dallas Buyers Club. I wanted to pass the hat around the cinema to raise funds to buy him a shirt and then make him wear it.
3, We had raw method style from Joaquin that was largely improvised to fill the void. There must always be a reason behind behaviour otherwise it is meaningless and so it was here.
4, The Joker, unsurprisingly, it's in the name, was funny, if he was sad, it was pathos, this was unremittingly morose. Jack Nicholson's performance captured this but it was absent here.
This was a miserable, instantly forgettable movie that lacked any focus or story. Around me there was a constant stream of people walking out who felt they had been sold a pig-in-a-poke, and went to watch Aladdin instead, as did I.