Alright, but Super Overrated

Rating: 5/10 (8 May 2020)

I desperately wanted to like Joker, as I love slow paced dramas, but man was it underwhelming. Everyone is saying that it was amazing and that it proves that DC can still make good movies, and that made me believe that this movie did everything right, but it didn't. I see all these reviews with a perfect ten, but with few actually good reasons. Joaquin Phoenix's acting, how there's no CGI, it's impactful and emotional. This is truly by far the most disappointing movie I have ever seen, and I believe everyone is just hopping on the bandwagon just because everyone says it's great. I hate to be the downer and sound like a critic, but I am logical and Joker is nowhere near a 10.
Most of my favorite movies are slow paced and don't have any action. Movies like Into the Wild, Silence, and The Green Mile don't have any action scenes or anything entertaining, but it tells an emotional story, and that's what makes Joker fail for me. Joker is incredibly slow paced, and being slow paced is not a problem, it's only a problem when it feels like nothing is progressing. Yes, we see that Arthur is progressively losing his mind and transforming into Joker, but it took almost the entire runtime for Arthur to become Joker. The sad part is when Arthur becomes Joker, the movie is at it's best, it's what we came for, and we only got to see around fifteen minutes of Joker. If we had an entire hour of Joker, then the pacing would be perfect and it would be a perfect ten for me.
If a movie is going to be slow paced, then your character(s) have to be well written. Making a character sympathetic and/or empathetic can make an amazing character, but Arthur is none of those things. I'm sorry, but a mentally ill clown getting beat up is not going to make me feel sympathetic. Your character has to likable and relatable to first be sympathetic, but Arthur Fleck was just written way too poorly. We know nothing about Arthur except that he wants to be a comedian and that he has a mental illness, and that's not enough to make a compelling character. There has to be well written motives in a character to be good enough for someone to care about them, but I struggled to find any within Arthur. Arthur does have motives, but it takes so long to get to them, and the motives are so clouded and beyond generic. I tried to piece together his plans and all I got was that he wants to be successful and make the world a better place; seriously? This is Joker, try to be more original and creative. If they didn't try to make Joker a sympathetic bad guy, then Joker would've ultimately been a better character.
Joker is amazing when it comes to everything but the writing. It has amazing cinematography and atmosphere. The world building is just so perfect and they nailed Gotham. When it comes to that department, Joker did it perfectly. Another good part is the acting, which everyone loves to talk about. Joaquin Phoenix really gave it his all; he made Arthur so believable by the delivery of the lines, the laugh, and most importantly, the body language. What bothers me is that people are giving Joker a perfect score mainly because of Joaquin's performance, and we can all agree that it was amazing, but if that character is poorly written, then the performance is pretty much useless for the story.
Joker tries to be something that it's not. They try and be like Shutter Island with the all twists that you should've seen coming, or that it's a character film and how it's an outlook on society, but Joker failed on all of those themes. Making a film that Joker wanted to be is hard; you need a good written story, which is then complemented with good written characters. As I've said, I hate being the downer, as all movies take a lot of hard work, and Joker isn't a bad movie, but it's sadly overrated. The best way that I can describe Joker is that it's style over substance.