Not your father's "Joker"

Rating: 5/10 (5 October 2019)

If you are a Batman fan and want to see a film in the Batman genre, this is not your film. The film plays with characters and timelines to such an extent it is unrecognizable as a Batman film. If you can put that aside, you may finds the movie entertaining.
On a positive side, the film is very original. very inventive, and quite charming in places. The acting from Phoenix is exceptional, though it's questionable if he should have lost all that weight to the extent that he appears deformed. Nothing in the script implies physical deformity.
The film is also excessively violent and it's the kind of violence that isn't comic book style, but rather real-life. Will this inspire? Is it really necessary to put aside the comic book violence of most comic book films and go for something more street level?
Phoenix's descent into madness is wonderful. One of the best I've seen on the screen. The hallucinations that are all too real are very well done. Tweaked and re-titled, this might have been a wonderful and valuable film about mental illness.
I gave it a 5. In some respects (inventive, clever, wonderful acting) it is a 10. In other respects (too violent, a few plot flaws, the weight loss, using Joker but throwing away almost everything we know), it is a disappointment.