For the people that like to skip straight to the end to see what score I’ve given, I’d like to start this review out by saying that I NEVER thought a Joker origin movie could work. I was so against this movie when it was announced, and I really didn’t think it looked that great from the trailers either. My biggest reason for this is that I find that the beauty of a character like the Joker is that you never quite know what’s going on in his head, and so what makes the insanity of the character work so well is how unpredictable he is. So, truly, I thought that creating an origin story for the character would only take away the mystique of what makes him so compelling. Plus, these villain-centered movies like Suicide Squad and Venom tend to face the problem of trying to have redemption arcs for them in order to make a movie around them. Again, I just felt like this would be a fundamental betrayal of the character to do this to Joker. So, basically, I thought that there was no way in hell a movie like this could work, and that it was going to be a huge flop. I’m so happy to say that I was 100% wrong about this.

Yes, this is a Joker origin story, but this Joker movie actually winds up disconnecting itself enough from its comic book ties in order to simply tell a story about a mentally unstable individual that just winds up going a little too far. We follow a character study of Arthur Fleck, a man that’s clearly mentally disturbed in a variety of ways. Events begin to transpire in Arthur’s life that start to push him around in different ways, and so he begins to go off the deep end. I’m intentionally being vague about the details here because the beauty of Joker is in the journey, so I want to spoil as little as possible. Needless to say, Joker’s story helped satisfy my hesitations toward the movie by making Arthur mentally unhinged from the very beginning, and by making sure to never paint him as a tragic character. There are moments where you feel as if you want to help Arthur to prevent him from going down his dark path, but I had the sense that he was already too far gone from the start of the movie, and so his destination seemed inevitable.

Surprisingly, my biggest reason for a recommendation of this movie is how polarizing it is. I thought this movie was incredible, so I was surprised when I looked into what other people thought and saw a vast difference of opinions. Some people consider this a masterpiece, and one of the best films of its kind, while others think it’s terrible. I think the biggest reason for this is that Joker is never a safe movie. It’s deeply uncomfortable and disturbing to watch, and so it challenges the viewer at every turn to think about what’s happening and to confront some difficult moments. If you’re going to make a Joker movie, I think that this is what it should be. It should leave some people feeling disgusted, because this is a character that’s not supposed to be fun or likeable. While I found some of the previous villain-centered comic-book movies I mentioned to be a bit forgettable, Joker is one of those movies that you’re likely going to have a very strong reaction and opinion about in one way or another.

What surprised me is how well Joker works both as a comic-book movie and just as a general film. There were some stories about how director Todd Phillips wanted to sneak this kind of story into a mainstream movie under the guise of it being a comic-book movie, but weirdly enough I have to disagree with the director on this. Joker works surprisingly well as a Joker movie. It brings some new ideas and takes on the character, and ties him into the city of Gotham and the universe around him in an interesting way. It’s also sometimes intentionally vague about what’s real and what’s not in order to preserve the aforementioned mystique of Joker’s character. Outside of that, though, this is also a movie that’s just easy to recommend to people that aren’t big on superhero movies. Joker works really well as a character study, and it’s a movie that takes heavy inspiration from Scorcese-type movies like Taxi Driver. This is one of those rare movies where I don’t really think it matters if you’re a comic-book fan or not, because you’re likely to get something out of the movie either way.

I also just think that Joker is a great movie from a technical standpoint too. Todd Phillips does a great job directing a movie that’s very much out of his typical wheelhouse of material, being the guy that’s probably most famous for directing the Hangover movies. He takes on the challenge and rises to the occasion, delivering a movie that’s here to make people unsettled. Joaquin Phoenix plays a huge role in this too, of course. His performance as Arthur Fleck is one of the most riveting performances I’ve seen in a while. He owns this role and makes it so believable without ever feeling like he’s cartoonishly exaggerating the character, which is a balance that some previous actors have faced when hamming it up in the role. Ever since The Dark Knight came out, I’ve considered Heath Ledger to be the untouchable best Joker performance that I’ve ever seen, and so this is the first time since then that I’ve left a movie and asked myself “wait…is this now the best Joker performance I’ve ever seen?” I need more time to let this sit for myself, and so I’m not saying definitively that Joaquin Phoenix is now the best Joker of all time…but I will say that he’s definitely a strong contender.

While I know that there’s some people that hated this movie, for me there was very little that didn’t work about it. There are only a few things that didn’t work for me, and these were mainly in some plot/story details that I don’t want to spoil. For a movie that works so well in how grounded it is, there were one or two things that I felt were a bit far-fetched. This definitely doesn’t ruin the movie for me, but it knocks it down a peg for me.

Otherwise, I think Joker is nothing short of fantastic. It takes a concept that I never thought could work and makes it work so damn well. I do hope that this stays disconnected from the other DC universe movies, because I think it will work best as a standalone story. I don’t think Joker is quite the masterpiece that some people are painting it out to be, but I do think it’s actually pretty close to it, which I never thought I’d say. I don’t think the people that hate this movie are invalid in their opinions either, because I understand that a movie like this can’t possibly be for everyone. It’s not meant to be. Despite that, it’s a movie that I deeply recommend people check out for themselves. It was a truly fascinating and memorable experience, and I’m so glad that the movie is what it is. Definitely give this one a shot.

4.5/5