Directed by:
Todd PhillipsCinematography:
Lawrence SherComposer:
Hildur GuðnadóttirCast:
Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Shea Whigham, Bill Camp, Glenn Fleshler, Leigh Gill, Josh Pais, Marc Maron (more)VOD (5)
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Failed comedian Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) encounters violent thugs while wandering the streets of Gotham City dressed as a clown. Disregarded by society, Fleck begins a slow descent into madness as he transforms into the criminal mastermind known as Joker in director Todd Phillips’ thrilling origin story. (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment)
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Reviews (25)
Joker gave me goosebumps sometime in the first few minutes, and then repeated the phenomenon a few more times for me. It's possible that it was just a well-written character that any good actor would have excelled at portraying, but for me, something this well-acted is a minor miracle. Joaquin Phoenix blew me away with his performance and I don't think I'll ever forget his pained smile and laugh, it was etched deeply under my skin. 5 stars, one of the best of the past year. I can see myself rewatching it again very soon.
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The comic book backdrop is just a lame crutch (thank goodness), this is a totally realistic, wholesome drama about one unfortunate guy's mental breakdown, a kind of Taxi Driver for the 21st century. And believe me, reading here how fantastic Joaquin Phoenix was and then seeing it in a movie with my own eyes is a whole other level. The last time I saw such total immersion in a role was Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood 12 years ago. Every slightest body movement, every wrinkle, the play of his eyes and that over-the-top laugh, it was a great school of acting and just confirms to me why Joaquin, this great, passionate animal rights activist, this noncomforting, unclassifiable shy creature, has been my favorite actor for over a decade. His 'method acting' (of which Daniel Day-Lewis was a devotee), which involves taking on the behaviour and mindset of your character and immersing yourself in it throughout the production of the film, is probably unmatched by any other actor today.
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A return to The Dark Knight in full glory. I haven't seen such a brutally depressing film in a really long time. Gotham is a city where no one would want to live, with the possible exception ofsome extras someone would pay to do so. At the same time, however, it is perfectly emulating what is probably supposed to be the1970s and is based on the equally beautifully gloomy New York. It’s giving off an incredibly powerful old-school feel, which is why, together with the practically perfect performance of Joaquin Phoenix and no less great music, it creates an absolutely epic atmosphere that has not been seen in similar films for a really long time. I like the way the character Joker is portrayed so that he is neither good nor bad. He has his issues and bad traits but also positive traits and an effort to create a better world… until he loses his marbles. Joaquin Phoenix was given free rein here, and this time I liked his performance immensely. It’s true that he plays one weirdo after another, but Joker is a phenomenon who has both a light and a dark side. So even though I wasn’t exactly rooting for him the entire film, my eyes were glued to the screen in every scene. Some scenes expressing human madness, evil or anarchy belong among the best I’ve ever seen. I won’t hesitate to say that it’s the highest level of filmmaking craft and an experience I will be processing for a long time. Who are we as people? Hasn’t Joker been born out of all the grief and evil we keep inside and try to not let it out so we don’t go crazy?
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It is precisely for this dark dimension and fateful depth that I generally like DC characters more than the brightly colored Marvel ones. Todd Phillips’ Joker is a stylish, psychologically well-conceived drama with a great acting performance by Phoenix that satisfactorily explains the birth of an important comic book character in the Batman universe, as it reveals the causes of the character’s deepening anxiety, leading to his total rejection of belief in anything good, and his logical self-realization in his revolutionary leadership of the disgruntled resistance against higher society. The film is a pop-culture vision of Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and is well connected to the origin of Batman both in its screenplay and atmosphere, with the typical Batman-like darkness. I won’t give this the full five stars because the film’s climax was neither surprising nor extraordinary – I was expecting, but I had hoped it wouldn’t be the “biggest” thing that the film would bring.
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As a part of DC good, very good actually. As a human transition drama, rather average. The movie failed to excite me. I felt like I was always waiting for something while watching it, and in the end I didn't get it. It felt like there was something more to come, a climax, because for me the movie just didn't have a climax. What was the point of the movie? The transformation into the Joker? The situation in the city that helped in the transformation? Did it really help? The film just feels incomplete to me. Sure, Joaquin was good, he lost weight nicely for it, he did a great dance when he was alone on set and drinking it in, so it was fine. Once someone else was there, it almost felt like he was blending into the background. To me, a perfectly ordinary film that didn't really bring anything new to the table except that it wanted to show us how the Joker was born, but is that really necessary with this character? Do we need to "understand" him?
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