I don't know how to articulate what I dislike about this other than its such a dissatisfying script

I think it also doesn't give Harley as much as I would've wished especially since it's Gaga and she's good at what she does whether its music or cinema

There were plenty of scenes that were enjoyable and the acting wasn't bad by any means.

But overall it just feels like nothing happens, it's like a slow disintegration and purgatory while arthur is incarcerated. Just depressing to watch them tease the joker out of him all for him to realize he can't be the guy they want him to be. He's there by accident. And its like their relationship is such a small part of the film imo, it just feels like a nothingburger even though it was nice to see the both of them on screen

There was nothing bad about the music in this

I wouldn't even call it a musical actually, it's like 10% musical

Great a***ysis

The problem isn't the numbers themselves, but they really don't contribute much to the film. You can take them out and the general structure of the film wouldn't change

This movie is why people say you shouldn’t assign numbers to a movie

I think it’s offensive it got cleared and it had to feel like cognitive dissonance every day during pre-prod, recording, post-prod and even as they did promo for it

But I still really f***ing like that this piece of s*** exists

I think the musicals themselves, probably. But they still served a narrative purpose of representing Arthur's delusion throughout the movie.

Watching Harley leave Arthur and then seeing him get killed at Arkham was so depressing

Just got back from seeing it. It's... fine. I don't think I'd ever watch it again, but it's not the trainwreck people are describing it. It's just underwhelming and a bit pointless.

To be honest, I respect the movie and its ambitions. Maybe even more so than the first. I'd love to be a fly on the wall during the making of it. I can't imagine the WB execs were happy about what they were seeing, but were so happy about the surprise success of the first one they were willing to give Todd Phillips the benefit of the doubt. So what you're seeing is a mess, but on the director's terms, which is admirable.

The musical numbers were pretty obnoxious, imo. I have nothing against the idea of it being a musical, and was interested to see how it'd work, but it just doesn't lol. The problem is that a traditional musical will have the characters reveal important feelings or developments through the music. But in this movie, it's all covers of oldies that only generally connect with what a character is feeling. It really kills the momentum of the movie, because any time something interesting happens, the narrative gets paused. It doesn't help that most of the musical numbers are fantasies, so truly none of it impacts the story.

There's some interesting ideas, but like the first one, doesn't explore them nearly enough to make them compelling.

The first two actually felt like tangible musical scenes that were conceived and thought of and planned.

Joker in front of the tv singing to the inmates with the camera following him all around and then Joker/Harley running around the post-burning Arkham chaos

The one in the prison face to face meeting room too I guess which was constrained but it had to be the two leads are two tiny boxes

The rest felt like little bites where they knew they had a song and just decided how to film it on the day. Musicals are fire because they allow direction/camera movements, camera blocking and choreography work together for complex intricate fun thing. Here they just felt kinda lazy.

Huge amazing golden age Hollywood Arkham Hotel roof top set, joker and Harley just slow dance in one place. Weird black limbo church chapel wedding scene, they just dance in one place.

Yes, but the way it’s structured through the film is where it breaks apart.

It feels like it just stops the overall plot of the film. And I think the decision to make this a jukebox musical, rather than a more traditional one is where that comes into play

Thinking about it more, and maybe it's been discussed before but

Are the guards supposed to represent the fans of the first movie? I know people are talking about Harley in relation to that, but I feel like guards represent the fans too. All throughout the movie, the guards command that the Joker make them laugh, say his famous lines, etc. and in return they'll give him privileges within the jail. Maybe representative how Todd Phillips and Joaquin felt? Everyone just wants to see and hear Joker do Joker things, and if they oblige, they'll be rewarded with money and success in the creative prison they've been put in.

And then at the end of the movie, when Joker calls the guards fat, dumb f\*\*\*s, they get so offended they rape him. I thought the rape was really out of nowhere and confusing, but maybe it makes more sense metaphorically? The fans "raped" the Joker character because they didn't understand him.

The whole thing is so petty but it's kind of funny to think that Todd Phillips spent 200 million dollars just to hurl insults at the audience.

Yea a traditional musical would of been more bearable especially towards the end when the delusions started ramping up

is this really in this movie? :ariscared:

Yes & it’s extremely upsetting to my soul

Even if it was metaphorical, we didn’t need that imagery

Even worse if he used it just to insult us

Yep. It comes out of nowhere and nothing in the movie would suggest something like that would happen. It’s really f***ing weird and makes the Joker finally take accountability for his actions in the next scene. have no idea why it was ok’d

Same tbh. in a weird way.

We live in a society

its such a risk that rarely exists in big productions (saying this while acknowledging Megalopolis exists as well)

I do have to get DC some credit for clearing obvious and blatant flops and having faith in their directors. Marvel's flops were as sanitized as you could ask for

I'm going back in the thread now and seeing the actual discourse

I didn't think that ending was offensively bad. I just thought it wasn't really worthwhile in any discernable way. Also seems like it may have been conceived when Phillips or someone thought there could be more movies to be made, but from what I understand itt, he never wanted to even do this one lol

With him saying he's done with DC, I definitely feel like the ending was conceived of some time ago and they were too lazy to adjust it

Beau is Afraid was horrible to me (seems to be above average to others but not of Hereditary quality obv), Napoleon was largely underwhelming, and this was a train wreck

I hope he gets off what ever path this is

Yall gotta stop with these dumbass takes man like wtf does this even mean ?? I propose a lockdown of all ktt movie discourse until we figure out wtf is going on

Are you 13? lol

awful

I hate musicals and liked this movie

If there was ever a time I’d expect a character to break out into song randomly it’s in a mental ward