The final trailer for Joker: Folie à Deux has now been released from Warner Bros. In the new trailer, we’re previewed to more of the plot of the film with less emphasis on Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn or the musical aspect. Here, we’re treated to Steve Coogan’s character interviewing Arthur Fleck, played by Joaquin Phoenix, as he attempts to answer for the events of the first movie. The final trailer shows more footage of Arthur being taken to trial and the madness that will follow. Joker: Folie à Deux is set to hit theaters on October 3.
The early reactions to the film have been divisive among critics. It was revealed previously that Todd Phillips had aimed to make this sequel feel more chaotic with the impression that “inmates are taking over the asylum.” Phillips would say that Phoenix would hold last-minute creative meetings in his trailer in which he and Gaga would tear pages out of the script, then re-write them on napkins. The method may have led to the teeter-tottering reception.
IndieWire‘s David Ehrlich is harsher on the film than most, saying Joker: Folie à Deux is “boring, flat, and a criminal waste of Lady Gaga.” Adding, Phillips’ Joker sequel feels “bad on purpose.” In his review, Ehrlich writes, “At a time when everything is consumed as entertainment, no matter how tragic, Phillips has created a corporate pop spectacle that all but demands to be seen as something else. Here is a movie that perversely denies audiences everything they’ve been conditioned to want from it; gently at first, and then later with the unmistakable hostility of a knife to the gut. And that, more than anything else, is why “Folie à Deux” adopts the form of a classic musical: Because no other genre makes it so easy to appreciate all the fun you’re not having.”
In contrast, Alex Harrison of ScreenRant thinks Joker: Folie à Deux is an improved sequel engineered to antagonize Joker fans. Harrison confirms the movie “is most certainly a musical” despite the filmmakers’ claims that it’s not.” To lighten the mood, Harrison writes, “Joker: Folie à Deux has more coherent things to say about fan culture than it or its predecessor does about mental illness, which, for me, makes it the superior of the two. It also helps that it’s far less derivative. But it’s still plagued by the same have-its-cake-and-eat-it-too mentality.”
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