Promises, promises: Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga in ‘Joker 2’.
JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX ** (139 minutes) MA
The famous dance scene on the concrete stairway in 2019’s Joker quickly became the film’s key visual motif. Set to the guttural strains of Gary Glitter’s ‘Rock and Roll: Part 2’, the moment was scripted though the memorable moves of Joaquin Phoenix were apparently improvised, signalling the final step in Arthur Fleck’s immersion into Joker’s demented persona.
The magic of the moment appears to be the cue for Joker: Folie à Deux, an unplanned sequel to a film designed as a one-off. The intent here, presumably, is to recapture the spirit of the stair dance by turning Joker 2 into an elongated musical drama.
Alas, here we have a prime demonstration of how lightning can prove stubbornly elusive to any attempt at bottling, rendering Joker 2, easily the most anticipated big film since Barbie, a seismic disappointment. Even diehard fans might find themselves biting their lips to keep from weeping.
Set mostly in Alcatraz-like Arkham prison, the story follows the slow blooming of the romance between Fleck (Phoenix) and psychiatric inmate Harley “Lee” Quinn (Stefani Germanotta, aka Lady Gaga).
Doing hard time and enduring the supervision of guard Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson), the emaciated Fleck is to face a hearing to determine whether his Joker personality is a clever ruse or the result of a mental disorder, with his lawyer Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener) determined to prove Fleck’s diminished responsibility for killing five people.
Director Todd Phillips faithfully recreates the gritty look of Joker but struggles to keep things all that interesting. There’s lots of detail in Phoenix’s portrayal but, put simply, the film is hobbled by too little story and way too many musical numbers.
These fantasy detours act more like interruptions, slowing the pace to a crawl, stretching the running time and breaking any dramatic tension. Just when things begin to boil somebody starts singing.
Creatively, trying to force-inject musical sequences into the film ultimately feels like it was a mistake.
There’s only one sequence (and its reprise) that actually informs the narrative while the rest of the numbers are unnecessary; the film probably would have worked much better without them – so prepare for some fan edits of the film reshaping Joker 2 as a straight drama once it hits the stream.
The musical stretches wouldn’t have been such an issue had the staging been more imaginative and wild. The film’s admittedly captivating opening reel and Gaga’s casting signal such a vibe yet nothing much comes of it.
Regrettably, that’s but one of several promises the film makes to the audience that is subsequently broken – a cardinal sin in movie storytelling.
Performances are good, especially Harry Lawtey as the young District Attorney Harvey Dent. That there is too little of him during the film’s 1970s-esque courtroom scenes ranks as but one of the many of opportunities missed in the movie.
THE CRITIC *** (99 minutes) M
An understated, distinctly acidic look at fame, power and the abuse of journalistic ethics, The Critic tells of Jimmy Erskine (Ian McKellen), a critic who strikes fear into the heart of everyone in the 1934 London theatre scene.
With his prestigious job on the line and a need to get his cost-cutting editor David Brooke (Mark Strong) under control Erskine cooks up a scheme that involves making a deal with vulnerable actress Nina Land (Gemma Arterton).
Believing their arrangement holds benefits for both parties the poor woman soon gets the full measure of the partner she is in business with and how he regards principles as obstacles that get in his way.
Anchoring the handsome production, McKellen puts in a typically strong central performance, portraying his charge as a well-dressed, impeccably spoken sleaze.
RUNT **1/2 (93 minutes) PG
In what is shaping up as one of the sorriest years for Australian cinema in recent memory, it’s pleasing to see a local film that actually has some idea about what it’s doing and who it’s for.
Designed strictly for kids and based on the book by screenwriter Craig Silvey, Runt follows the fortunes of the drought-plagued, debt-ridden, sheep-farming Shearer family whose youngest kid Annie (Lily LaTorre) adopts a stray dog and trains it for a major show, the prize money of which can save their collective bacon.
With mild amounts of grief provided by Matt Day’s vaguely villainous Fergus Fink (he’s a fink, you see) and Jack Thompson’s heartless property developer Earl Robert-Barren (sounds like robber baron – get it?) the film is pleasant enough, consciously appealing to the kids demo with its dialled up performances, brisk pace and simple story points.
Very glad to report the film has enjoyed notable box office thus far – $2.5m across two weekends plus a defiant audience jump of 40%, signalling strong word-of-mouth. The film was also subject to a strong marketing campaign, something almost unheard of for an Australian film. That Runt has done so well against school-holiday titans such as The Wild Robot and Transformers One is especially admirable.
Still, it is strictly for kids.
Adults might take issue on several scores, such as the casting of Fink as a villain.
Although he looks and acts slimy, all he essentially does is object to Runt wearing a performance-enhancing head harness that gives the pooch an advantage over other dogs in the competition – a wholly reasonable complaint.
There is also shameless use of Deus ex machina, the ancient story-telling device where all problems are resolved by a miracle from above. Kids won’t care how it’s used here but grown-ups might wince at the deployment of such a lazy trick.
And while the film is set present day, Earl Robert-Barren is a stuffy old cliché, looking and sounding like he time-warped from a 1930s’ melodrama. Why doesn’t he have a TikTok account?
Also irritating – and arguably stupid – is that the filmmakers deemed it necessary to stick an LGBT progress pride flag right in the middle of an important dialogue scene. Serving no story purpose, its presence distracts from what’s being said. Why bring adult politics into a kids film? Filmmakers need to stop doing this.
That said, Runt joins the pantheon of Australian dog films alongside Dusty, Red Dog, Oddball and the long-forgotten 1995 charmer Napoleon.
MEGALOPOLIS *** (138 minutes) M
So, what’s all the fuss?
If you’re foolish enough to take any notice of the disparaging coverage the film has received you’d go in thinking Megalopolis is a bloated, incoherent, incomprehensible, pretentious cinematic scramble.
OK, it’s no masterpiece, yet Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is a perfectly watchable, visually luminous mega-scale art film with an intriguing premise and a conventional linear narrative that is sufficiently engaging to justify its elephantine running time.
With lots of assistance from existing architecture, Coppola reimagines New York as a modern version of Caesarian Rome where he stages a pretty archetypical rivalry between power brokers.
Wanting to reshape the city into a user-friendly, future-proof utopia, architect Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) is doing battle with Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), whose daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) he’s having an affair with.
Throw in ambitious media starlet Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), Cesar’s uncle, the banker Crassus (Jon Voight), his slimy business rat of a son Clodio (Shia LaBeouf) and, for good measure, Laurence Fishburne (Clean from FFC’s date-defying classic Apocalypse Now) as Cesar’s driver Fundi and the cast is set for what is essentially an old-fashioned high-end romp about power, greed and corruption.
Coppola, who also wrote and directed the film, having nurtured it since 1977, brings bucketloads of visual flash to the scheming proceedings, extracting especially captivating performances from LaBeouf and Plaza, whose character has a terrific arc across the breadth of the film.
Kudos to Romanian cinematographer Mihai Mălaimare Jr, who makes the elaborate interiors and sweeping urban vistas positively glow with detail and grandeur. If nothing else, the film is beautiful to behold.