Joker

Joker offers an incredibly interesting take on the super-hero movie by taking a character from Batman and putting them in an incredibly real world. That is this movie’s biggest strength. This movie really makes you think about our own world, and, in an industry full of CGI action movies, it is an important film. Obviously, Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of the Joker is the stand out of the movie. He is able to make the character saddening and threatening at the same time. And while it isn’t anything new, I really liked how they handled the bridge between reality and things inside of his head. Another strength is the use of visuals. I really enjoyed a lot of the shots in this movie and felt that it actually added to the tone of the movie. However, this movie does have it’s problems. For example, I feel that a lot of the violence did feel unnecessary. The movie could easily be PG-13, yet it feels like the studio wanted this movie to be an R. Which is fine, I just feel that a PG-13 rating would have opened it up to a wider audience and would have diminished some of the unnecessary violence in the movie. While a lot of the press is saying that this movie will cause violence, I don’t think it will. I think that the point of this movie is to emphasize that we should take time to think about how we treat people with disabilities in our culture. Another thing that somewhat annoyed me was the way a lot of Batman references were forced into the film. I feel that the movie could have easily done fine if they ditched the odd sub-plot between Arthur and Thomas Wayne. But again, this is an overall wonderful movie that I feel is getting a lot of unnecessary bad press. It gets an overall 8.4/10 from me.

Where can I get this?: You’ll need to buy/rent this one.