Perhaps one of the most highly anticipated movies of 2019, besides Marvel's "Avengers: Endgame", "Joker" is a DC Comics related film directed by Todd Philips, staring Joaquin Phoenix as the titular character which was released to theaters on October 4th and after watching it last night, I can say with 100% certainty that it lived up to the hype. "Joker" is the story of Arthur Fleck, a mild-mannered man with a disorder who slowly descends into absolute madness. This movie is an original take on the mythos of The Joker with light sprinkles of Inspiration from DC's "Batman: The Killing Joke" storyline as well as movies like "The King of Comedy" released in 1983 and Taxi Driver released in 1976. Despite these inspirations, "Joker" puts an original spin on the story to where it feels unique to the movie. This movie shies away from the comics' cartoony origin story where he is dropped into a vat of acid and instead implements a more realistic, real world origin story for character which in turn makes this movie unpredictable in the best way possible. The film also shies away from past portrayals of The Joker. Whereas past incarnations tried to make a spectacle of the violence, for this version of The Joker, the violence IS the spectacle. Joaquin Phoenix's performance as the character was a joy to watch as he shifted the mood of the film back and forth from suspenseful to light hearted to scary to funny with such ease. His version of The Joker brings a new level of insanity and brutality to the character not seen in previous incarnations. My favorite monologue in comic book history comes from The Joker himself in "The Killing Joke" when he says "all it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day." And I believe that Joaquin Phoenix embodied this point beautifully as Arthur Fleck. This movie isn't your usual action-packed superhero movie but rather a phycological thriller. It has slow build at first but is so worth it by the end. Perhaps the best part about this movie is the fact that even though it's a one and done standalone film, which it has so far been intended as, there so much potential left for a sequel should Warner Bros, DC, Phillips and Phoenix decide to do so. The Oscars and Golden Globes are definitely going to have a tough time between "Joker" and "Endgame". This Movie was the inaugural film in Warner Bros launch of"DC Black" a new line of films described as " a line of DC Comics-based films unrelated to the DCEU with darker, more experimental material, similar to comic imprints such as Elseworlds" and if this is the first movie to launch this new line of movies, I am definitely excited to see what else they have planned for DC Black. This is one of my favorite comic book related movie I've seen and I can't wait to see more films like this.
