Run time: 2h 19m

Well this will go down as one of the biggest disappointments in film I’ve ever experienced. For months I have been holding out hope that they would pull off a gritty musical. If anyone could do it, it was them. However, apparently not even Phoenix’s performance could save this train wreck. I really thought we had learned from Les Miserables that singing the songs live in a movie does not work. I was so sick of hearing vocal fry and mumbled lyrics by the end. Even Arthur Fleck was telling Harley to stop singing. I really did not care for Lee’s (Harley) character either. They took a smart, witty, successful psychiatrist and turned her into nothing but a devoted fan girl. I realize all iterations of Harley are fan girls but this one just didn’t seem like what the character was meant to be. Not to mention the constant call backs to the first movie. If I wanted to see the same references over and over I’d just watch the first movie, which was honestly almost ruined by this sequel (almost). I am also so sick of the multiple personality trope in Hollywood. That is not how DID works, at all. Beyond that, this film is just so full of itself. It’s as if the producers are elbowing you and saying “did you get it?”. I really want to pretend this movie doesn’t exist. In my mind Joker (2019) is a standalone film and this was just some bad fan fiction that got a budget. It’s as if they took all the stuff that wasn’t so great about the first one and expanded it into a 2.5 hour movie musical. I don’t mean to be a complete hater but I really just did not see anything I liked beyond maybe the cinematography, and some of the performances. I think I’m being so harsh because it could’ve been great. I wanted so badly for it to be great. it was my most anticipated movie of this year besides Longlegs. Which I guess since Longlegs exceeded my expectations, then maybe I was due for disappointment. Just go watch the first one again. This one gets a 4/10 from me.