I'm writing this post because it's getting very low ratings. From the reviews that I read, many people say it doesn't meet their expectations of what a superhero movie should be.

I'm not a capeshit enjoyer. I chose to see Joker 2 because Joker 1 had vague themes of "defunding welfare programs is bad". In the first movie, Joker loses access to his mental illness medication because the politicians defund the welfare programs and that leads Joker to start doing crimes.

What I liked about Joker 2 is that everyone around him wants to make him miserable, but instead he chooses to be happy. In my opinion, it is the most pure example of absurdity. The whole world wants to make Joker miserable and he is powerless to change other people, but he can deny giving the world what they want so he chooses to laugh. I find that to be entertaining.

The movie was about 60% musical. Whenever Joker starts to hallucinate, everyone starts singing. I think it was okay, but other people did not like that. You probably won't like the movie if you are expecting it to follow the superhero movie formula.

  • CommunistCuddlefish [she/her]
    ·
    2 months ago

    I hate capeshit and only watched gave Joker a try because /r/ChapoTrapHouse was very positive about it. I found it a really powerful and moving story about a person being systemically oppressed, stigmatized, and criminalized by a brutal and evil system when he just needed a loving supportive caring Communist state to help him instead, and then striking back as a result. It was cathartic and it was deeply moving because I have known and cared for people like that.

    And then I guess they threw in like 5% of capeshit shit but I almost entirely didn't need to know or care about that stuff. It felt like someone had tricked capeshit directors into letting them make a movie that was about systemic oppression under the guise of "yeah it'll totally be about your stupid superhero franchise!" when it really wasn't.

    I liked that it didn't have the stupid frivolity and silliness of the 1st christopher nolan batman movie. I liked that it didn't have the shitty Joss Whedon one-liners and pro-military shit of the Marvel movies. I liked that it didn't have the pro-fascistic bent of the 2nd christopher nolan batman movie.

    I wasn't planning to watch Jonkler 2 because the 1st movie ends with Arthur's transformation into Jonkler and I was afraid that meant a sequel would go hard into capeshit shit.

    I tend to dislike musicals but I will sometimes enjoy one.

    Based on the above, do you think I should give it a try or skip it?

    • dinklesplein [any, he/him]
      ·
      2 months ago

      if your concern was joker 2 would be capeshit then i can say pretty confidently that that's not very relevant to it. i think you should give it a try, i thought it was fine too.

    • delirious_owl@discuss.online
      ·
      2 months ago

      Wasn't Dark Night antifa? I mean Batman lost his best ally because they took the moral high ground and resigned when he hacked everyone's phone "for the security of the people"

      • CommunistCuddlefish [she/her]
        ·
        2 months ago

        I havwnt seen it in 14 years so Im fuzzy on the detaila but when I watched it it seemed very pro surveillance state in a war on terror way to me.

        • delirious_owl@discuss.online
          ·
          2 months ago

          You're misremembering.

          The movie showed scenes of the possibility to exploit mass dragnet surveillance "for security" by targeting cell phones.

          It was especially remarkable because it shows this in 2008, 5 years before we learned (from the Snowden revelations) that the NSA was doing this "for security".

          But the film didn't champion it, it made it clear that doing it was unethical, and it condemned it. It painted Batman as a villan because he chose to harm innocent civilians in his increasingly maddening obsession to get revenge against the Joker.

          The movie wasn't subtle about this. When we learned how batman hacked into the phones of everyone at Gotham, Morgan Freedman's charscter said "this is wrong" and then he resigned.

          Edit: the clip of this dialog is on YT https://youtube.com/watch?v=0Yb7Ps2gA0w

      • Cutecity [he/him]
        ·
        2 months ago

        Yeah but as I remember it he accepts to do the surveillance job to find Joker before resigning and then he has to press a button that unbeknownst to him makes the system explode, so it was "fine" in the end and he doesn't resign.