Joker: Folie À Deux won’t hit theaters until next month. But the movie that is definitely not a musical has already premiered at the Venice Film Festival. And that means the first critics’ reviews are here for Joker 2, as well. So what does everything think of the latest crackpot creation from the twisted mind of Todd Phillips? And what are the Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores for the movies, as well?
Great news, we’re going to break down all of that, right here, right now. But the short version is that the reception to the movie, which stars Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, aka The Joker, and Lady Gaga as Lee Quinzel, aka Harley Quinn, is mixed, at best. Sure the first The Joker was also divisive, and then went on to gross over a billion dollars worldwide. But while there are plenty of positive reviews, the negative ones seem to paint it as more boring and messy than provocative.
Richard Lawson at Vanity Fair eviscerated the movie, saying, “It’s startlingly dull, a pointless procedural that seems to disdain its audience.” David Ehrlich at Indiewire went even further, saying the movie “feels like it’s bad on purpose” and called it “an excruciatingly — perhaps even deliberately — boring sequel that does everything in its power not to amuse you.” Owen Gleiberman at Variety was a little kinder, but not by much, calling it, “ambitious and superficially outrageous, but at heart it’s an overly cautious sequel.”
One throughline of all the reviews? Lady Gaga isn’t featured enough in the movie, particularly given — regardless of what Phillips says — this is a musical. Allison Wilmore at Vulture was the most pointed, noting the movie “commits the mortal sin of wasting Gaga,” adding, “Her Lee isn’t an equal partner to Arthur but another accessory in his grand tragedy — a supercharged, scary-eyed take on a serial-killer groupie.”
They’re not all negative. John Bleasdale in Time Out gave it four out of five stars, saying, “It’s a big swing for all involved, but all the better for it.” And Bill Bria at SlashFilm called it “the year’s boldest comic book movie,” though Venom 3 isn’t out yet so hold your (Venom) horses, buddy.
So, what about those review aggregators?
What Is The Joker: Folie À Deux Rotten Tomatoes Review Score?
I’ll note here that it’s always weird when people start posting things like “Joker 2 is fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with one-half a review!” Wait a second, fellas! Give them tomatoes time to simmer! And particularly in this case, we’re talking about reviews coming from folks who either got an advance screening via Warner Bros. Discovery, or were in Venice for the Venice Film Festival. We’re a month away, more critics’ screenings are coming, and these review scores will change dramatically.
Anyway, you don’t care, you just want the score. As of this writing on Rotten Tomatoes, Joker 2 is 60% fresh with 43 reviews. That’s actually relatively close to the first Joker, which currently has 69% with 601 reviews. As The Joker is fond of saying: nice.
What Is The Joker: Folie À Deux Metacritic Review Score?
While Rotten Tomatoes breaks reviews into “fresh” or “rotten,” Metacritic gets more nuanced with a score out of 100. It’s also more selective about critics, and has the critics submit their own score — versus scanning the review and making the determination for them.
So over on Metacritic, Joker: Here We Go Again is currently at 54% with 23 reviews. Not much better than RT, but not worse, either!
Regardless of the critics’ scores, though, this movie is going to make a ton of money. So chances are, as usual, The Joker will get the last laugh.