By Roy Mathur, on 2019-04-06, at 22:49:22 to 23:17:09 BST, for Captain Roy's Rocket Radio Show, Listen
Supervillain origin stories aren't that common and I love them. Unbreakable, Megamind, more, more, more!
DC.
I love noir, and it's been a long time since both versions of the Kiss of Death's iconic nut boys.
This looks noir, gritty, sad, and hopefully violent in a stomach cramping, not gloaty, manner.
Also, I think Joachim Phoenix is a great casting choice, but as always, wouldn't a less used, newer face be something to consider? Oh yeah, producers from the Hollywood money machine just love star power.
Maybe I've got it wrong from the trailer, but making Joker a mummy's boy? Really? Really??? No! Not this again! This just looks like you're cribbing Gotham's Penguin (along with a lot of other tropey hokey nonsense).
I wonder whether many screenwriters (and I'm not just singling out the writers of Joker) actually have any life experience? Or do they just get their education from other people's movies? Are they just saying, "oh, it worked in You Were Never Really There, so let's do that." The Krays may have inspired Richard Burton's mother dominated gangster in Villain (1971) or Max Beesley's good son sociopathic armed robber in Survivors (2008), but there are other ways to be a bad guy that doesn't involve being fixated on mum. How about the bad guys from Collateral (2004) or Best Seller (1987)?
Stop taking the easy peasy shortcuts.
From the trailers, I would have said yes, but maybe it's just one part of Joaquin Phoenix's technique.
Why? Because he has recently mocked his use of method acting.
Joe Chill (fan theory), really unfunny unnamed stand up comedian (The Killing Joke), Jack Napier (Tim Burton's Batman), Sonny, (House of Hush), Liam Distal (Zero Year), Jerome Valeska (Gotham), Arthur Fleck (Joker (2019), or none of these because the Joker is always changing his story, as with Heath Ledger's brilliant take on the character, which I like this best.
I like the Joker being the unreliable narrator of his own narrative.
I don't know if Harley Quinn is in this film (I'm guessing not), but it really annoys me that some people put Harley Quinn up on a pedestal, as a symbol of female empowerment!
She's a grown woman drawn to the dark side, who's been seduced, groomed, and abused by a serial killer she calls Daddy. She's a victim turned predator.
Batgirl, Batwoman, Catwoman, even Talia al Ghul, or Lady Shiva are better feminist role models.
I get that that she's hot and easy to cosplay, but enough is enough.
If you're doing it in the full knowledge that you're dressed as a hot psychopath, then fine, but please stop fawning over this lunatic.
I've heard that weird sneaking unconcious admiration for really awful real people, as well as fictional characters, from people who should know better.
If you like characters like her (I like Richard III from the Shakespeare play), just don't have any illusions on what kind of monster they really are.