Joker: Folie à Deux
Warner Bros. | Release Date: October 4, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
46
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 64 Critic Reviews
Positive:
21
Mixed:
27
Negative:
16
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeOct 8, 2024
While the title seems to promise a dual focus and fresh blood in the form of Gaga’s Lee Quinzel, in practice, she is very much a secondary character who earns next to no screen time on her own and suffers from thin writing and cursory characterisation. It’s a testament to Gaga’s weapons-grade charisma and star quality that despite all this, Lee’s scenes are electrifying and she lands every last line like a punch. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesTara BradySep 4, 2024
There are interesting notes on the intersection between love, mental illness, obsession, performance, and fandom. If only the movie were a little better. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 4, 2024
Though it ends up as strident, laborious and often flat-out tedious as the first film, there’s an improvement. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 7, 2024
Folie a Deux functions as an overlong, pretentious coda – a slog that barely advances the narrative while regurgitating elements from the first film. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Aparita BhandariOct 4, 2024
Why so serious, Phillips seems to be saying, in this follow-up. Relax, it’s all entertainment. The challenge, however, is that Joker: Folie à Deux is more ponderous rather than acting as a riposte. It has its moments of movie magic, but they largely get overshadowed by the weight of this redemption endeavour. Read full review
50
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldOct 4, 2024
Ultimately, it’s a wild experiment that mostly falls flat. Read full review
50
ConsequenceLiz Shannon MillerOct 4, 2024
Phillips’s sequel proves to be a muddled love story that falls apart due to its inability to express anything thematically substantial or original. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerOct 4, 2024
It isn’t just Harley Quinn fans who will be annoyed and possibly insulted by the filmmaker’s sour whims. The degree to which Phillips undermines fan expectations would be admirable if Joker: Folie À Deux wasn’t also something of a slog—and if its every creative decision didn’t feel strangely affectionless. Read full review
50
The Associated PressJake CoyleOct 3, 2024
It’s not surprising that “Folie à Deux” originated in concept as a stage show. It’s stuck in place, with only Phoenix’s dazzling contortions to marvel at. Read full review
50
We Got This CoveredMarco Vito OddoOct 2, 2024
In Joker: Folie à Deux, director Todd Phillips's attempt to blend courtroom drama with musical elements results in a disjointed and sluggish narrative that fails to capitalize on its potential. Read full review
50
VarietyOwen GleibermanSep 4, 2024
Joker: Folie à Deux may be ambitious and superficially outrageous, but in a basic way it’s an overly cautious sequel. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 4, 2024
Gaga is a compelling live-wire presence, splitting the difference between affinity and obsession, while endearingly giving Arthur a shot of joy and hope that has him singing “When You’re Smiling” on his way to court. Their musical numbers, both duets and solos, have a vitality that the more often dour film desperately needs. Read full review
50
IGNSiddhant AdlakhaSep 4, 2024
The worst thing about Joker: Folie à Deux is its unfulfilled potential. It begins with the promise of a novel approach to the Joker and Harley Quinn, placing them in a world where the opposite of cruelty is musical romance. Unfortunately, the DC sequel gets bogged down by a lengthy courtroom saga, which not only keeps the dazzling Lady Gaga away from the spotlight, but centers the movie entirely around its own predecessor, without doing or saying anything new. Read full review
42
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 4, 2024
Phillips struggles to find a shape for his story without having a Scorsese classic to use as a template, and while a certain degree of narrative torpor might serve “Folie à Deux” on a conceptual level, its turgid symphony of unexpected cameos, mournful cello solos, and implied sexual violence is too dissonant to appreciate even on its own terms. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesMichael OrdoñaOct 10, 2024
It’s so detached from the supervillain narrative that it’s almost meta. But as the musical numbers become lengthy detours rather than lending further insight into Arthur, the sequel doesn’t sing as a character study. And it sure ain’t a thriller. Read full review
40
The New YorkerRichard BrodyOct 4, 2024
In Phillips’s new sequel, “Joker: Folie à Deux,” he walks back the hectic ideology that gave that earlier movie its energy, however dubious; the sequel is merely innocuous, grandiose in its scale of production but minor in its dramatic substance. Read full review
40
ScreenCrushMatt SingerOct 4, 2024
At pretty much every step Folie à Deux feels like one big middle finger to fans of the original movie. I just wish it was less of a middle finger to the rest of us at the same time. Read full review
40
ABC NewsPeter TraversOct 4, 2024
Here’s a sequel we did not need, trapping stars Joaquin Phoenix and the glorious Lady Gaga in a joyless musical retread of moldy ideas. Talk about sucking the life out of a party. Says she to Joker during a fantasy scene, "Come on, baby, let's give the people what they want." I'm still waiting. Read full review
40
Rolling StoneDavid FearOct 3, 2024
What do you get when you cross a discordant riff on a fan favorite with a failed prestige project? Twice as much deux-deux. Read full review
40
The Daily BeastNick SchagerOct 3, 2024
So determined to avoid satisfying fans that it’s borderline antagonistic, as actively hostile to genre conventions as its protagonist is to the world at large. Read full review
40
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeOct 2, 2024
Even if such a proposition didn’t quite work out it would surely be the right sort of failure. Maybe a gloriously camp Jailhouse Rock. As it happens, we have ended up with a drab affair that never gets properly started. Read full review
40
Little White LiesHannah StrongOct 1, 2024
This is a film of half-measures, lacking ambition in a way that is at least mildly more entertaining than its predecessor, but that’s down to the pleasures of songs written half a century ago rather than any talent Phillips has to offer as a filmmaker. Send in the clowns indeed. Read full review
40
ColliderMartin TsaiSep 4, 2024
Even during the fantasy musical numbers, which give cover to stray from the overall aesthetics of the film, Phillips is just incapable of delivering the genre’s requisite razzle dazzle that would surely complement Joker’s persona. Read full review
40
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 4, 2024
Joaquin Phoenix demonstrates again his willingness to take risks — in this case, singing alongside the far more technically skilled Lady Gaga — but a performance that was once so attuned to his character’s fragile mental state is, in Folie A Deux, littered with familiar flourishes. Read full review
40
The TimesKevin MaherSep 4, 2024
The director Todd Phillips said there would be no follow-up to the original, but he changed his mind and the result is a derivative musical. Read full review
40
Total FilmJordan FarleySep 4, 2024
Part courtroom movie, part behind-bars romance, Folie à Deux is an unconventional musical sequel that fails to hit the high notes. Read full review
40
BBCNicholas BarberSep 4, 2024
Depending on how you look at it, this demythologising exercise is either daring or it's irritatingly smug, but it's definitely not much fun. Phillips seems to be saying that if you fell for Fleck's Messianic self-image the last time around, then the joke's on you. Read full review
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