Over the course of 2024, many a cinematic villain burst into the limelight. Emilia Pérez has gone on to be the designated villain of the current awards circuit, Sony’s Spider-Man Universe ejected three whole turds into theaters everywhere, and Argylle carved out a rather notorious reputation for itself prior to its Apple TV Plus homecoming. 2m5e24

But none matched the raw power of Joker: Folie à Deux, itself a film about one of the most iconic villains in the history of pop culture. Indeed, with a 31% critic approval rating to match the 31% audience approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Folie à Deux found few allies outside of Quentin Tarantino and everybody else who actually understands why the film exists. As for Lady Gaga, who starred in the film as Joker’s love interest Harleen Quinzel, she knows that poor audience reception is just part of the artist gig.

In a recent Elle cover story centered on the pop megastar, Gaga nonchalantly remarked that the pursuit of artistry often means you have to be okay with some people not liking your work.

People just sometimes don’t like some things. It’s that simple. And I think to be an artist, you have to be willing for people to sometimes not like it. And you keep going even if something didn’t connect in the way that you intended.

Indeed, making art for the purpose of the widest possible audience appeal is an express ticket to creative dystopia. Can you imagine if Christopher Nolan or Greta Gerwig polled audiences about what they’d like to see in their next movies?

The case of Folie à Deux specifically is perhaps one of the most extreme cases of a film not being made for audiences, which is precisely why it’s been regarded so venomously despite being a fantastic portrait of love and identity, and an equally ferocious indictment of irony and anti-critical thinking.

Just look at some of these comments.

Do you notice a pattern?

The pattern, in case you missed it, is that the overwhelming majority of disparaging comments — specifically, those that substantiate their disdain beyond a throwaway “it sucks” sentiment — focus on the disappointment of the fans and what they wanted to see from Folie à Deux.

Except, Folie à Deux and Joker deal with the exact same subject matter, so if they liked Joker so much, why did they despise Folie à Deux? Could it be that Joker fans interpreted the first film as an incel power ballad that glorified violence and anger, and then held Folie à Deux to those exact expectations, only to throw a fit when the second film made clear that Arthur Fleck was never their champion, and that everything they cheered for was meant to be read as a tragedy this whole time?

This is what happens when audiences refuse to bring themselves and their minds to a film, and ively insist that it simply entertain and satisfy them. These narcissistic viewing habits breed resentment for anything that doesn’t ultimately appeal to them specifically, and it winds up stunting our growth instead of empowering it like a great film should. That’s entertainment, folks.

Just one day after Nikki Glaser unceremoniously roasted it at the Golden Globes, Joker: Folie à Deux has found an unexpected fan in the form of Hairspray director, John Waters. 

In case you missed it, Glaser — who served as the host of the glitzy ceremony — took square aim at the Todd Phillips sequel during her opening monologue. After making light of the almost uniformly negative fan and critic reactions to Folie à Deux, the comedian joked about the absence of the film’s cast and crew at the event, since it was glaringly omitted in all categories. “Where’s their table?” Glaser asked, “Oh, they’re not here, that’s right.” While it was met with a smattering of laughter from the audience, not everyone took the joke so lightheartedly. 

In a recent interview published in Paper Magazine, Waters — who directed the original 1988 Hairspray that was later adapted into the 2007 movie musical — was asked his thoughts on Folie à Deux. Perhaps given his musical roots, Waters declared that “the critics were wrong” about the Joaquin Phoenix-starring sequel, since “people don’t understand that they sing showtunes.” While he itted to “stupidly believ[ing] the critics” before watching, Waters said he changed his (show)tune after actually seeing Folie à Deux, praising it as “great and well-developed…I thought it was wonderful,” he said. 

Waters also extended his compliments to Phillips, saying he “like[s] that film director a lot” and that he “likes all his movies.” Alongside Folie à Deux and the first Joker — which earned him a 2019 Oscar nomination for Best Picture — Phillips’ credits include The Hangover comedy franchise and War Dogs.  To his argument, Waters cited fellow director Quentin Tarantino, who likewise defied critics when he said in October that he “really, really liked” Folie à Deux. “I read later that Quentin Tarantino really liked it, too,” Waters said, “so it definitely has its followers, but I think we’re a little too late to help with it.”

The reason Waters was even mentioned alongside Folie à Deux was because, last month, he included the sequel in his list of 2024’s best movies for Vulture. That inclusion made headlines of its own, but his other entries saw far more success at the Golden Globes than the Arthur Fleck vehicle. For instance, Waters included both Emilia Pérez and The Brutalist, which took home the wins for Best Musical or Comedy and Best Drama, respectively, as well as Babygirl, which scored a Best Actress nod for Nicole Kidman. 

Folie à Deux wasn’t the only subject of Glaser’s razor-sharp burns, with her monologue aiming at everyone from Ariana Grande to Timothée Chalamet and Stanley Tucci (with a hilarious Adam Sandler cameo to boot). Elsewhere, other buzzy moments from this year’s ceremony included Vin Diesel’s revival of a years-old beef with Dwayne Johnson, Sofia Vergara heckling Jodie Foster, and Andrew Garfield doing his darndest to break the internet for the eleven hundredth time. Oh, we also got an appearance from the winners of the Glen Powell and Chalamet look-alike contests… So, there’s that?

In of Folie à Deux, it seems the divisive film might’ve run its course, with Phillips telling The Hollywood Reporter that his “time in the DC Universe was these two films.” If it ever does come to fruition, you can bet your bottom dollar Waters will be first in line at the box office.

Before you roll your eyes too hard… yes, bad movies come out every year and yes, they are the reason one appreciates the good ones. But if you are one of those unlucky souls who spent 2024 wondering “Someone is definitely pin-punching a voodoo doll of me” then you know how you couldn’t rely on films this year to find your escape…

… because everywhere you turned, there was a bad film.

Harebrained plots cocooning brainless dialogues spoken by mouths with a forever buffering brain, painfully disastrous jokes, tone-deaf depictions, and horrendously awful CGI — all this came from some of the most brilliant minds in Hollywood and was lived on the silver screen by faces who no longer deserve our unwavering trust in their art. But the pen is mightier than the cinematic diarrhea that clogs the innocent crevices of our scarred minds, and we are here to call out the culprits.

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It takes a real miracle to make something as majestically inept as Madame Web. Delivering a film that’s so poorly executed at every stage — from its very concept to its meme-spewing marketing — requires so much work that the only logical conclusion you can draw is that its sheer demented awfulness was deliberate. Was Sony trying to pull a Producers with this one? At the very least, Dakota Johnson appears to be trying to destroy the movie from the inside with a performance so dead-eyed and lifeless she deserves to win the Oscar for Best Leading Actress Impersonating AI. With Madame Web, we finally have a superhero film so bad that it feels like an ingenious subversion of the form. ⏤ Christian Bone

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Jerry Seinfeld’s directorial debut about the creator of the Pop-Tarts, Unfrosted, might sound like a completely made-up movie but, unfortunately, it is very much real. It came out on Netflix in May, and I was tasked with reviewing it for the site. Starring Seinfeld himself as a Kellogg’s creative based on cereal magnate William Post, Melissa McCarthy as his NASA food scientist sidekick, and Amy Schumer as his rival (among many others), Unfrosted is a hot mess of bad jokes and silly plots. Like the pastry at its center, it’s jam-packed with celebrity cameos and outrageous acting, but does little in the way of sustenance. ⏤ Francisca Tinoco

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Having grown up in the generation that still regularly uses phrases like “she doesn’t even go here!” and “scum-sucking road whore,” I was beyond excited to see the big-screen Mean Girls: The Musical, emphatically renamed Mean Girls when Paramount Pictures decided to mask the remake’s musical nature from the general public. Having enjoyed the Broadway rendition, I thought I knew what I was getting myself into with the 2024 adaptation. Alas, Paramount’s update was a swing, miss, and death by proverbial school bus. 

Despite Renée Rapp and Auliʻi Cravalho’s best attempts to steer the vocal ship, Mean Girls felt like an extended music video that failed to cleverly mix the flavor of the original with the musical’s more updated ambitions. The result was a Kälteen Bar that promised to shave off three pounds but actually stole two hours from our collective lives instead. Not only will I probably never watch it again, but like the limit, I may have to pretend it does not exist so I can enjoy the original and its musical counterpart in peace. ⏤ Josh Conrad

Put down the pitchforks, please. Yes, Deadpool & Wolverine got the MCU out of its slump, yes it was funny, yes it was great to hear Chris Evans cuss in a Marvel film, and yes Wolverine is back, but… no one can convince me that the highly awaited third film in the Deadpool series was anything more than a filler. And that too which just blatantly cooked up its own logic and defied the laws of the MCU.

Wade’s knowledge of the Marvel superheroes felt forced, the ending made no sense, and everything that made Deadpool exceptional was pushed aside — except his foul-mouthed humor — to make space for countless cameos, fight scenes, and an empty plot that leads nowhere and holds zero importance in the Marvel universe. I am sorry, but while my brain short-circuited when Hugh Jackman’s suit melted away, I need more storywise to call a film good. — Apeksha Bagchi

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Francis Ford Coppola apparently spent hours in his trailer, smoking marijuana, while filming Megalopolis. If you go into the film knowing this, it kind of makes a bit more sense – like yeah, this is definitely something a guy would make while out of his head on illicit substances. It’s been called “pretentious nonsense” by some, and while I do agree, I think it still holds some entertainment value. The trippy visuals and downright insane dialogue certainly had me laughing out loud, whether that was intentional we’ll never know, as Megalopolis is simply a small glimpse into the riches of Coppola’s Emersonian mind. — Jordan Collins

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If you dared to watch The Apprentice in theaters, congrats on the extra legroom! Who thought watching Donald Trump on screen would be a good idea? Clearly, someone missed the memo that we’re all Trumped out.

With probably only three souls in the audience, it’s the perfect spot for an introvert’s paradise or a sad popcorn party. This film ties itself so desperately to the 2024 election it almost screams for relevance but ends up feeling like a two-hour-long political ad that nobody asked for. Ali Abbasi tries to serve us a deep dive into Trump’s rise with Sebastian Stan’s portrayal, along with Jeremy Strong’s Roy Cohn teaching him the sinister “Rules of Winning.” Despite its attempt to critique, the film can’t help but seem almost sympathetic to these infamous figures. Either way, it’s a cinematic facepalm, and Trump hating it might just be the only thing he and we agree on. Oh, and thanks to this film, we can never look at Sebastian Stan the same way again. — Omar Faruque

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Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver, like its empty predecessor and dreary director’s cut, is not one of those cases of so-bad-it’s-good, nor is it one of those cases where it’s simply bad. No, The Scargiver’s badness is that elusive type of bad that you will inadvertently wind up being thankful for a decade from now, and you may not even realize it. Why? Because The Scargiver is the rawest, loudest, most undiluted proof in this perverted pudding that the entertainment industry is not a meritocracy; a revelation that may just be the spark of confidence that an otherwise imposter syndrome-ridden luminary needs to send out that screenplay they’ve been perfecting for years. 

So — on behalf of every gifted storyteller who just needed a tiny voice to tell them that they were good enough — thank you, Zack Snyder, for reminding us that you can get paid for this job even if you have the artistic sensibilities of a terminally-online rhinoceros. ⏤ Charlotte Simmons

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Netflix’s Uglies imagines a world where everyone undergoes mandatory plastic surgery to achieve perfection — but no amount of medical intervention can fix the ugliness of this dystopian disaster. Despite Joey King’s valiant efforts to inject some life into her lead role, this misfire speeds through its 90-minute runtime like a runaway hoverboard, leaving character development and coherent worldbuilding in the dust. With three writers inefficiently cramming exposition down our throats, Laverne Cox trapped in cartoon villain mode, and set pieces desperately needing some makeup, there’s nothing worth saving in Netflix’s shallow, bland, and tasteless take on young adult dystopia. — Marco Vito Oddo

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For Matthew Vaughn, more is always more, and his latest attempt to launch a franchise, Argylle, is yet another convoluted spy thriller, this time about a novelist who writes spy thrillers. The plot betrays Vaughn’s attempt to over-correct criticisms of his recent films, which often feature unrefined plots seemingly designed to primarily kickstart a franchise. Rather than creating a movie with a defined beginning, middle, and end — avoiding his usual puzzling cliffhanger endings — Vaughn overloads this typical amnesiac-spy thriller with plot twists to create the illusion of depth. 

But instead of heightening intrigue, these twists become increasingly predictable, culminating in a tepid ending that inspired nothing but indifference from me. Vaughn continues to overcomplicate things when he should be simplifying. This is why he keeps releasing misfires, and Argylle stands as one of the year’s most wasted opportunities. It only left me with a lingering sense of what could have been. I just hope Matthew Vaughn can return to one-offs like he did with Layer Cake. — Fred Onyango

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After the success of its brilliant 2019 predecessor, I expected more from Joker: Folie à Deux. Making it part jukebox musical and part courtroom drama always felt risky, and, sure enough, it didn’t work. As expected, Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga bring bags of talent and energy as the eponymous Arthur Fleck and Harleen Quinzel — and their chemistry isn’t terrible — but the story’s as dank as the fictional city it’s set in. I’ve run marathons, and this was more of an endurance test than any of them. It’s a tiresome slog that sometimes feels like it’s intentionally trying to irk its audience. — Kevin Stewart

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Kraven the Hunter had no business prowling into theaters as a full-fledged feature, because, let’s face it, no one was clamoring for this origin story. But Sony, ever the bold predator of Marvel’s rogues’ gallery, took the bait—and now Marvel can never undo the damage, even if the rights are reclaimed.

Despite having all the necessary ingredients—a strong tone, gripping source material, and a gifted cast—the movie feels like a hunter’s feast that is served cold and bland right off the factory line. At its core, Kraven himself is treated more like a glorified plot gadget than the protagonist of his own tale, slicing his way through a script that prevents him from developing into the complex antihero he could be. — Kopal Kumari

If you’ve spent any time on the internet in the last couple of years, you may have heard about this niche, barely spoken-about term called “superhero fatigue,” wherein moviegoers of all persuasions claim to be fed up with the swath of comic book adaptations that have been finding their way to the big screen.

Kraven the Hunter‘s already-doomed theatrical run is the latest exhibit, but the loudest example in the last while is Joker: Folie à Deux, Todd Phillips’ long-awaited sequel to his Oscar-nominated psychological thriller based on the iconic DC Comics villain. Everyone hated it, and enough people decided that preemptively to ensure its failure at the box office.

But now that it’s on streaming, everyone can take advantage of a less-consequential viewing experience to make an informed opinion, and that’s precisely what’s happening now. Per FlixPatrol, Joker: Folie à Deux is flying high at the top of the Max film charts in the United States at the time of writing, having dislodged Tim Burton’s box office beast of a legacy sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, now enjoying the show from second place.

Joker: Folie à Deux sees Joaquin Phoenix reprise his role as Arthur Fleck, a clown-turned-murderer-turned-martyr who now finds himself as an inmate of Arkham State Hospital. There, he meets and falls in love with one Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga) and stands trial for his crimes. Along the way, he finds himself on a path towards self-reevaluation.

An abundance of the hatred received by Folie à Deux is rooted in the fact that it was not the movie that everyone was expecting it to be. But, really, doesn’t that say a lot about the state of our viewing habits? That we’re evaluating films based on our expectations or how well it serves our egos rather than seeing it for what it actually is?

As for what Folie à Deux is, it’s an ungentlemanly middle finger to everybody who didn’t understand what its predecessor stood for; an unsettling takedown of the cynicism and apathy that so much of the world insists on operating from, and the tragedy inherent to assimilating into it. We’re not meant to root for Arthur; we’re meant to root against his descent into that darkness.

Folie à Deux is about the same thing as Joker, except it goes in the opposite direction. Throughout the film, Arthur slowly comes to realize that he doesn’t actually want to embody apathy, and re the love that he once insisted upon inhabiting. By the end of the film, he fully rejects the Joker persona and commits to sincerity once more, and what’s his reward? Real-life audiences hate him, critics hate him, diegetic cultists hate him, and he’s also murdered for it.

Indeed, Folie à Deux sought to call attention to how emotionally dangerous it’s become to operate from a place of radical love, and by evaluating and subsequently bashing the film on of it not serving our expectations, we are complicit in the very apathy that Joker and Folie à Deux tried so hard to warn us about.

Quentin Tarantino has had some bonkers takes over the years. From the diminutive, like saying he didn’t buy that Martin Scorsese was shocked by audiences celebrating the violence in Taxi Driver, to the confusing, like claiming he doesn’t consider George Clooney a movie star, to the funny, like insisting he looks like George Clooney. And then there are the absolute unconscionable takes, such as defending Roman Polanski against his rape charge involving a 13-year-old because they were “dating.”

Tarantino has delivered horrible takes throughout his 30-plus-year career, but every so often, he makes a good point — of course, between crafting generation-defining movies. This time, Tarantino caught the wrath of the internet for expressing his enjoyment of Joker: Folie à Deux. During his appearance on The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast, Tarantino shared that he liked the film’s musical scenes, praised Joaquin Phoenix’s performance as the best he’s ever seen, and felt flattered by the movie drawing inspiration from Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers, a film he wrote. Tarantino even remarked that the Joker sequel was the kind of movie he dreamed of seeing made from his script.

Now, of course, we disagree. Joker: Folie à Deux struggles to balance painting a sympathetic figure of its lead, while simultaneously critiquing the audience that embraced the original film. The sequel fails at serving both these masters. That aside, Tarantino is right: he still has every right to enjoy whatever movie he chooses. Variety reports that during an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, he went on a profanity-laden mini-tirade, assuring everyone that he will, in fact, continue liking whatever he chooses regardless of what people say about him in the comment sections of articles reporting the story and that we can all do the same, saying, “You read the comments: ‘Quentin is a f-cking asshole. That movie f-cking sucks. He’s a f-cking asshole for saying that.’ Why am I a f-cking asshole? I liked the f-cking movie! That makes me a f-cking asshole? You either like the movie or you don’t.”

Tarantino also addressed criticism for not watching Dune, saying, “Then they’ll say I’m a f-cking asshole for not seeing something — what the f-ck do you care what I see or don’t see?” This stance is a bit bizarre, given that he was railing against franchise filmmaking when he made that claim, arguing that Dune exemplifies an era dominated by endless remakes. Even if we’re being generous, Joker is undoubtedly part of a franchise, while also borrowing heavily from Scorsese classics, and the sequel takes inspiration from Tarantino’s own work. So it’s not exactly breathtaking for its originality. Regardless, he’s right — nobody can watch everything. That said, his apparent issue with Denis Villeneuve fimmaking seems rooted in something deeper than he’s letting on.

At the end of the day, we’d all prefer to hear Tarantino sharing his thoughts on what constitutes a good movie rather than his views on other subjects. This is clearly his realm, and even when he’s wrong — and he is wrong on these two particular film takes — his opinions are harmless and often fascinating. Especially now as Tarantino nears his contentious retirement, it would be nice to have a figure like him continue guiding movie lovers worldwide on what to watch, even if those films are no longer his own.

Tarantino’s recent media appearances have been to promote The Video Archives Podcast, which he co-hosts with Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avary. The podcast, where they always bicker over movies, is a genuinely fun listen for cinephiles. 

By now you’ve either seen Joker: Folie à Deux in theaters and know from your own experience how much of a slog it is to watch, or you’ve been warned by others not to go see it. However, one legendary director is convinced this movie is much greater than it seems.

Hideo Kojima the legendary game director behind the Metal Gear Solid franchise, Death Stranding, and many more of your favorite games has shared his thoughts on the Joker sequel, and surprisingly he’s convinced that the movie will last the test of time. In fact, he thinks it’s only going to be received better in the future.

Taking to social media Kojima praised the movie for asking questions about the Joker, Arthur Fleck, and what impact the character had on audiences. Continuing his thoughts he begins to ask grander questions about heroes, villains, and the state of superhero movies right now. Ultimately his thoughts come together to boldly claim that the film’s reputation will change drastically in the next one or two decades.

“Over the next 10 or 20 years, this film’s reputation will likely change along with the permeation of hero movies to come,” Kojima wrote on X. “It may take some time for it to become a true “folie à deux.” But there is no doubt that everyone in the audience loved Joaquin and Gaga in this film”

If you’re a member of the Warner Bros. camp then we bet you’re hoping Kojima’s words ring true. Joker 2 has severely underperformed expectations not just critically, but also at the box office. However, it seems that other creatives are praising the movie, so maybe we just don’t get it.

Prior to Kojima, Quentin Tarantino shared his thoughts on the movie praising the movie and saying that he “really, really liked it,” just in case you weren’t convinced with the first. In his defense, Tarantino prefaced his thoughts by adding that he is “just nihilistic enough to kind of enjoy a movie that doesn’t quite work as a movie or that’s like a big, giant mess to some degree,” which is a valid description of the film.

While things don’t look good for the Joker sequel today, it isn’t impossible that the movie could find an audience in the future that sees the vision Todd Phillips clearly had. At the end of the day, fans were hoping for more of the Joker we met in the first film and that isn’t exactly what we were given. In fact, this sequel actively went out of its way to distance itself from the ideas of the first film, which might be where the genius is. I guess we’ll find out in a decade’s time. If you want to see what all the discourse is about and make your own mind up, Joker 2 is still showing in theaters so you can head out to your local spot and see how you like it now. 

Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino loves cinema and talking about all the classics. Well, add Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux to the mix, because the Pulp Fiction director is a self-confessed fan.

As quickly as Joker: Folie à Deux danced into theaters, it waltzed its way right past the audience and headed straight to digital. For a film that cost $200 million to create, it barely scratched over $200 million worldwide. It didn’t exactly debut to stellar reviews either, as it holds 32% in both critical approval and the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing. By all the metrics, this is nothing short of a bona fide flop and another major L for Warner Bros. Discovery to swallow as it continues to fumble the bag with DC properties.

Despite 2019’s Joker cracking over a billion dollars and securing an Oscar for Joaquin Phoenix, the sequel failed to land – even with the superstar casting of Lady Gaga as this universe’s version of Harley Quinn. The film also established itself as the laughingstock of 2024, and people can’t help but poke fun at it. Except for Quentin Tarantino.

Appearing on The Bret Easton Ellis podcast (via World of Reel), Tarantino raved about the movie and his experience watching it, claiming: “I really, really liked it, really. A lot.” The filmmaker gushed about the musical scenes, the humor, and drew positive parallels between the story of Arthur Fleck and Lee Quinzel and his own script for 1994’s Natural Born Killers. In fact, Tarantino suggested Joker: Folie à Deux could have been a movie from the perspective of Woody Harrelson’s Mickey Knox.

Phillips’ handling of the film impressed Tarantino, who provided an interesting perspective of how he sees it. He said: 

“Todd Phillips is the Joker. The Joker directed the movie. The entire concept, even him spending the studio’s money – he’s spending it like the Joker would spend it, all right? And then his big surprise gift – haha! –the jack in the box, when he offers you his hand for a handshake and you get a buzzer with 10,000 volts shooting you – is the comic book geeks. He’s saying f**k you to all of them. He’s saying f**k you to the movie audience. He’s saying f**k you to Hollywood. He’s saying f**k you to anybody who owns any stock at DC and Warner Bros.”

Unsurprisingly, a lot of X s didn’t share Tarantino’s enthusiasm about the film, thinking that a director deliberately releasing a movie that antagonizes the audience isn’t the way to go. Others thought this sounded like a cheap copout from simply itting that Joker: Folie à Deux didn’t work and deserves the trashing it’s taking from everyone. 

One filmmaker who doesn’t share Tarantino’s opinion of Joker: Folie à Deux is Paul Schrader. The Taxi Driver screenwriter told Interview Magazine that he watched the first 10 to 15 minutes of the movie, slipped out to go shopping, then came back in to watch another 10 minutes. In the end, it proved to be all too much for him and he left, calling the movie “a really bad musical.”

Different strokes for different folks, right? Hopefully, someone asks Tarantino for his opinion and thoughts on Venom: The Last Dance and if he felt the same fuzzy feeling while watching the dance numbers in that superhero spectacle.

Ever heard of a “verbal smackdown?” That is exactly what Paul Schrader did to Joker: Folie a Deux in less than 5 minutes of speaking about it.

The unexpected approach of Joker: Folie a Deux didn’t meet audience expectations, reflected clearly in its $164 million box office takings (just $835 million short of 2019’s Joker) and a meager 33% Rotten Tomatoes score. Clearly, the bold leap to transform the originally dark and gritty psychological thriller into a part-musical has landed director Todd Phillips flat on his face. But what really went wrong for audiences wasn’t just the unexpected musical twist, but also how the characters evolved — or, rather, didn’t.

While most of us (and the critics) have still been kind about Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga’s performances, the Academy Award-nominated writer, director, and critic Paul Schrader had no such patience. Speaking to Interview Magazine‘s Jeremy O. Harris, Schrader brought up watching Joker: Folie a Deux recently, and absolutely thrashed the film. The Hollywood heavyweight revealed how he couldn’t sit through the movie’s 138 minutes of runtime:

“I saw about 10 or 15 minutes of it. I left, bought something, came back, saw another 10 minutes. That was enough.”

If someone did that during my film, I’d simply give up my career and start a new life. But in true no-nonsense fashion, director Paul Schrader didn’t mince words when asked about Joker: Folie à Deux. Referring to it as a “really bad musical,” he delivered a scathing review that was equal parts brutal and, honestly, a little hilarious.

But what exactly made the movie so bad for him? Was it Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga as actors, or Arthur Fleck and Harley Quinn as characters? Perhaps both. Schrader didn’t pull any punches and slammed both the actors and the characters in one swift motion, leaving us wondering whether we should nod along or cringe in our seats. He said,

“I don’t like either of those people. I don’t like them as actors. I don’t like them as characters. I don’t like the whole thing. I mean, those are people who, if they came to your house, you’d slip out the back door.”

Ouch! It’s safe to say Schrader’s idea of hospitality doesn’t include hosting Joker and Harley Quinn anytime soon. But it wasn’t completely unexpected for him to have this brutal opinion of the film. Coming from a mind that wrote masterpieces like Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bull (1980), and directed complex narratives like American Gigolo (1980), Affliction (1997), and First Reformed (2017), Joker 2 does fall below the belt.

While not as brutal, similar reactions and reviews to the film have been coming in ever since its release. The general consensus among viewers was that the film fell short of their expectations in of elevating the Joker persona, and reviews noted that the follow-up only makes the figure into a “singing-and-dancing puppet clown living in his imagination.” (via Variety) As for Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn, the iconic manic energy is just missing.

From Barbenheimer to ExorSwift, the ever-growing trend of two movies battling for box office supremacy is undoubtedly (and hilariously) becoming mainstream. But Terrifier 3 potentially suring Joker: Folie à Deux? Bet you didn’t see that one coming.

Then again, when we flush out the individual differences of each project, it’s certainly hard to discount just how many similarities there are between Damien Leone’s blood-splattered gorefest and Todd Phillips’ less-than-desirable sequel. Seriously, Todd, we just did not need a sequel.

Now, any ionate horror or DC fan can spot the glaring similitude between Art the Clown and (Art)hur Fleck. Both are clowns, yes. Both are killers, also yes. But there’s one super-sized difference that’s growing hard to ignore, and that’s the comparison of each movie’s budget. While the third chapter in Leone’s Terrifier trilogy only required a budget of $4 million, Joker 2 cost a staggering $200 million to make happen — and still the reviews have squashed the film faster than a bug on a windshield.

As per Discussing Film, Terrifier 3 has a legitimate shot at outperforming Joker 2 at the box office this weekend, which definitely speaks volumes as to how dissatisfied the superhero community is in regards to the once-anticipated Joker sequel crashing and burning. At the time of this writing, the Lady Gaga vehicle currently holds a disastrous 33% score on Rotten Tomatoes. As for Terrifier 3? Well, it currently holds a 74% score, and it technically isn’t even available to the public audience yet.

So, why exactly is Terrifier 3 — a movie with a relatively feeble budget in regards to typical Hollywood greed — projected to perform significantly better than a DC movie? Could it be that the DC tag is simply not as powerful as it once was? Or, perhaps the superhero realm is feeling significant Joker fatigue given how often the character is depicted in entertainment media. 

That being said, one could argue that Terrifier’s expanding popularity simply continues to transcend new heights alongside the rise of the horror genre itself, which now has certainly ushered in a fresh-faced icon whose reputation is becoming as big as Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger. Now, that’s not to say the horror genre hasn’t experienced its own fair amount of fatigue over the years, especially in regards to an influx of clown-inspired horror flicks.

But to add a cherry on top of the scare-filled sundae, it’s equally possible that Terrifier 3 being banned in and causing a large portion of moviegoers to vomit in theaters has added an extra element of mystery and appeal to the feature. It’s a familiar phenomenon from the release of Terrifier 2 back in 2022, where queasy cinephiles proceeded to vomit and faint during theater showings of the gory sequel.

So, considering 2019’s Joker solidified an Oscar win for Joaquin Phoenix and the sequel needed millions of dollars to make, it’s unequivocally embarrassing that Phillips’ sequel is struggling so hard to compete with an up-and-coming slasher icon who quite literally rips the flesh off his victims and tosses salt in their wounds to make matters worse. What a guy, eh? Either way, it’s clear that there’s only room in this town for one clown — and his name is Art. Sorry, Arthur, but you’re old news.

Lady Gaga has apparently seen all *those* negative reviews for Joker: Folie à Deux, but won’t let the critics stop her from pursuing even bigger and starrier film projects. 

In case you missed it, the Joker sequel has been the subject of some pretty harsh reviews, receiving just a 33% score on Rotten Tomatoes and spawning some roast-worthy zingers from multiple reviewers. Mashable described Folie as an “atrociously grim and boring movie,” while The New York Times said it was a “dour, unpleasant slog” and Digital Spy labelled it “empty, lifeless and ultimately unnecessary.” Ouch!

All that criticism might explain why the sequel was hit with the lowest CinemaScore of any comic book movie history (a D), and also why it endured such a lacklustre box office performance. Amid the fanfare, it’s now being reported that Gaga — who starred as Harley Quinn opposite Joaquin Phoenix’s namesake villain — isn’t too thrilled with all the naysayers. 

A source close to the pop star turned actress said she is “disappointed Joker 2 was pretty much a bomb.” Speaking to The Daily Mail, the insider said Gaga “is surprised by the response to [the movie] and is shocked that people don’t love it,” especially considering the praise it received from critics before its audience premiere. 

“She put so much heart into the movie,” the source claimed, “and has so much respect for the DC comics fan base.” Adding insult to injury, the insider said Gaga’s disappointment is all the more intense because she thought Folie “could get her an Oscar nomination,” following Phoenix’s Best Actor win for the first instalment. 

For what it’s worth, Gaga came close to achieving the feat in 2019, when she was nominated for Best Actress for her star-making role in A Star Is Born. Her chances of competing in the same category for the next Academy Awards are far slimmer, so it’s understandable that she’s feeling a little let down by all the Folie hate. 

Nevertheless, Gaga remains committed to achieving Oscar glory despite all that disappointment, with the source saying the singer is now hell-bent on landing a part in Quentin Tarantino’s ever-buzzy project. “She would now like to land a role in Quentin Tarantino’s next and final film,” the source claimed. 

“Nobody knows what that is going to be, but she wants to audition.” The insider went on reveal that working with the acclaimed director would be a “bucket list moment for her,” and said Gaga is “going to lobby hard to get a meeting with him once a script is presented.” 

Of course, landing the part will be a tricky task, since a Tarantino role is probably coveted by almost everyone in Hollywood, especially if the movie will be his last as he’s claimed in the past. While the source didn’t name which Tarantino project Gaga is eyeing, it’s safe to assume they’re referring to The Movie Critic, the director’s tenth and supposedly final film. 

Not much is known about The Movie Critic beyond its title as the final Tarantino film, but it’s been dogged by reports of being shelved, re-written, or scrapped altogether. We do know that it is set to follow a movie critic (duh!) who is cynical and disillusioned by his work at a pornographic magazine in the 1970s. Consider me intrigued. 

As for Gaga’s involvement, I guess we can now add her to the list of actresses we’d love to see in the leading role, from Margot Robbie to the perpetual Tarantino muse, Uma Thurman.

What do you get when you cross an excellently made movie with Hollywood’s ridiculous compulsion of capitalizing on IPs and making as many sequels as the box office returns warrant them to make? You get what you [redacted] deserve!

When I finally sat down to watch Madame Web earlier this year — and not in a theater, mind you— the movie constantly reminded me of a famous quote by Roger Ebert. “If you have to ask what it symbolizes, it didn’t.” You might think that I was thrown off by the dreadful dialogue, the extremely generic premise, or the borderline nonsensical MacGuffins that kept pushing the plot to where it needed to go. You might even assume that much like the rest of the audience (and it’s indeed rare that we cinephiles can find a lynchpin of such unanimous proportions as Madame Web) I found the barely-enthusiastic acting by the cast laughable and utterly ruinous to the film’s bare allusions to a suspension of disbelief.

But the simple truth of it is, Madame Web simply coalesced all my feelings about the industry into a very entertaining 2-hour ride. Entertaining for the fact that it was so bad I actually started to enjoy myself from a certain point on. Probably about the same time as when the cast gave up all attempts at taking this seriously.

The point is, it’s extremely difficult to drop the ball so hard that it starts bouncing around the arena and sends shock waves across the entire industry, once again making everyone question if Hollywood should just call it quits with this superhero filmmaking business. And then you realize they actually managed to do it twice in the same year. Enter Joker: Folie à Deux, a film so terrible that one critic described the experience of watching it as taking “a knife to the gut.”

Joker: Folie à Deux currently holds a 33% rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 45 out of 100 on Metacritic, turning it into one of the worst superhero or drama films in recent memory. And while that’s not exactly as low as Madame Web stooped, Todd Phillips somehow managed to take one of the most beloved DC films of the past two decades and with a sequel steal Madame Web‘s thunder as the worst movie of 2024 that lacks even that ironic entertainment value.

This unasked-for sequel is turning into a flop thanks to the scathing reviews, already being hailed as a worse commercial disaster than The Marvels. Say what you will about Madame Web, but at least with that plot, I could understand why I hated everything that came on the screen. With Joker: Folie à Deux, it seems, you’re mostly confused and wondering when this fever dream is going to end. Any chance Phillips and Phoenix may have had to build on the acclaimed social commentary of the original film was lost the moment they decided to go full musical.

That said, let’s not be too hasty in bestowing Joker 2 with the crown of the worst 2024 film just yet. We still have, after all, Venom: The Last Dance to look forward to in late October, and something tells me that the threequel is going to be even worse than the first two installments.

Don’t let the enormous success of Deadpool & Wolverine fool you, the decline of the superhero movie genre is still alive and well! Before the aforementioned Ryan Reynolds threequel became the biggest live-action movie of the year, Marvel and DC films were facing a major slump — the MCU’s last effort before Deadpool 3 was The Marvels, which has gone down as far and away the lowest-grossing Marvel Studios production of all time.

And yet, to channel Thanos for a moment, perhaps the Marvel fandom treated it too harshly. Almost a year on from its release in November 2023, Brie Larson’s box office bomb of a sequel is finally getting its dues thanks to an unexpected development in the comic book cinema arena — another superhero film is somehow faring even worse. Joker: Folie à Deux finally entered cinemas over the weekend of Oct. 4, and its opening gross is coming in below even The Marvels‘ own disappointing first weekend.

Considering both Joker and Captain Marvel were billion dollar plus smash-hits a few years ago, the fact that Folie à Deux is performing even worse than The Marvels is leading many of the MCU effort’s defenders to feel a surge of vindication as all the hate for the Brie Larson vehicle has been categorically proven wrong.

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, directed by Todd Phillips, Lady Gaga having just over 30 minutes of screentime… There’s no way they can pin this one flopping on it being “too female.”

Audiences are bored of seeing movies with white men in the lead. Stop Hollywood’s white male agenda! Bring back the M-She-U!

Getting down to brass tacks for a moment, The Marvels grossed $47 million over its opening weekend… but Folie a Deux has come in even lower with just $40 million. Considering that Joker 2 has had a much more robust promotional push than The Marvels did — it released at the tail-end of the actors’ strike, — this is a seriously embarrassing blow for Warner Bros. But at least now director Nia DaCosta’s film won’t be viewed as the worst follow-up to a $1 billion comic book hit anymore.

Joker 2 has broken one comic book movie record, to be fair to it, although it’s one no other entry in the genre would want — it’s officially the lowest-rated superhero film on CinemaScore, with a paltry D grade. Plus, its Rotten Tomatoes ratings is at an absolutely atrocious 33%. The Marvels, meanwhile? A solid 62% on RT and a healthy B on Cinemascore.

It’s also worth comparing their RT audience scores, or Popcornmeters. The Marvels has a strong 82%, proving that fans actually hold it in high regard, regardless of the critical reception and financial woes. Joker 2, though, is at just 31% — meaning audiences like it even less than critics. So that’s bad box office, awful reviews, and disappointed audiences — a perfect hat-trick of own goals.

That’s got to be the ultimate insult to the Clown Prince of Crime. It’s The Marvels that gets the last laugh, not the Joker.