Joker: Folie à Deux is being mocked for how bad it is

The sequel to 2019 hit film The Joker has not had a good opening weekend for its theatrical release, with cinema-goers ridiculing the Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix-fronted film online.

Joker: Folie à Deux was released on Friday (October 4) and early reviews from both critics and audiences are in agreement: it’s not good.

The movie is a “musical/thriller” according to Google, with the synopsis reading: “Joker: Folie à Deux finds Arthur Fleck institutionalised at Arkham awaiting trial for his crimes as Joker. While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur not only stumbles upon true love, but also finds the music that’s always been inside him.”

Hopes were high for the sequel to The Joker, which received rave reviews five years ago, especially as Phoenix would be reprising his role as the titular character and the new film would be featuring the iconic Lady Gaga – who showed off her acting chops in A Star Is Born and Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it’s meant to be as its score on Rotten Tomatoes sits at a measly 33% from critics and 32% from verified audience reviews.

Additionally, reviews from outlets like The Verge, Vox, and Time Magazine have been overwhelmingly negative.

The Verge wrote that the Folie à Deux‘s musical numbers are “so lacking in whimsy or any sense of fun that it’s hard to ever get swept up in them” and called it a “dreary, tragic twin with a frown stuck on its face” in comparison to The Joker while Vox said that the film was “miserable” and filled with “utterly charmless razzle-dazzle”.

TIME’s review agreed, writing it was both “a major downer” and carried “no emotional weight”.

On social media, people have also criticised the singing, the storyline, and the overall ‘vibe’ of Folie à Deux and made jokes about walking out of the film using gifs and memes.

One person wrote: “Joaquin Phoenix was not The Joker, the real joker was me who decided to watch this.”

“They just wanted Lady Gaga to sing. The film had no plot, just vibes. I want my 3 hours back,” another said.

A third defended musicals in general and said that it wasn’t the music that made the Folie à Deux bad: “Musicals are good and there should be more of them. Joker 2 is bad because it’s nonsensical, unfocused, and the story has no reason to exist. Not because it’s a musical.”

Some people appeared to enjoy the film, even arguing that its badness was on purpose because of its revelation about people not caring about the Joker’s mental illness but rather wanting entertainment and sensationalism instead.

But, despite an 11-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival during Folie à Deux‘s premiere in September, the reviews have remained far from glowing even when accounting for it being bad on purpose.