JOKER (O-RVZ MOVIE REVIEW)

Joker is a psychological thriller film directed by Todd Phillips and stars Joaquin Phoenix as the titular character. The movie is based from a DC comicbook icon villain "Joker" and tells the origin of Arthur Fleck ,aka Joker, a failed stand-up comedian with a mental illness and how he became the maniacal mass murderer of what we've known him to be.

When you ask someone who's the iconic villain of Batman, most of the time they will answer you that it is the Joker. We've seen multiples iterations of this iconic character from each generations and to name some of the popular ones are Cesar Romero, Mark Hamill, Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger and Jared Leto. Each versions coming from these guys, we get to see a different twist on that character but one common thing about the character, Joker is definitely the crazy and the dangerous one. We never really get to see a whole full movie with the character alone because it is always accompanied by the other iconic hero character "Batman". Time has changed now when we are so much more intrigued about the villains more so than the heroes, we get to see movies such as this that are more centered around the villains.

Before seeing the movie, you should set your expectations low when it comes about the action set pieces. Some casual movie goers will think it will involve action since it is based from a comicbook character but it's not. It's a dark, thrilling, haunting character study about Joker and how society has molded him into that character. How did Joaquin Phoenix manage the character? The performances coming off from him was just close to perfection. He embodied the character so well that it doesn't really make you want to cringe about his performances. It doesn't feel like he played it so over-the-top but instead he humanizes his character. He feels like a real person with a mental diseases and at times you really feel pity of him. Heath Ledger's Joker may feel like the almost exact character the way we know it from the comics/the animated series but Joaquin Phoenix's Joker really elevated the character more as he provides more human depth to it. Personally though, I still think Heath's portrayal of the joker is much more memorable than Joaquin's but definitely both of their performances are at the top. I also like how they reconstructed Joker's background story in a way that also connects to Batman's origin story. There's definitely no exact origin story of the Joker as from every iteration of the character we always get a different backstory to it. I really like how society greatly impacted the character's development. They really put an emphasis to that and it really showed throughout-out the movie as Arthur Fleck slowly succumbs to the idea of chaos. The cinematography of the film was also beautiful. It feels like watching some of the iconic crime-drama film. The theme of the movie is very heavy and it's really not something to be watched by younger kids. Some imagery were really disturbing and haunting that should not be taken lightly. There's violence on the film so this is really not for kids.

OVERALL

Joker is a really really good film that talks about mental health and violence. Joaquin's performance playing as Joker was outstanding and definitely worthy of some acting awards. He did justice to the character by not playing it so over-the-top while at the same time puts more human emotions to it than any other Joker iterations out there. You really feel for the guy and it as if you don't want him to snap and become Joker. The cinematography are great which shows how beautiful yet chaotic Gotham city is. It's a dark and sad tale of a guy slowly turned to life of crime due to how society had interacted with him and it's quite relatable to real-life. I won't go deep into that but after seeing the movie you would know. It's one of the best films of the year and definitely deserved to be at the Top 10 movies of 2019.