The Joker 2 (officially called Joker: Folie à Deux) is out and it’s not doing very well. Critics don’t seem to like it, audiences don’t enjoy it, and it’s not making nearly as much money as its 2019 blockbuster predecessor. And if you are a big fan of the first Joker and decided to still go see the movie after all the negative press and reviews, well, you might not have enjoyed how director Todd Phillips decided to end his courtroom/supervillain/musical drama.
SPOILER WARNING: We are going to totally spoil the ending of Joker: Folie à Deux. If you don’t want to know what happens at the end of the movie, well, uh…I’d stop reading this article right now! Seriously.
So here’s how Joker 2 wraps up. After witnessing the brutal death of a young inmate and confronting a traumatized victim from his rampage in 2019’s Joker, Joaquin Phoneix’s Arthur Fleck realizes that this whole rebellious crime clown routine isn’t working. He then admits in court that he is just Arthur Fleck, that the Joker persona was never real, and that he committed those horrible crimes. He’s found guilty, but a bomb erupts. He’s saved by his followers and taken to Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn, who has fully embraced her supervillain status and promptly dumps lonely, boring Arthur Fleck.
Following this, Fleck is recaptured and brought back to Arkham where another laughing inmate tells him a joke. He then stabs Arthur and leaves him to die as this young inmate cuts a smile into his face, implying that this man is the “real” Joker who will go on to commit crimes and mayhem in Gotham as Batman’s arch-rival.
Yeah! Kind of wild. And this is not my or someone else’s interpretation, this is directly from director Todd Philips via a new interview with Entertainment Weekly where he explained why he went with this ending and also confirmed it’s not all a dream.
When asked why Arthur would confess his guilt and give up the Joker persona, Phillips said that “He realized that everything is so corrupt, it’s never going to change, and the only way to fix it is to burn it all down.” He continued:
“When those guards kill that kid in the [Arkham] he realizes that dressing up in makeup, putting on this thing, it’s not changing anything. In some ways, he’s accepted the fact that he’s always been Arthur Fleck; he’s never been this thing that’s been put upon him, this idea that Gotham people put on him, that he represents. He’s an unwitting icon. This thing was placed on him, and he doesn’t want to live as a fake anymore — he wants to be who he is.”
I wasn’t a big fan of the original Joker, I think it was mostly fine and carried by some solid performances, so I can’t imagine how superfans must have felt watching Fleck die as the new, real Joker rises. These people believed this story was the origin of the Joker and then at the very last minute, Philips pulls the rug out from under them and saus “lol. Nah.”
It’s a wild choice, one which isn’t audacious enough to make Joker 2 a good movie, but one that will be remembered. Folie à Deux feels like The Hangover trilogy director was able to trick Warner Bros. into funding a movie that basically serves as a giant middle finger to fans and a defiant act of trolling that the Joker himself would probably appreciate. And considering reports that Phillips had full creative control and there were no test screenings, the whole “tricking the studio into making a ‘fuck you’ movie” might not be that far off…
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Phillips also said “The sad thing is, he’s Arthur, and nobody cares about Arthur.” I’d beg to differ. I think a lot of people care about Arthur Fleck, enough to help that first film reach $1 billion at the box office. But with this wild ending, bad musical numbers, and boring dialogue, it’s unlikely the sequel will reach those same heights. At least we can rest assured that Fleck and Philips’ lackluster DC film universe ain’t coming back. Probably.
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