Had next to zero interest in seeing this let alone on opening weekend but such vitriolic word of mouth and the chance to see a such a massive, expensive failure on a film print got the better of me.

Anyway, genuinely as miserable, unsatisfying and deliberately spiteful of idiots who thought the first one was a masterpiece as you’ve no doubt already heard. And honestly, if it didn't rely so heavily on and contain so much of a reiterated plot summary of the original (which it uses in an "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm trying to delete it" that became funny after awhile), I'd say it was an obvious improvement! Phillips' broad concept of taking the cathartically vengeful JOKER MODE origin story transcendence that first film ends on and aggressively deflating it and disappointing anyone who was excited by it is not an uninteresting one at least. Immediately throwing us into a drab and depressing nearly 2.5-hour prison abuse/courtroom drama where "Joker" is confronted with the hollow reality of his delusional performative power fantasy, is stalked and pursued by obsessive fans who romanticize him symbolically and disregard his material history (of poverty, abuse, mental illness, etc), and is eventually pretty horrifically broken and given the death penalty (both by the characters/environment and Phillips lol) for this fractured contradiction of his pathetic, marginalized existence... and for all the murdering, I guess.

With the exception of a few bursts of animated, unmedicated subjective musical fancy that provide the film with its literal dreams of escape and an honestly quite funny section where he decides to represent himself on trial and puts on the full southern attorney accent and everything, this is an entirely dingy, downbeat, and punishing affair. One that doesn't take much dramatic or visual advantage of its ridiculous budget and supposed inspiration from lavish Hollywood musicals, the IMAX ratio screen mostly used to see more green and brown splotches of concrete wall through a haze of cigarette smoke. Part of that is clearly intentional, both Phillips and his DOP have cited Coppola's sad and dreamy New Hollywood musical bomb One From the Heart as inspiration for some of their unconventional choices, especially all the despondent whisper-singing. Though that film still being an awe-inducing and expressive artificial spectacle in a way this never even tries to be maybe makes a better case for Dancer in the Dark being something they were thinking about. Even if it still feels like he's a bozo wearing better movies as a shallow skinsuit/desperate grasp at depth, these are at least slightly more interesting things to try to see him badly replicate at this scale and for this specific audience than the infuriating faux-Scorsese plagiarism of the original.

Don't think I can go as far as to say this is "good" but it's at least no worse than its acclaimed, Oscar-winning, billion-dollar predecessor, and the idea of making such a long, dull movie that clearly hates itself and its audience and going "That's all folks!" "That's entertainment!", etc. is a pretty good bit that I respect and want to encourage in movies made at this price point.

[70mm IMAX]