Shock: “Joker 2” Draws Mixed Reviews In Venice as Musical “Slog” and “Impressively Odd,” “Bad On Purpose”

Todd Phillps’ “Joker 2: Folie a Deux” is getting mixed reviews from its Venice Film Festival debut.

The sequel to “Joker” is a musical starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga. Warner Bros. has downplayed the musical classification but after all, this is Lady Gaga involved.

The reviews range from brilliant to awful, so the screening certainly affected its first audiences.

Indie Wire says: Boring, flat, and such a criminal waste of Lady Gaga that we should demand a public hearing, “Folie à Deux” tries and fails to make a point of our own frustrations with it.

Joker, aka Arthur Fleck, meets Gaga’s Harley Quinn in prison. There’s singing and dancing. The Guardian writes: “the whole movie finally turns out to be oppressively, claustrophobically and repetitively becalmed in that oddly unreal Gotham-universe jail with Phoenix and Gaga kept apart for long periods – and Phoenix’s own performance is as single-note as before, though certainly as forceful and his screen presence is potent.”

Variety: “desperate-to-be-darkly-irreverent but actually rather clunky and earthbound musical sequel”

The Wrap — which oddly marked it as “Fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes — : It’s a sad, pensive, and impressively odd motion picture that uses the theatricality of movie musicals to undermine its hero’s ambitions instead of elevating them. There’s no business like show business? It’s, like… no. It’s business, you know?

Hollywood Reporter: Gaga is a compelling live-wire presence, splitting the difference between affinity and obsession, while endearingly giving Arthur a shot… Their musical numbers, both duets and solos, have a vitality that the more often dour film desperately needs.

No matter what the reviews are from Venice, audiences will clamor to see this film. I know I will, and I really want to hear the music from Lady Gaga.

SPOILER ALERT: from an interview Phillips did this morning, there’s an indication that Arthur Fleck doesn’t make it out of the movie alive. When asked if he could make another “Joker” film, Phillips responded in the negative. “Have you seen this film?” he said.