THB #602: Joker 2 - Review à Deux

I returned to Joker 2 over the weekend and while I’m not 100% sure how I will feel about it next month, I had the feeling by the end of the film that this may be one of those movies that it “rediscovered” in a few years and actually become a critics’ favorite.

I know… sounds nuts.

But having seen and digested the film once before, a lot of it played very differently for me the second time… including a surprising degree of reflection on Donald Trump in the tale.

Before getting into the movie again, a little about the response, particularly within the bubble.

To my eye, the #1 problem in the reception of the movie is that Warners didn’t make a mistake in greenlighting the film or giving Todd Phillips too much rope, but how it sold the film and managed the negative reaction in Venice.

If you look at CinemaScore - yes, there are some real uses for it… though it has now made it into TV ads and that is absurd - the times you see films with Ds or Fs coming from the people who most want to see t…