With that being said, let's get the ball rolling.
I'll be discussing and describing some scenes of the movie and talking about my thoughts about it all. So partially this is a plot analysis, and partly a review, and partly a I don't even know. Enjoy the ride.
Gotham's clown prince of evil. The physical embodiment of the element of chaos. The Batman's archnemesis for years and years, who plagues Gotham with death, destruction, and craziness.
DC, my oh my, you've given yourself a chance to make it big in the movie industry. Your past several films, while I appreciate them because the Dark Knight holds a special place in my heart, for the most part have not been viewed in the best ways in the public eye. Sure Wonder Woman was a smash hit, and Shazam and Aquaman seem to have done well. But Justice League is highly frowned upon. You made Superman too powerful. I know he's supposed to be a godlike alien who has powers that can match other extraterrestrials. But to say that the Justice League pretty much had no effect on Steppenwolf until Superman showed up is saying something about your power distribution. Batman V Superman showed that Superman is not nearly as tough as he's supposed to be, what with Doomsday killing him. But then you overshot it with his abilities in Justice League. His speed is just as fast, if not faster, than the Flash, he's strong enough to withstand Wonder Woman, Cyborg, and Aquaman all at once, and still react to the Flash.
Anyways, this isn't about the Justice League. This is about Joker.
From the look of things, it seems pretty clear that Joker is not a part of the current DCU where Ben Affleck is Batman and you have the Justice League. I mean perhaps it can rewrite the timelines to fit in with the Batfleck, but I think there's a better shot to take a new angle. I do like the Batfleck, so if Ben were to reprise his role as the Batman in some future movie, that would be great. In the movie, it is established that this is early in the superhero history as Thomas Wayne is very much alive and well and is actually running to be Mayor of Gotham. They do portray Thomas Wayne as a darker person and not as good as previous films have established the Wayne's to be. For example, in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, Thomas Wayne was a good guy who wouldn't want harm to come to anyone's way if he could help it. They also state in Batman Begins that Thomas nearly bankrupted Wayne Enterprises to help fight poverty in Gotham during Gotham's depression. So it's definitely a shocker to see that Thomas Wayne is a brute force in Gotham and would refer to the corrupt or impoverished people of Gotham as "clowns".
The main plot of Joker focuses on the day to day life of Arthur Fleck. Arthur is a disturbed individual who clearly has some sort of psychological deficiency, and has a mental disorder that you are led to believe makes him have uncontrollable laughter fits, despite his emotions not aligning with the laughter to warrant it. He could be sad or angry but still be laughing. The movie will never explicitly show anything that would state that he was diagnosed with a condition for that laughter. Or maybe it did and I missed it while trying to absorb all the information that I could.
Throughout the movie, Penny Fleck, Arthur's mother, is constantly trying to contact Thomas Wayne to try to get financial help as they are both living in an apartment, and she cannot go to work because of her condition and has become fully dependent on her son. At one point in the movie, Penny had a letter she had written to try to send to Thomas once again, and Arthur would open and read the letter. She begs for Thomas to help as she states that Arthur is Thomas and her son. That Thomas had left them. It would later be proved that he isn't related to the Wayne's and that it was just part of a delusion.
This part threw the audience for a loop as you are led to believe, at least at that point in the movie, that Penny Fleck is not lying and that Arthur is truly Thomas Wayne's son. There would later be an interaction with a young Bruce Wayne, presumably 8 years old (and if you're wondering how I can estimate his age, I'll get to that later) in which a younger Alfred shows up to dismiss Arthur from the gates of Wayne Manor.
Arthur is clearly not someone that anyone of any major significance in Gotham would care about. He's a clown for a job. He does whatever gigs his agency can get him. He does small things, and things that are clearly not super lucrative, hence his poor living status with his mother. You watch several times as people of all ages and all background come to beat up on the psychologically different/deranged or the presumably lesser people. It ranges from teenagers and kids beating up on Arthur, to people who work for Wayne Enterprises on Wall Street. They see themselves as better and pick on the seemingly smaller guy who would most likely not do anything in retaliation.
But Arthur is an exception. He breaks and kills 3 Wayne employees, while wearing his clown makeup. It would be the start of a major build up to the climax of the movie. Clowns are begun to be hailed as heroes among the darker underworld of Gotham. The murder of those 3 men are mourned by the rich and higher class, while the lower class celebrate the murderer.
While Arthur suffers physical beatings, he also suffers mental beatings. He plays out some idea that he is going to be a great comedian, yet all of his jokes are too dark or are not taken to be funny by any means. He gets ridiculed by talk show hosts, and he would be laughed at rather than laughed with. Any man can only take so much beating before reaching a breaking point. Even more so for someone who clearly shows a need for psychological help.
The climax of the movie gets to where there is a demonstration of politics where many of the lower class would paint up or wear masks similar to the design of Arthur's makeup. Clowns everywhere. There is chaos. There are burning cars. Riots up and down every street of Gotham. Arthur in the middle of it all, but from the back of a police cruiser because he openly murdered the talk show host he once hailed as a hero but then twisted his image of him because of the ridicule he received.
In all of the chaos. one family, a husband, a wife, and young child, are trying to run for safety as Gotham is tearing itself apart from the inside, escape a theater and run down an alleyway. This family was not just some common Gotham family. Not even just some random family within the upper class of Gotham. It was the pinnacle of the upper class. The crown jewel of Gotham's top end. Gotham royalty basically. Thomas, Martha, and Bruce Wayne. And in the chaos and in the demonstrations of violence and chaos and craziness, one clown follows them down the alleyway and calls out to Thomas Wayne. "Wayne, you're going to get what you [redacted] deserve!" (I censored the language). 2 loud gunshots are heard. The flying pieces of a broken pearl necklace fly everywhere. Thomas and Martha Wayne lie dead on the ground in that alleyway. Leaving a young (presumably) 8 year old Bruce Wayne to stand there in shock as he looks at his murdered parents lying lifeless. His entire world thrown upside down. His innocence lost. Bruce Wayne's journey into becoming vengeance begins.
The movie ends with Arthur being evaluated in a psychiatric ward. It's not too far to assume it's Arkham Asylum. Or I suppose Arkham State Hospital as they call it.
Powerful scene. The effects of what one man can have. They always say "never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers". Not to say that the less fortunate of Gotham (or any society) are instantly stupid, but that even stupid people in large numbers can cause ripples beyond themselves. Madness is like gravity, all it takes is a single push.
So why do I describe various scenes in the movie. Well, partially is so that I can relive the movie. I am trying to refresh myself on what I watched and how I can better absorb the information. Some things are out of order here, but you can now go into the movie with some understanding and have a chance to analyze various parts that I may or may not have missed.
Back to the main point I mentioned in the beginning. DC has an excellent shot at making it big in the movie industry. Joker was incredibly messed up and beyond dark. Darker than anything I've ever seen before, but perhaps that's because I don't watch any dark movies for the most part unless there's an aspect that catches my interest. It shows the true embodiment of chaos that Joker is supposed to be. The dark and twisted ways of a man who feels no happiness and who has had enough of the world beating up on him.
With the ending showing and reminding the audience yet again of Bruce Wayne's tragic moment, this could definitely lead into something greater that DC could leverage and gain a solid following with. If they focus on their story building and not focus on just rushing movies out to match Marvel's pace, they could build something. Marvel, in my opinion, is on the decline for now as they finished their Infinity Saga. The hype train has died down, but you'll have your diehards who will watch every movie that is associated with Marvel. I'm sure the MCU is not down for the count as new fans will join up and perhaps some old ones will fall back in.
DC's heroes have been known to be on the darker side. Darker than the MCU. Ironman and Captain America do have their character flaws and tragic moments in history, but they aren't dark heroes. Batman and Superman are dark heroes. They are built on a whole lot of darkness. Superman lost his entire world and all his people and he just has to protect Earth from outside invasions so that Earth doesn't become another Krypton. Batman loses his parent's early in his childhood and has to live with grief and aggression to fight the injustices of his city and of the world. These characters are not bright and colorful and happy all the time. Sure you can't make them 100% dark and somber, because people would become disinterested. But a darker take on Batman is a take that I believe can tie in very nicely with this new Joker.
There have been rumors that Robert Pattinson's Batman that will be featured in 2021 in The Batman will be in the same universe as this Joker. It would be interesting to see what they plan to do. Joker in this movie was already in his 30's, while Bruce is just an 8 year old boy. If we follow the timeline of the Dark Knight from Christopher Nolan's trilogy, Bruce won't be Batman until he's 30-31 (I've tried calculating the time. He was 8 at the murder of his parents, then 14 years later Joe Chill is up for early release, and then he goes away for 7 years, but I'm unsure if those 7 years are counting however long his training with the League of Shadows was, but then he comes back to Gotham and has a birthday, so he would be about 30 I guess). If you go off of my calculations, it would be 22 years until Bruce puts on the cowl, and by then if Arthur is still the Joker, then he should be about 52 years old. He might actually be older since the patient files in Arkham State Hospital are 30 years old, and Arthur's mom (who actually adopted Arthur) was charged for negligence, so Arthur is older than 30. Such an age difference does not make sense how Arthur can be the Joker when Bruce is old enough to be the Batman. Unless they change the timelines and at which point Bruce becomes Gotham's Dark Knight, I can't see how a 30 year old would have a struggle against a 50+ year old crazed psychopath.
Perhaps I'm overthinking it, but yes, here it is. Various, nonchronologically placed events of Joker as well as my mumbled and jumbled thoughts. It's 1:40 a.m., and I have no idea why I stayed up so late to author this. I actually started this a long while ago. It's been maybe 40 minutes of my writing this one post. I'm going to go to bed, and maybe when I wake up and when my mind is clear, I can have more coherent thoughts or new perspectives, but honestly, most likely not. Good night everyone.
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