[spoiler free review]

The Joker Movieis definitely DC’s darkest hits. I left the movie theater last night like, “what did I just watch?” Joaquin Phoenix did not play the Joker he became the Joker and it was scary. That laugh will haunt us all. Do not expect much laughter as this movie is art imitating life. Usually it’s the other way around.

The movie manages to humanize Joker and give us his origin story. Yes, he’s a villain but it answers the question to why Joker is the way he is. At times during the movie I actually felt bad for him. He really wanted to make everyone smile and then life got in the way and Gotham residences literally kicked him while he was down.

Some theaters refused to show the movie because of its darkness and themes throughout it. The movie is rated R and if you’re old enough to see a rated R movie you should be mature enough to digest the themes. There’s a lot of Joker’s delusion in the movie and it does talk about classism as the residents of Gotham are fed up with the wealthy getting richer and the poor are just getting scraps.

Is this movie disturbing? Yes, but in a Joker Gotham City kind of way. It’s supposed to disturb us and make us question everything we know about villains. I’m up for exploring more origin stories for villains. What else did we expect from his origin story? The Killing Joke back in 2016 kind of prepared us for this when they touched on Joker’s origin. Everyone in the movie laughed at him down to the final scene and he got the last laugh.

Is it “irresponsible” to release this? No, the world will always be a scary place and no matter when this movie is released it will always offend someone as long as capitalism exists.

Critics were worried about people getting inspired by Joker’s ideas but that’s the same hysteria that was around when The Purge was released. The Joker’s sinister ways isn’t anything new we just get a little more of his story. I sincerely hope people weren’t surprised that he is disturbing. He’s been that way in every movie with the exception of Suicide Squad. We don’t talk about Suicide Squad.

Would I Watch It Again? Absolutely! This is nothing short of a masterpiece. I just wished for more at the end. It did the job though. I hope DC does more dark stories instead of trying to compete with Marvel in their lane. DC has disturbing down to a science and Joaquin Phoenix deserves all the awards that are about to come his way. Don’t expect an post credits scene as there isn’t one. Also, if you can watch it in Dolby Theater please do. I just had that experience for the first time yesterday and loved it!