Mark Hislop

What a waste of a great cast, most of whom did not play to their known potential and who were not helped by an often cartoonish script. The movie was tedious, melodramatic, moralizing and -- despite its pretensions towards gravitas -- ultimately superficial and patronizing. A hermaphrodite pope? Why not, when the clearly flawed other "certainly" male aspirants are so wretchedly unsuitable? The conceit that, in a world dominated by venal, ambitious men, only a saint can rescue the Church is trite and laughable.

Oh dear. What a monstrosity.

The film is an event, but an ultimately vacuous one. As good an actor as Joaquim Phoenix is, he can't rescue the film from its relentless emptiness. Despite the many and varied inducements offered to make Arthur Fleck sympathetic, nothing creates the kind of compassion for him that might make his transition to the Joker meaningfully relatable. Instead, it's gratuitous ... like the movie itself.

Barely believable story punctuated by gratuitous non sequiturs. Tedious and taxing. One can only suspend so much disbelief before risking psychosis. Taking daddy issues to the edge of the solar system as a gateway to understanding The Meaning of Life? Quite: if it doesn't sound plausible in a review, imagine watching it for 2 hours on a screen. Take Option B: Do. Not. Bother.