Joker: reviews and analysis of the year’s most controversial comic book movie

Every year, between five and 10 movies compete for the Oscars’ Best Picture trophy. It’s the most prestigious award that the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences gives out every year, announced right at the end of the ceremony. And there aren’t any set rules about what constitutes a “best” picture. It’s the movie — for better or worse, depending on the year — that Hollywood designates as its standard bearer for the current moment.

So the film that wins Best Picture essentially represents the American movie industry’s view of its accomplishments in the present and its aspirations for the future.

Ah, Joker. The tale of villainy, pathos, violence, and agony that nabbed a major award at its film festival debut, launched scores of thinkpieces — and raked in more than $93 million at the North American box office in its opening weekend. Until October 4, nearly all the conversations and debates around the film were happening between the small number of critics and moviegoers who saw it in Venice, Toronto, or New York prior to its theatrical release.

But now it’s out, and the conversation can expand. The critics at Vox and its sister site Polygon have plenty of thoughts about Joker’s ambitions, its title character’s origins in comic books, and the way the film treats issues like violence and mental illness. So we hosted a discussion of all of these topics and more with four people who’ve got a lot to say: Vox culture reporter Aja Romano, film critic Alissa Wilkinson, deputy culture editor Allegra Frank, and Polygon comics editor Susana Polo.

Note: The following includes spoilers for the films Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy, and Joker.

About the only thing everyone agrees upon regarding Joker is that it’s kind of a remake of two Martin Scorsese movies: Taxi Driver (1976) and The King of Comedy (1982), both of which star Robert De Niro. In Taxi Driver, De Niro is delusional self-styled vigilante Travis Bickle, a Vietnam vet and violent misanthrope who becomes obsessed with first a campaign worker (Cybill Shepherd), then an underage prostitute (Jodie Foster), and then, ultimately, his own sordid heroic fantasies. In The King of Comedy, De Niro is Rupert Pupkin, a lousy but eternally optimistic stand-up comedian obsessed with late-night comedy host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis) and deluded about his chances of getting on Langford’s show. Pupkin and his equally obsessed friend Masha (Sandra Bernhard) concoct and then conduct a kidnapping to make their dreams come true.

In the buildup to the release of Joker, the much-discussed new antihero film centered on the main villain of the Batman franchise, the media latched onto one specific narrative: that the film had potential to inspire real-world violence, particularly from incels, who some believed might feel some sort of kinship with the movie’s “angry loner” version of the Joker. Pundits worried that the film could even lead to a repeat of the 2012 Aurora, Colorado, mass shooting, which took place at a movie theater showing The Dark Knight Rises. That movie was the final installment in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, the second of which starred Heath Ledger as the Joker and renewed the character’s status as a cultural icon.

Though rumors that the Aurora shooter was inspired by the character of the Joker turned out to be false, the memory is clearly still strong for many people — including victims of the 2012 shooting, some of whom penned an open letter to Warner Bros. asking the studio to push for stricter gun control alongside Joker’s release. This prompted director Todd Phillips to defend his film, noting that it was unfair to blame either The Dark Knight Rises, Joker, or the Joker character himself for the actions or possible actions of mass shooters.

It’s little surprise when a comic book movie makes a killing at the box office — especially when the reviews are strong and the character is massively popular.

And in its first weekend, Joker delivered. The standalone origin story of Batman’s archnemesis, starring Joaquin Phoenix and directed by the Hangover trilogy’s Todd Phillips, grossed about $93.5 million in the US and a total of $234 million worldwide. With mixed-to-positive reviews from critics, positive buzz about Phoenix’s performance, a huge award at its festival debut about a month earlier, and strong interest from fans, the movie was on track for a huge opening from the get-go. (It also didn’t hurt that Joker was the only movie to open in wide release — with 4,734 locations in North America, it had the most expansive October debut ever.)

I’ve been getting death threats.

Not a lot of them. Probably because I gave Joker a lukewarm score of 2.5 out of 5. Also, it’s extremely unlikely any of these people has seen Joker, since it doesn’t open in theaters until October 4.

Joker, a glimpse into the life of Batman’s psychotic arch-nemesis, has somehow become one of the most-reviled and most-defended movies of the year, weeks before being released in theaters. (It comes out on October 4.)

Starring Joaquin Phoenix and directed by Todd Phillips, the movie has already been deemed dangerous by its vocal critics, akin to an incel training manual. To some of the movie’s fans, those critical reviews and negative reactions are just another example of social justice warrior overreach. And in recent days, Joker’s studio Warner Bros. and family members of those killed in the 2012 Aurora, Colorado, mass shooting have been in conversation over the possible danger the movie poses to moviegoers.

Batman’s nemesis, the Joker, is uniquely chilling among supervillains for one very specific reason: He’s never had a definitive origin story. Since his creation in 1940, the Joker has simply been the personification of evil, reinterpreted by various writers to fit the story they want to tell on the page or screen.

The Joker’s seeming randomness, his refusal to be limited by any moral code or any whiff of history, is scary as hell. He’s what humans have always feared and fought: evidence of an uncaring universe, one that strikes at random. And personifications of inexplicable, snickering evil have shown up throughout human history, from folklore and legend all the way to characters like No Country for Old Men’s Anton Chigurh, who stalks around with a captive bolt stunner randomly killing people based on the flip of a coin.

It’s time for the last laugh: Warner Bros. released the final trailer for Joker, its standalone origin story for Batman’s infamous archvillain.

The final trailer gives us a deeper, if not linear, look at Arthur Fleck’s descent into madness and becoming the Joker. Fleck (played by Joaquin Phoenix) begins as a little bit odd but ostensibly harmless — he just wants to make people laugh. But society doesn’t give him that chance, with everyone from a concerned mother on a bus to late-night comedian Murray Franklin (played by Robert De Niro) picking him apart for his sense of humor and stomping on his dreams. For Arthur, being misunderstood by society is death by a thousand cuts, and Franklin’s rebuke in particular awakens his psychopathic alter ego.