Critics slam ‘excruciatingly dull’ Joker sequel as audiences walk out

Critics have savaged it, audiences are hating it - even an Aussie Olympian has announced he walked out of the “sh*t” Joker sequel early.

Director Todd Philips’ 2019 film Joker was that rarest of films: A billion-dollar grossing box office smash that was also a hit with the critics and even earned leading man Joaquin Phoenix a Best Actor Academy Award.

Five years later, and the sequel Joker: Folie A Deux, which adds Lady Gaga into the mix as the Joker’s love interest Harley Quinn, is debuting to a very different reception.

It’s received a critical mauling, and currently has a score of 48 out of 100 on review aggregation website Metacritic, based on 35 leading reviews. That puts it below even Francis Ford Coppola’s poorly-received recent flop Megalopolis, with a score of 55.

Of course, many a critically slammed film has found huge success with audiences, but there are numerous reports on social media from viewers claiming people booed and even walked out of their screenings of the film – some of whom apparently never got the memo that this Joker film is also a musical.

These anecdotal audience reactions seem to demonstrate a common complaint among critics: That the film has a “disdain” for its audience.

“Never seen it happen before but every musical set piece this film did, more and more people kept leaving the theatre,” one viewer tweeted.

One viewer called the sequel “30% smoking, 70% singing.” Picture: Warner Bros.

“This is the first screening in a LONG time where I heard the audience groan and saw several people throwing their faces into their hands,” one film buff shared after a screening this week. “I don’t blame them. That ending – OOF.”

Another audience member tweeted that the film was “in a nutshell: 30% Smoking, 70% Singing. The whole audience sighed every time they started singing yet another song.”

Even Australian Olympian Harry Garside gave a damning review, revealing in a TikTok video that he’d just walked out of the film “15 to 20 minutes” before the end.

“Joker 2 was the biggest f**king letdown … had enough. That sucked. It was like a musical, and I love musicals, but it was a sh*t musical.”

Harry Garside was not a fan.

The sequel adds Lady Gaga – and a whole lot of singing – into the mix. Picture: KENA BETANCUR / AFP

“Wish I stayed at home and got my house mate to repeatedly punch me in the face instead,” Garside captioned the video.

Those savage critic’s reviews start to look kind by comparison – here are a sample:

“How can you screw up a movie that has Lady Gaga? Here’s how: Make it claustrophobic, with the first half a brutal prison picture and the second half an excruciatingly dull courtroom drama,” says the San Fransisco Chronicle.

The New York Times calls the film “a dour, unpleasant slog,” complaining that “it is hard to know why it was made or for whom.”

Vanity Fair says the sequel is “startlingly dull, a pointless procedural that seems to disdain its audience.”

Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga in a scene from Joker: Folie a Deux

“In addition to being a lousy musical, Folie à Deux is also a dreadfully dull courtroom drama,” says the Boston Globe.

Newscorp’s own Leigh Paatsch calls the film the “greatest folly of 2024,” dubbing the film “a karaoke night in hell” in a withering one-and-a-half star review.

There have been some good reviews, though: Outlets including The independent, The Telegraph and NME have all awarded the film four stars, with the Independent’s reviewer singling out Phoenix’s “powerful and stirring performance.”

Meanwhile, Lady Gaga’s companion album to the film, Harlequin, is opening to surprisingly soft numbers for the star. The album, largely made up of covers of jazz standards, looks set to debut in the lower reaches of the top 20 in the US and miss the top 40 altogether in the UK.

Gaga’s last movie soundtrack, for A Star Is Born, sold more than six million copies worldwide.