Since its debut a few weeks ago at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the top prize, Todd Phillips’s “Joker” has stirred up quite a tempest. Meanwhile, the usual armies of skeptics and fans have squared off with ready-made accusations of bad faith, hypersensitivity and quasi-fascist groupthink. And what I have to say is: Are you kidding me? “Joker,” an empty, foggy exercise in second-hand style and second-rate philosophizing, has none of that. Besotted with the notion of its own audacity — as if willful unpleasantness were a form of artistic courage — the film turns out to be afraid of its own shadow, or at least of the faintest shadow of any actual relevance.

Source: New York Times October 03, 2019 18:00 UTC