Agree, the writing could have been much better.
I still rate the movie 8/10 because of amazing cinematography, visuals & the way they captured the 80s New York, music & soundtrack, some shocking moments, the last 15 minutes and of course the acting.
I am thinking why the writing didn't have so much strength for a movie like this. I could boil down to this:-
a. The foremost was that Arthur was already shown vulnerable enough right from the beginning to get driven into Joker's psychosis. If we consider the moments in chronological order which pushed him to insanity step by step, they are :-
1. getting beaten down by the street gang
2. getting rebuked by his boss for not returning the sign
3. getting fired by his boss for carrying a gun at the kids hospital
4. getting beaten up by Wayne's employees and retaliating
5. getting mocked by Murray and being called at the show to make fun of him
6. learning that he was adopted and abused as a child
7. learning that his mother was right about the relationship when he saw the photo with Thomas Wayne's initials (debatable)
Its ok but you can see the first 3-4 incidences are shallow, everyday happenstance. The script relied on the premise that Arthur already had psychological problems right from the beginning and that he could easily get driven insane & get triggered by some series of events. This made a writer's 'Ease'. And for a movie, these events were too simple & contemporary.
When I watched the trailer which showed him getting beaten up, I was indeed thinking 'Really, that's going to be the part of origin story?' The events which we see are not so tragic or unconventional; the writers could have thought about something else, more powerful & unique.
At the end, the evolution of Joker persona doesn't come with a very tragic past after he got normal from initial hospitalization. His Joker pshychosis largely relies on the childhood days which is not elaborated or made clear.
The writers hence implied :-
"Look, this guy is already a psycho, we are not going to show you how he went psycho in first place. We are going to show you how he turned into a murdering-psyhco by showing how he was bullied and mocked and dejected. Enjoy."
b. No great Dialogs. Unlike TDK, Joker didn't have some great dialogs which was very much anticipated and essential to have this movie reach to that level of greatness. The dialogs were good, but not as great as TDK
...shall continue later.
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AnubisRaydeen (7897)
5 years ago
This! But I rate it more like 5.5/10 and I think the end is the weakest part of the movie. The riots don't make sense and Arthur is just a busted loon, not a super villain. I did not watch the birth of a super villain. I watched some mentally ill blue collar guy, down on his luck, snap and murder some people. The script felt cringy when it was trying to be at its most poignant.
JP rocked it though.
The A+ scenes that float this movie:
Arthur on the train interacting with the mother and child.
Tai Chi to calm down.
Hospital scene.
Asylum records scene.
Gary in the apartment.
The rest was wet gunpowder.
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