'Joker: Folie à Deux is a musical, just not a very good one'

The creative team behind Joker: Folie à Deux are determined to not call it a musical, they say it has music in it which the characters use whenever they don't know what to say. Well there is no way the film can be described as anything but a musical, it's just not a very good one.

Joker 2 finds Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) in Arkham Asylum, he's been incarcerated after his killing spree in the first film. He is set to stand trial for the five murders (six, really, but the state don't know about Arthur's mother) and during his time in Arkham he meets fellow inmate Lee —not Harley— Quinn (Lady Gaga) and the two soon fall madly in love, or, at least, Arthur does.

Lee is obsessed with Arthur's Joker persona, she's seen the TV movie about him "20 times" and is enamoured with a side of him that his legal team are hoping to prove in court is a second personality. The Joker, they argue, took over and committed the atrocious acts of the first film, and Arthur himself is struggling to decide whether he's himself or he's the Joker everyone wants him to be.

As the criminal gets ready to stand trial where he's at risk of being given the death penalty, Arthur and Lee's romance develops and the former begins to imagine a fantasy where his feelings, and indeed hers, are expressed through music.

Who is this film for? It's not the avid fans of the first Joker film, not when the narrative seems keen to distance itself from them in quite obvious ways, nor is it for musical lovers.

Read more: Lady Gaga's movie career so far, from cameos to Oscars and Joker 2

The fact that Lady Gaga barely has a chance to utilise her incredible vocal range is a crying shame, she spends most of her time singing in a raspy half-voice which means the songs stumble rather than soar. It probably takes a good grasp of technique to achieve this, it's true, but even so it feels like a mistake.

There are a few musical numbers that defy this apparent rule, one inspired by The Sonny and Cher show, and another when the pair first attempt an escape. But the others tend to just exist, they're not interesting and they're performed by Phoenix in an almost half-hearted way.

Okay, they're meant to be representations of Arthur's mental state and are things he imagines are happening, but couldn't they be a little, I don't know, exciting?

The biggest faux-pas of the movie is that it is just plain boring, take away the musical numbers and you're left with a generic court drama that isn't anywhere near as dramatic as it likes to think it is. Harvey Dent is there, but beyond brand name recognition the character gives nothing and could have been any old lawyer, quite frankly.

Even when Arthur decides to represent himself and slaps on the clown make-up again the story takes it nowhere, and that's the issue — Joker 2 is too afraid to commit to anything. Had it gone full camp musical it might have worked well, it could have gone down a much darker road too if it wanted to follow through with the terrifying promise of the first film's final act but it doesn't do that either it only delivers half measures.

Joker 2 also seems determined to undo everything that came before it, Arthur doesn't want to be the person everyone expects him to be and a shocking final scene is clearly trying to suggest the dangers of that level of expectation. It comes across as turning tables on fans just for the sake of it, not because it makes any sort of sense.

The Joker was dark and gritty, and Phoenix earned a well-deserved Oscar for his performance in it but that is unlikely to happen for Joker: Folie à Deux. It's pointless, boring, and doesn't really add anything, which is a shame when the first had such a massive impact.

Joker: Folie à Deux is out now in cinemas.