I'm writing this post because it's getting very low ratings. From the reviews that I read, many people say it doesn't meet their expectations of what a superhero movie should be.
I'm not a capeshit enjoyer. I chose to see Joker 2 because Joker 1 had vague themes of "defunding welfare programs is bad". In the first movie, Joker loses access to his mental illness medication because the politicians defund the welfare programs and that leads Joker to start doing crimes.
What I liked about Joker 2 is that everyone around him wants to make him miserable, but instead he chooses to be happy. In my opinion, it is the most pure example of absurdity. The whole world wants to make Joker miserable and he is powerless to change other people, but he can deny giving the world what they want so he chooses to laugh. I find that to be entertaining.
The movie was about 60% musical. Whenever Joker starts to hallucinate, everyone starts singing. I think it was okay, but other people did not like that. You probably won't like the movie if you are expecting it to follow the superhero movie formula.
Have you or someone you're not wiling to disown ever liked a piece of entertainment that was considered bad, toxic, or just cringe? What about something made by a problematic person?
Well, I'm sorry, but you're no longer woke or antifa. Go down to the secret GAY AND TRANS ALLIANCE Headquarters in your town, located in either the backroom of a craft store or else a study room in a public library and turn in your woke card. Then go to the nearest gun store or church and talk to the man there to enroll in membership to the alt-right.
But on a serious note
I liked the first Joker movie. Nothing incredible, but a decent movie, relaxing way to kill an afternoon. I'll probably see Joker 2. I've seen some very negative reviews from people I follow on Twitter, but that's not necessarily damning. I follow a lot of, not necessarily film snobs, but people who have watching films as like their main hobby, and many of them are amateur film critics. I saw a lot of those people say Joker was too-closely aping Scorsese's King of Comedy and Taxi Driver but despite loving Scorsese's post-80s body of work I still haven't seen many of his older films, those included.
Most damning review I saw was from someone who felt about the same about Joker 1 as I did. It was something like "Joker may not have been the greatest movie ever made, but it was never boring. Folie à Deux misses the mark set by the first film."
But as I say, I still intend to see it. I went into Joker 1 kind of expecting it to be terrible, and was pleasantly surprised it wasn't. Going to try to approach 2 the same way.