When I saw this trailer over the summer, it went to the top of my anticipated movie list for the entire year. The first movie was really good, and the trailer for this one looked so promising. Before going to this one however, I was told by someone that it's a musical, and because Joker's character does sing in the comics, this didn't discourage me. The story follows after the events of the first film, with Arthur now in a correctional facility for killing Murry and the others on the day he went on television. Arthur now has to stand in front of a court to hopefully avoid the death sentence by pleading insanity and claiming the 'Joker' as a second personality. He finds a romantic partner named Lee as she seems to be his biggest fan, and together maybe they can find a happy ending together as she seems to want. I was extremely disapointed with this movie, as was the entire world it seems. First of all, the musical numbers do not go with the story at all. It tries to hard to fit with the story, but it never does. Since there are a large number of musicals throughout this movie, it becomes extremely annoying throughout the film when something interesting happens and mis-sentence Arthur bursts into song and dance. While usually the songs are his imagination to express his feelings or when he spaces out during court, it does not go with the story at all. It feels like a repeat of the first film whenever the court scenes occur while randomly Arthur has a musical moment to express himself (barely). For some positives, I will say all the musicals visually looked amazing and were really cool to look at. The budget was definitely spent there and not on test audiences for this film, because most the scenes in the movie looked really cool and visually impressive. The musical parts itself weren't bad, and yes Lady Gaga as 'Harley Quinn' definitely helped since she has an amazing singing voice, however it was all for nothing since none of those moments helped the story at all. The story was a great concept with the plan (probably) being to convey Joker's insane thoughts through disturbing and whimsical musical numbers similar to the comics, however the conflicting story of him on trial added nothing new to this film, making it feel repetative and the musicals were completely lost due to this. Another positive note was that this movie was still entertaining even if it was extremely flawed. The cinematography during the fully expanded ratio scenes (IMAX version) really showed the setting more than the first film, and this was really cool and fun to see. The musicals, while not fitting the story, still sounded and looked cool, and in IMAX the sound design on them was pretty impressive. I do think the expanded ratio scenes were done well and utilized properly, but I know a good bit of the budget went to filming those IMAX scenes (in 70mm too!) and unfortunately its a big waste since all those scenes are the musical ones. Overall, it's hard to recommend this film since Joker fans will be seeing it regardless, but I guess it's up to you if you think you will find it boring or not.
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