Why do people dislike Joker (2019)?

[numberthirty]

Stranger things have happened in real life. Plenty of movements were started by "nobodies".

The idea that he "Started It..." is sort of iffy.

[ed2962]

I'm not sure I get the criticism that it's not like comic. Up until recently, the Joker didn't have a definitive back story, so what is it that the movie was not being faithful to? Did people want to see him use more poison gas or something?

[Kirby101]

Disliking a film because it borrows elements from previous works, even heavily, is pretty cringe. There is no way you can be consistent with that opinion, like, if you dislike Joker for copying elements from a previous creator....you can't like something like Star Wars, you just can't.

I would also say that as reviewer, if you gave Joker a negative review because its too much like Taxi Driver...you are 100% gatekeeping and have failed in your career. Most people haven't seen Taxi Driver, but they might watch it if they watched the Joker and liked it. I started watching Scorsese films as a preamble to Joker and I'm sure others did as well. Not to mention Joker is still a different film from Taxi Driver...like a lot.

Here is the difference, I don't dislike Joker because it is Scorsese lite. I didn't sit there and say "how dare they steal from Scorsese!" It was more the obvious Scorsese pastiche hampered me from liking it. It got in the way of me liking it when I kept seeing the attempts to make it look like a Scorsese film. I hope I explained the difference.

[SiegePerilous02]

Neil Gaiman once said that when people say they hate something, they're usually right but when they try to explain why they hate something, they're usually wrong. The reaction to Joker is a perfectly good example of this. Claiming it isn't a comic book movie because it doesn't follow arbitrary rules for what a comic book movie is like is intellectually dishonest and calling it out for lack of accuracy to the source material is not only laughably hypocritical* but ignores the fact that it adapts a character who coined the term "multiple choice past".

*These same people have no issue with other comic book movies taking just as many if not more divergences from the source material as long as it fits a tone they enjoy.

You use the Gaiman quote a LOT, and it always comes across as a shield to dismiss opinions/criticisms you don't like.

With everything being subjective and depending on execution, the Gaiman quote is way too simplistic and comes across as BS.

[Kirby101]

It's not an argument about comic book movie purity. It's that I, and others feel that the comic book aspects of this movie were thrown on to get a bigger audience. This movie is more a sequel to King of Comedy than anything in The Batman comics. As I said earlier, It could have been called The Clown and all the Gotham elements removed and it would not have changed anything about the character or the story. That is why.

[Gaius]

It’s more that I found it a an uninteresting Taxi Driver riff than that it was doing a Taxi Driver riff.

Then again Joker in the comics has never been an interesting character so trying to make a good movie about such a fundamentally boring character when they remove most of the things that make him at least tolerable or entertaining was always a tall order.

[superduperman]

Most of the criticism I saw of it was from movie snobs who complained it was too much like a Scorcesee movie. I saw it more as an homage. But the 8 year old Bruce was the most problematic. If they were going to put Batman in it at all, he should have been mentioned in passing as a vigilante the police are looking for or something. Having a 30 year old Batman beating up on a 60-70 year old Joker is just unnerving. Thomas Wayne just came off as an *******. This recent trend of re-writing his father as a dick (they did it in Batman Damned as well) is kind of a bad take.

[SiegePerilous02]

Most of the criticism I saw of it was from movie snobs who complained it was too much like a Scorcesee movie. I saw it more as an homage. But the 8 year old Bruce was the most problematic. If they were going to put Batman in it at all, he should have been mentioned in passing as a vigilante the police are looking for or something. Having a 30 year old Batman beating up on a 60-70 year old Joker is just unnerving. Thomas Wayne just came off as an *******. This recent trend of re-writing his father as a dick (they did it in Batman Damned as well) is kind of a bad take.

I don't care for it either.
It's entirely due to the fact that he's a billionaire. And billionaires suck in real life, but I don't get the need to make a good fictional one an ******* just because reality blows.

[Kirby101]

Most of the criticism I saw of it was from movie snobs who complained it was too much like a Scorcesee movie. I saw it more as an homage. But the 8 year old Bruce was the most problematic. If they were going to put Batman in it at all, he should have been mentioned in passing as a vigilante the police are looking for or something. Having a 30 year old Batman beating up on a 60-70 year old Joker is just unnerving. Thomas Wayne just came off as an *******. This recent trend of re-writing his father as a dick (they did it in Batman Damned as well) is kind of a bad take.

That is unfair. It wasn't an affront that it was too much trying to be a Scorsese movie, it just got in the way of me liking the movie, the ever present thought in my mind "he is doing Scorsese" was an impediment. I am not saying it had to bother everyone, and it's fine you liked it. But please don't insult us who found it bothersome.

[Farealmer]

So do most of the people who liked Joker.




Under which law?




It's a movie about a guy who goes mad and starts dressing like a clown while committing crimes. That's as Joker as you can get.



More often than not, the opposite happens. There are way more people using other comic book movies to crap on Joker and claiming there shouldn't be movies like it. It's not enough for people who hate this movie or just have a neutral reaction to just say their peace and move on. They write entire dissertations about how it isn't a true comic book movie because of some rule they made up and only succeeded because it borrowed from other stories as if superheroes haven't been doing the same thing since inception.

It's called having an opinion. I have mine and you have yours, it's clear we don't agree what with you calling me an "******* fanboy" in your reply to me. So I really don't know what you expect out of replying to me other than an argument. One that will go no where because we both already made up our minds about this and you already seemed to have made your mind up about me and my opinion. This was a thread about opinions. I gave mine, you disagree cool that's all that needed to be said. The personal attack stuff wasn't needed at all. Nor the appeal to authority using the Neil quote.

[superduperman]

That is unfair. It wasn't an affront that it was too much trying to be a Scorsese movie, it just got in the way of me liking the movie, the ever present thought in my mind "he is doing Scorsese" was an impediment. I am not saying it had to bother everyone, and it's fine you liked it. But please don't insult us who found it bothersome.

I was actually referring to professional movie critics who think that comic books movies should "stay in their own lane". Like I said, I saw it more as an homage to Scorcesee. I think the Scorcesee references were deliberate. Whether or not they were distracting is entirely dependent on whether or not that's what you think it should be. The idea of a young Batman beating up on a geriatric Joker and the portrayal of Thomas Wayne bothered me more.

[Farealmer]

This recent trend of re-writing his father as a dick (they did it in Batman Damned as well) is kind of a bad take.

This too. They also did it in the telltale games. Someone I talked with about the movie said making Thomas a dick also turns his death from a tragedy that could happen to anyone to a dick getting some kind of comeuppance. Which in turns diminishes Batman.

[Master Planner]

It was a good film, a decent Taxi Driver for youngsters and used Joker's name as a hook to attract more people in theaters. Because it was something different from the usual comic book movie formula, people overpraised it, to the point that it became annoying.

[Pinsir]

This too. They also did it in the telltale games. Someone I talked with about the movie said making Thomas a dick also turns his death from a tragedy that could happen to anyone to a dick getting some kind of comeuppance. Which in turns diminishes Batman.

That has always kind of been an element to the Batman mythos though, like the fact that the Waynes are rich and they are killed by a crime induced by poverty. The Nolan films tried to address this by making the Waynes into 'good' billionaires and, just as a sort of real world reference, rich people often justify their wealth through their philanthropy. If we as a society are increasingly becoming aware that billionaires are a corrupting influence, shouldn't this be reflected in our media?

[Farealmer]

That has always kind of been an element to the Batman mythos though, like the fact that the Waynes are rich and they are killed by a crime induced by poverty. The Nolan films tried to address this by making the Waynes into 'good' billionaires and, just as a sort of real world reference, rich people often justify their wealth through their philanthropy. If we as a society are increasingly becoming aware that billionaires are a corrupting influence, shouldn't this be reflected in our media?

So is Batman. I am not ready to turn him into a villain because he's rich though.