Gerry Zink is 16 year old. He’s Mnicoujou [mini-CON—joo] Lakota from Cheyenne River. And he’s a comics aficionado. He has recently started posting his movie reviews on Facebook. And today he shares his review of a blockbuster film out in theaters now.
Transcript
HOST: Gerry Zink is 16 year old. He’s Mnicoujou [mini-CON—joo] Lakota from Cheyenne River. And he’s a comics aficionado.
He has recently started posting his movie reviews on Facebook.
And today he shares his review of a blockbuster film out in theaters now.
GERRY: The movie “Joker” is a great, thought-provoking character study of Arthur Fleck, and his descent into the sociopathic Joker. If you are expecting Joker to be a superhero movie, then you are going to be surprised with how darkly character driven it is.
The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, a working class clown performer who has dreams of becoming a comedian.
In the beginning, we see some of Arthur’s more disturbing sides, but he can still control them. As the movie progresses, however, we see what social isolation, backstabbing, and abuse can do to a person like Arthur. He becomes more disturbing. The movie wisely does not stylize, sanitize, or justify Arthur’s horrible deeds. The violence is genuinely unnerving and hard to watch.
Joaquin Phoenix is incredible in the movie. He embodies the loneliness, social isolation, and mental disorders that make Arthur such an interesting character. He is somewhat sympathetic, but Arthur is a sociopath and the movie doesn’t mask that. Because the story is told from Arthur’s perspective, it’s up to the viewer to interpret wheather different scenes are real or not. This gives the film an amazing ambiguity that will be discussed for a while.
The only problems with the movie have to do with the fact that it focuses so tightly on Arthur Fleck. There’s not much depth to the supporting characters. The motivations of many of the side characters are intentionally unexplained.
The movie is also a complete deviation from the version of the Joker from other media. If the movie wasn’t called “Joker”, there would be very few connections to the Batman franchise.
In conclusion, I think “Joker” is a game changer for comic book movies. It is an incredible, standalone character piece, that is still able to offer up a great critique of society. I give the movie 9 out of 10.
HOST: That was Gerry Zinc, the 16 year old Lakota comics enthusiast with his review of “Joker”.