Comedian and actor Tim Dillon has some strong opinions about Joker: Folie à Deux after appearing in the sequel film.
“I was in Joker 2, which just came out. It’s the worst film that has ever been made,” Dillon, 39, declared during a recent interview on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. “I think what happened, after the first Joker, there was a lot of talk like, ‘Oh, this was loved by incels. This was loved by the wrong kinds of people. This sent the wrong kind of message[s]. Male rage! Nihilism!’ All these think pieces. And then I think [they said], ‘What if we went the other way,’ and now they have Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga tap dancing to a point where it’s insane.”
Dillon appeared as an Arkham State Hospital guard in the film, which hit theaters on October 4. The movie picks up with Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck as he is institutionalized while waiting to face trial for the crimes he committed in 2019’s Joker. It’s at Arkham that he meets Gaga’s Lee Quinzel (a.k.a. Harley Quinn) and the two spark romance and cause chaos.
The film uses several musical scenes to portray Arthur’s inner feelings as he struggles with his dual personalities. Dillon, for his part, strongly disagrees with director Todd Phillips’ creative choices.
‘Joker: Folie a Deux’ Ending Explained: That Explosive Plot Twist
“It has no plot. We would sit there, me and these other guys were all dressed in these f—-ing security outfits ‘cause we’re working at the Arkham Asylum, and I would turn to one of them and we’d hear this crap and I’d go, ‘What the f— is this?’” he said. “And they’d go, ‘This is going to bomb, man.’ I go, ‘This is the worst thing I’ve ever [seen].’”
He continued: “We would talk about [it] at lunch. We’d go, ‘What is the plot? Is there a plot? I don’t know, I think he falls in love with her in the prison?’ It’s not even hate-watchable. That’s how terrible it is.”
In the film, Arthur admits his guilt for his crimes during his trial by renouncing his Joker alter ego, causing Harley and his followers to abandon him. Back at Arkham, a fellow prisoner fatally stabs Arthur before the inmate cuts a smile onto his face, seemingly carrying on the image and persona of the Joker.
“He’s accepted the fact that he’s always been Arthur Fleck; he’s never been this thing that’s been put upon him, this idea that Gotham’s people put on him, that he represents,” Phillips, 53, told Entertainment Weekly last month of the titular character’s fate. “He’s an unwitting icon. This thing was placed on him, and he doesn’t want to live as a fake anymore — he wants to be who he is.”
Unlike the original film — which scored a 68% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and earned over $1 billion at the box office — Joker: Folie à Deux was met with negative reviews and earned a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 32%.
Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga ‘Lost A Lot of Weight’ for ‘Joker’ Sequel
However, the sequel did earn high praise from Quentin Tarantino, who confessed he “really liked it” during an October episode of “The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast.” He stated: “I really got caught up into it. I really liked the musical sequences. I got really caught up. I thought the more banal the songs were, the better they were. I find myself listening to the lyrics of ‘For Once in My Life’ in a way I never have before.”
Tarantino, 61, went on to praise Phillips for approaching making a comic book movie from a different perspective. “He’s saying f— you to all of them. He’s saying f— you to the movie audience. He’s saying f— you to Hollywood. He’s saying f— you to anybody who owns any stock at DC and Warner Brothers,” he said. “And Todd Phillips is the Joker. Un film de Joker, all right, is what it is. He is the Joker.”