People love a great villain, the more demented his actions, the more fascinated they are by him and Joker is hypnotically addicting in that sense. It probably was expected that Joaquin Phoenix is going to be astonishing as the Joker. He has been groundbreaking in almost every role he has taken upon himself. If you never really grasped the fine line between what acting vs. performing is, Joaquin Phoenix’s embodiment of Joker is where that fine line vanishes completely.
Joker is most likely going to be a turning point in Joaquin Phoenix’s career. After 3 Oscar nominations (and winning a Golden Globe, Grammy, and Critics Choice Award), this might just be his year to win all the awards.

In the center of the movie is the story of Arthur Fleck, the loser basket case mamma’s-boy, a mentally demented freak, who as legend has it, will become Batman’s most fierce’s nemesis.

Phoenix’s astonishing performance becomes even more so groundbreaking if you consider he is in almost every scene of this two-hour-long movie. Director, Todd Phillips, has set the movie to 1980’s Gotham City, yet he really has made it a point to make this a homage to Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, he even goes as far as beholding to his idols by casting Robert De Niro as the late-night talk-show host, Murray Franklin, which Arthur and his mom love watching together.

One of the comic book fans first complaints on the Todd Phillips film is that he messes things up in Joker, he has made a comic book side-characters origin story become more fascinating than the one of the main character, namely of Batman, the flip side of this is that maybe Phillips just was able to re-imagine what a comic book movie can or should be.

Joker gives us an unforgettable powerful experience that is hard to shake off. Phoenix puts a human face on an iconic villain that hammers home again and again. A very easy Thumbs Up!