Joker Review: 9 Ups & 3 Downs

1. What Comes Next...

This is a difficult point to address. It's one that has already been widely explored and used to accuse, prosecute and execute Joker a lot before it's even come out, but there has to be an intelligent conversation about it.

Through very little fault of its own - and this is absolutely partly why the film is so hard-hitting and so important and so darkly beautiful - Joker is going to be a zeitgeist defining movie for people looking to find a reason to feel victimised. Unfortunately, some people are going to look at this movie, which doesn't preach about condemning fantasies, hyper-violence, delusions and dangerous celebrity obsession and all their going to see is the Kill The Rich slogan plastered over it. Or the We Are All Clowns.

Unfortunately, because Joker could never have been a movie about a criminal traditionally brought to justice, there's also an element of over-glorification that will, in the wrong hands, end dangerously. Because Joker and the Gotham protests are not misplaced, they are presented as just reactions to an unjust world, but because that world is so realistic, it's going to kick up a hornets' nest.

Let's just hope that audiences all take away what the RIGHT message is. This is not an overt castigation of the movie, though the approach could have been different certainly. Todd Phillips has been quoted as saying quite openly that he made a comic book movie solely to get eyes on it - that's slightly dangerous too.

It's going to need a lot more talking and this isn't quite the place to do it, but to fail to acknowledge it - no matter how many accusations of snowflakery there might be - would be wrong.

What did you think of Joker? Share your thoughts in the comments thread.