Joker Trailer 2 Review: 9 Ups & 3 Downs

2. It Feels Like Something Is Being Held Back

Watch the trailer back and there are flashes of something in there that the trailer (and the one before this) doesn't really show properly and it's a real shame. Because there's a distinct possibility that this film is not entirely as conventional as we might believe it to be on first appearance.

Think about it: it's influenced by Taxi Driver, we have a lead character in therapy who clearly struggles with his grip on reality and we have the entire weight of the Joker's history as a psychotic figure. Put them all together and you get an unreliable narrator like none other and huge capacity for episodes within his story that do not reflect reality. Fantasy sequences. And when you have fantasy sequences dreamed up by the mind that creates the Joker, why wouldn't we want to see them?

The reason this is being brought up is that the trailer seems to hint at them - the dancing at the end and the dancing on the steps sequence - but then the rest of the trailer is set up as a conventional narrative. It's just a shame they're not a bigger part of the sell.