I went to see Joker 2 last week and, I gotta say, I walked away with the same feelings you’d experience if a high school student (or college student) wrote a sequel to their dystopian fiction project, based on the original. You know what I mean? When a student creates something that’s pure, raw and honest — and then tries to replicate that exact same thing in their next project? That’s what this movie is like.
I’ve used the first Joker film in my classroom for a couple of years now, not necessarily the whole film, but rather some scenes and discussions about how it serves as social commentary. And my students “get” it immediately. They’re able to identify with Arthur Fleck’s total sense of isolation; they’re aware of how society failed him and how economic inequality can lead to violence. It’s dystopian fiction — minus the futuristic setting — and my students can relate to it in a visceral way because they are experiencing their own versions of systemic breakdown.
Joker 2 is the opposite. It’s as if Todd Phillips took all the sharp edges that made the original work, and sanded off the edges so that now nothing exists except for empty gestures.
What really bothers me is how Joker 2 takes Arthur’s story, and assumes that it needs to be continued. One of the first things I tell my students about dystopian literature is that many times the best stories stop at the moment of revelation, or transformation — The Giver, and even The Hunger Games come to mind. The first Joker ends with Arthur totally becoming the symbol of societal rage — that’s a complete arc. Dragging him back for another two hours is like … when my students take a perfectly good short story, and try to extend it into a full-length novel simply because they believe longer equals better.
Phoenix is still delivering some incredible performances — he could probably make reading a phonebook feel emotionally draining — however, even he can’t save what is essentially a very expensive art project that is attempting to pass itself off as social commentary. There is a scene in Joker 2 where Arthur begins to dance again — and it doesn’t feel meaningful in the same way that the staircase scene did in the original — it simply feels…performed. Like the difference between a student writing from the heart, vs. attempting to duplicate something that previously worked.
This thought process always comes back to me whenever I’m working on lesson plans regarding dystopian tropes. The original Joker played around with many of these — the unreliable narrator, the origin story of the villain, the class warfare narrative. However, Joker 2 merely wallows in them. Arthur is still the “broken man becomes the symbol” character; Gotham is still the “the society is collapsing” setting; and the wealthy are still cartoonishly evil. It’s almost like watching a student trace over their previous artwork instead of creating new artwork.
My students would destroy this in a classroom discussion. They are extremely harsh when it comes to identifying lazy writing — possibly because they have to read so much of it. During our unit on contemporary dystopian fiction last month, this student named Marcus tore apart a YA novel for doing the same thing Joker 2 does — repeat themes, but never expand upon them. “They’ve forgotten why the first book was successful,” he stated — and damn it if that is not a perfect description of this sequel.
The visual style is attempting to recreate the original’s dark and gritty atmosphere — but it feels forced now. Those sickly yellow-green colours and those claustrophobic close-ups that were natural-looking in the original, now appear to be an attempt by a director to create a “serious film.” It brings to mind when students discover a writing technique that earns them praise, and then repeatedly use it in every single subsequent assignment.
The most disturbing aspect of the film is how it abandons any authentic social commentary. The first film — regardless of how heavy-handed it was — attempted to address serious issues such as mental health care, economic inequality, and media manipulation. These are serious issues that my students see in their own world. Joker 2 simply waves at those ideas, without ever addressing them. It’s similar to showing footage of riots without providing any analysis; similar to depicting wealth disparities without critiquing them; similar to portraying mental illness as a stylistic choice, rather than a social failure.
I showed a clip from the original Joker to my AP Lit class last spring — the talk show scene — and we spent an entire class discussing how that scene served as social commentary. The students related it to everything from school shooter manifestos to social media radicalization. They identified how Arthur’s transformation represented broader cultural anxieties surrounding isolation, masculinity, violence as a form of communication.
However, when it comes to finding that same level of depth in the sequel? Good Luck. It’s all surface, all style, all….performance without purpose. Similar to a student trying to write a dystopian fiction story that includes all the typical genre elements — oppressive government, class division, violent uprising — but fails to provide any meaningful commentary as to why those elements are important.
All of the supporting characters in the film feel like afterthoughts — introduced solely to allow Arthur to react to them in ways that may help develop his character. Again, this is basic screenwriting 101 — each character should have their own motivation and arc. In the case of Joker 2, the supporting characters are simply there to observe Arthur’s further disintegration — which we already witnessed enough of in the first film.
Oh, and the dancing. Look, I understand that movement can serve as a means of storytelling — I’ve had my students participate in interpretive dance exercises in creative writing classes to assist them in developing character expressions. But when every emotional moment is portrayed as a choreographed dance move, it ceases to become a method of effective communication, and begins to feel like pretentious padding.
Perhaps the worst part is how this mirrors a greater problem in Hollywood’s current model for producing dystopian content. They see something that resonates culturally — something that represents real anxiety and social concerns — and instantly begin asking themselves how they can turn this into a franchise. The original Joker was in part successful due to the fact that it seemed dangerous, unpredictable, and uncomfortable to watch. The sequel feels safe, manufactured, and focus-grouped to be blandly provocative.
My students are acutely aware of disappointing sequels — they’ve lived through the collapse of great franchises, and watched beloved stories be stretched past the breaking point for profit. They understand the distinction between extending a story for additional meaning, versus extending a story simply for the sake of capitalizing on success. Joker 2 falls squarely in the latter category.
It’s particularly frustrating because dystopian stories should evolve — respond to new social fears — and offer fresh warnings regarding where we’re headed. Instead, we receive rehashings of older fears without new insights. Climate Change, Digital Surveillance, Democratic Backslide — there is endless potential for contemporary dystopian storytelling — and yet Hollywood continues to revisit the same wells.
If I were grading this as a student assignment — I’d give it points for Technical Execution — Phoenix’s performance, the Cinematography, Production Values — however, when it comes to Content, Originality, and Thematic Development? This is a C-Minus Effort from a Student Who Clearly Has the Ability to Produce Better Work.
The true tragedy here is that there are likely dozens of genuinely innovative dystopian screenplays waiting to be produced while studios continue to fund pointless sequels like this. My Creative Writing Students produce more original Social Commentary in their Semester Projects than this Movie manages to accomplish in Two Hours.
Spend your money and go back and watch the original. At least that one knew why Dystopian Stories Matter.
Diane teaches English in Philadelphia and uses sci-fi to make teenagers care about literature. She writes about how the genre reflects real-world anxieties—from climate fears to social rebellion—with humor, warmth, and the occasional classroom story.