My Thoughts on Joaquin Phoenix's Joker

I’ve recently seen some on set photos of Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker and to me it looks like they are going for a '66 era look pre-Cesar Romero. Now, I love the old '66 Batman to death. The campiness is just great all around. In fact, Adam West’s Batman is one of my all time faves, aside from Michael Keaton’s portrayal. As far as the main villain for most of Batman’s TV/movie tenure, the Joker has always had the classic green hair, white make-up, red lips and the classic purple suit nothing more nothing less, it portrayed a look that at times looked playful and at other times it looked down right menacing! When you see a clown you automatically think that it will be someone whose playful looking to cheer you up, instead of kill you! To get a rise out of someone. But that’s just what the joker does, he is a person who at any time feels that he has to get Batman’s attention and what better way, at least to him, is to hold up a huge building with tons of people in it. Because sometimes the Joker loves to be over the top! Like he is the master of the game that he has committed to play.

Now as far as Joaquin Phoenix’s look goes, the make-up throws me off! It’s different, I'll give it that, but the way he has tackled this iconic role has yet to be seen. Now, if he can muster the performance of Jack and Heath then his Joker will be perfect, because to me Jack’s Joker was the funny one who was playful while he killed you while Heath’s version was just down right no playing around I’m going to kill you and that’s that! Which for their respected movies it worked.

The 1980’s was full of great action and horror movies, but in the 80’s Batman’s Joker was colorful like that of anything else in that time period, while Heath’s was more edgy. In a time when dark and gritty movies ruled the roost, I mean you had the X-Men movies which changed the character look all together, here we had a very vibrant color pallet that we grew up watching in the 90’s only for it to get replaced with dark colors and overtones. The movies were good for what they where but Batman Begins was just a tad bit better than those X-Men movies, in my opinion.

But it still remains to be seen just how Joaquin’s Phoenix’s eighties inspired Joker will stand up to the more drab and dark tones of recent movie fare. Who knows if this is going to be a solo outing for the clown prince of crime. No images have come forth of the Dark Knight himself. To me, you really can't have one without the other, they are like ying and yang, one can't live without the other. That’s why most of Batman’s notable exploits revolve around the clown prince, people just love him. Once he was written as a temporary villain for Bats, but he gained such a fan following that he has become the cornerstone in the rogue gallery among the likes of the Riddler, Mr. Freeze, Catwoman, Penguin and so many others.

It's hard to not imagine a Joker movie without Bats, but only time will tell and hopefully it’s a home run and not a foul ball! But with most comic book adaptations to the big screen, some of them fall short. Suicide Squad and Leto’s Joker come to mind when it comes to recent superhero films not making the cut. At any rate, I am hopeful! Since the Joker is one of my favorite villains of all time and I cannot wait for this film to be released on October 4, 2019, until then we will just have to wait and see how this iconic character gets a new lease on cinema life!