If there’s one phenomenal actor who should’ve won an Oscar decades ago, it’s Joaquin Phoenix. In my opinion, that Best Supporting Actor Academy Award should’ve gone to him back when he played Commodus in Gladiator. For real, he and Russell Crowe were the two key ingredients in that recipe that made for one awesome movie. Now we’ve seen incredible movie villains, but how many have we seen that are so twisted and deplorable? Better yet, how many times do you see those kind of villains acted out so brilliantly? I can name a small few from the top of my head, but one of those villains is Commodus. What wasn’t about that character that we didn’t despise? He murdered his own father out of anger and jealousy, cared very little about the people of Rome, and even tried to woo his sister on several occasions. Seriously, that’s gross. Oh, but his gravest mistake was getting on the bad side of Maximus Decimus Meridius. Commodus took his family from him, so Maximus plunged his stiletto into his throat. Boy, what a satisfying death for a truly despicable villain.
But a villain like that can only be so hated by the audience if he’s played well by the right actor. For Commodus, it was the great Joaquin Phoenix. The man just nails every role that he plays, whether it’s comedy, romance, drama, or even a comic book role. Speaking of which, if you haven’t seen his performance as Arthur Fleck in the 2019 Joker movie yet, you’re missing out. In my opinion, that is stellar Joaquin Phoenix acting at its absolute finest. That’s probably why he won his long overdue Academy Award for best actor, something he undoubtedly deserved. His character was Arthur Fleck, but we comic fans know who he was slowly transforming into. That has got to be the most unusual version of Joker we have ever seen. It’s probably because we’re used to the character not having a concrete backstory or identity. In the 2019 movie, however, we actually got to see the man behind the terrifying white-faced, red-lipped, smiling grin. He most certainly wasn’t a hero and you couldn’t really call him an anti-hero.
If anything, he was a victim of abuse, neglect, and betrayal from just about everyone around him. In fact, you can hardly call Joker a comic book movie. It would be more accurate to call it a psychological horror film that covers the unfortunate truth about the ignorance of mental illness. Arthur Fleck, the man who would become Joker, was a victim of mental illness and society was highly ignorant of this. This led to Fleck being shunned by society and the abuse kept piling on until Fleck gave into his darker instincts. And in the end, he murdered Murray Franklin (played by the also great Robert De Niro), and fully embraced his new persona as Joker. Heck, he even started a movement where many people in Gotham got behind the Joker’s mentality and took to the streets to incite anarchy. The Joker’s criminal reign in this Gotham had begun.
And just like with Commodus, Joaquin Phoenix convinced us that he can once again pull off a deplorable villain. The only difference this time is that Joaquin Phoenix made Joker less villainous and more sympathetic. This is someone who didn’t want to be a villain and just wanted to be recognized and loved. We saw Joaquin Phoenix do some of that with Commodus, but his performance as Joker was that on steroids. We got to see a perfect display of a mentally ill man slowly descent into madness until his already-fragile mind totally fractured. I mean, Joaquin Phoenix managed to make the Joker laugh look accidental and painful. I just cannot imagine any other actor pulling that off. If that didn’t earn him his Oscar, then what else can? Now given the success of the first Joker movie, we cannot help but wonder if a sequel will happen. Keep in mind, director Todd Phillips never intended for a Joker sequel. In my opinion, Joker works as a stand-alone Elseworld DC movie because it’s just so different. I’m not totally against the idea of Joker 2, especially if that means seeing Joaquin Phoenix work his magic again.
The thing is, Joaquin Phoenix is one of those actors who isn’t too crazy about doing sequels. In fact, he’s never really done a sequel. Long before he was offered the role of Joker, Marvel once approached him to play the role of Doctor Strange. Just imagine that. I think we Marvel fans would’ve enjoyed that, but Joaquin Phoenix really isn’t interested in doing big franchises. He’s very picky about the roles he takes on and commits every once of his acting ability to them. He’s been doing that since the beginning of his career and he’ll move onto another significant role that suits him. I actually do believe he should reprise his role as Joker for a sequel. Joaquin Phoenix himself has admitted that he’s open to the idea of a Joker sequel, mostly because he feels that there’s more they can do with the character. He’s definitely right and I think that if Todd Phillips approaches him with the right script, Joaquin Phoenix will return.
If that does happen, it would be a big milestone for Joaquin Phoenix’s career. The man isn’t known for doing franchise roles because he’s just not interested in them, but pitch him the right story for it, and he’ll commit. I think Todd Phillips can do that. There are many directions they can go with a Joker sequel. It can show us how he escapes from Arkham and uses his influence to build a criminal syndicate. That would be a great way to introduce more Batman characters and possibly even lead to a confrontation with Batman himself. Yes, Batman was still a young Bruce Wayne when the first movie happened, but there can be a long passage of time for the sequel. They can make Joaquin Phoenix look older and battle a young upstart Batman. Does anyone else still suspect that he’ll meet Robert Pattinson’s Batman? Time will tell.
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