For all its daring and invention, Todd Phillips’ film has shortcomings. The storytelling doesn’t always work (the twist involving Zazie Beetz is telegraphed very early on), the crescendo feels confused and unfocused (why do we have Batman’s origin here?) and there’s little tension in the build up to Arthur learning his background. Given who he becomes it’s not terribly surprising, and it was a reminder that Heath Ledger’s Joker was far more horrific by being completely unknowable. So it all depends on Joaquin Phoenix and man does he deliver - it’s a powerhouse performance, utterly compelling despite offering us no means of identifying with his character. The deeply violent emergence of the horror that is the Joker is historically risky for a film based on a comics character, and Phillips and Phoenix deserve credit for wrong footing Kevin Feige so thoroughly. It has a small class analysis built in - Thomas Wayne is intriguingly portrayed as an asshole, and given the rise of the fascist billionaires in the real US I’d like to have seen more of the nihilist Joker played off against Batman’s Trumpian father. Maybe next time. The film looked amazing, the cinematography was marvellously gritty, and I wish I liked the ending more. Joker was always going to go for DeNiro’s (flawlessly cast) talk show host. I enjoyed his delight at stirring up the murderous chaos on the train much more. Maybe it helped to reinforce the tragedy of his creation one last time - America does love to create its monsters, then gets shocked when they turn on them.