Joker: Folie à Deux (Todd Phillips, 2024)

It was clear from the first instalment that Joaquin Phoenix was one of the very few actors who could do justice to the memory of Heath Ledger's Joker. Now the story continues and brings in Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, an inmate at the same asylum who worships his madness and is therefore appropriately portrayed by another wilfully eccentric self-publicist. This also means that nearly half of the film consists of vintage musical numbers by the two, which varyingly take place inside his mind or in the parallel universe of musicals, where people start singing at the drop of a hat.

The plot, as much as there is one, is the Joker being on trial for the killings he committed in the first film, so there's scarcely an iota of the action you'd get with a standard superhero or supervillain production. That's all well and good, but the tone is uncertain, fluctuating constantly between serious drama and the show tunes, and so it's no wonder that most critics scorned it. I consider it an interesting take on the genre instead, although a pretty imperfect one.

5/10

Wonka (Paul King, 2023)

The director of the rather marvellous first two Paddington films takes on a bigger task in competing with the fondly remembered Gene Wilder-led original and Tim Burton's competent remake. Yes, it is a prequel which does not bother to explain how the titular chocolatier became the deranged misanthrope of the previous films, Willy Wonka being thoroughly nice and full of dreams, but Timothée Chalamet, who proves to be highly adept at both singing and dancing, drives the musical on, supported by the ubiquitous Olivia Colman as one of the villains and Hugh Grant as a haughty Oompa Loompa, of all things, as well as a huge cast of British comic stalwarts.

Wonka arrives in town intending to set up his own chocolate shop and soon, through his naivety, ends up in serfdom in a launderette alongside a host of other unfortunates. Undeterred, he puts his mind to escaping and never gives up despite numerous setbacks caused by the malicious chocolate cartel running the town.

The musical numbers are endless and the production design is as garishly over the top as Wonka's confections, but it does all click, at least on a cute level for kids young and old.

6/10

Mary Poppins Returns (Rob Marshall, 2018)

 

54 years after Mary Poppins, Disney finally get around to giving us a sequel. Thank God they didn't go for a reboot, although it replicates the flavour of the original so closely, from the plot to the songs and the hand-drawn animation in the cartoon sequences (in stark contrast to the sterile CGI of most modern Disney productions), that it hardly differs from one.

As before, Mary Poppins is summoned to guide the Banks family out of choppy waters when they face eviction from their house. She takes charge of the children through the tried and tested combination of a firm hand and leading them on fantastical adventures, and  naturally a happy end is never in doubt. The performances by the children, thankfully never quite too cloyingly winsome, Emily Blunt as the titular nanny, ably channelling Julie Andrews, though with steelier undertones and Lin-Manuel Miranda as their Cockney jack-of-all-trades helper, managing the accent a whole lot more convincingly than Dick Van Dyke's legendary mangling of it in the original film, are an obvious strong suit. Spotting cameos from a panoply of veteran stars is also pleasingly diverting.

But a musical will ultimately stand or fall by its songs, so while Mary Poppins Returns is unable to provide any that will linger in the memory as its predecessor did, the choreography of the dance numbers is perky and the sheer wit of the lyrics is a pleasure too. 

In short, not a disappointment or defilement by any means.

6/10

La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2016)

Somewhat similarly to The Artist, which swept the board with the awards back in 2011, La La Land bases much of its appeal on being a loving recreation of the films of a bygone era. In this case, it's the golden age of the Gene Kelly-led musical, through fantastical song-and-dance sequences spliced into a modern-day love story, and you'd swear some of the routines are exact replicas.
Wherein lies the rub. While it's nice to see the attention to detail, by the time one sequence actually has the sailors from On the Town in the cast, it starts smacking less of homage and more of pure exploitation. Likewise with the jazz element: Ryan Gosling's idealistic muso expounds at great length about the lost creativity of jazz, and then produces the most trad stuff imaginable. The film was accused of whitewashing the genre, but that's not really the problem. The problem is one of not adding anything to the two musical traditions that it champions, just using them.
All of the above, however, should not be allowed to overrule the film's manifold virtues. The relationship between Gosling and Stone is a sweet one, the numbers are great, all saturated primary colours and perfect editing, and the ending, against all logic, is truly moving. It's a deeply flawed mish-mash, but deserves plaudits nevertheless for its ambitions and sheer brio.

7/10

Les Misérables (Tom Hooper, 2012)

The film adaptation of the long-running musical is bombastic, melodramatic and begs ample tolerance for its virtually unbroken two-and-a-half-hour stream of shamelessly sentimental song. It is also handsomely presented with crowd scenes of epic grandeur and a host of fine performances from big names, not all of whom you would expect to be able to hold a note. Anne Hathaway's rendition of 'I Dreamed a Dream' is perhaps the stand-out piece, utterly heartrending in its delivery. The bottom line is that you either allow yourself to be immersed and swept along by its full brunt or have a miserable time resisting instead.
It is rather forced to have even every one-line interjection turn into quasi-song halfway through. Casting Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe respectively as Valjean, the redeemed ex-convict, and Javert, the representative of vindictive tyranny, does also bring to mind Homer Simpson sitting down to watch Paint Your Wagon with the eager anticipation of a monumental dust-up between Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin, turning to dismay as they start singing at each other instead. Nevertheless, the relentlessly bulldozing power of this production is undeniable.

6/10