Todd Phillips' "Joker" arrives in theaters Friday as the year's most dangerous movie. The origin story of how a mentally ill loner named Arthur Fleck became Batman's arch-nemesis, "Joker" has raised concerns that it might inspire other lone-wolf types to commit real-world violence. For a comic-book movie, "Joker" certainly pushes buttons _ gun violence, income inequality, health care, you name it _ in an attempt to create a work of incendiary social commentary.
Instead, the movie is like Arthur's uncontrollable laughing fits: irritating, inappropriate and just a beat too late.
That laugh comes courtesy of Joaquin Phoenix, and it's a doozy _ somewhere between a giggle and a retch. Phoenix may not erase Heath Ledger's Oscar-winning Joker in 2008's "The Dark Knight," but he puts a memorably ghastly stamp on this incarnation. Stringy-haired and skeletally thin (thanks to a 52-pound weight loss), Phoenix radiates a sickly, love-starved energy as Arthur, an aspiring stand-up comic and part-time clown whose mere presence seems to inspire loathing and cruelty. During a gig twirling an "Everything Must Go" sign in full circus regalia, Arthur is robbed and brutally beaten by a gang of kids.
