If you liked the first Joker movie, critics say you’ll hate the sequel

The biggest criticism of “Folie à Deux” is that it’s about, well, nothing.

It could have been a prison break movie or a full-on musical, but Phillips decided to have Arthur Fleck sit in a courtroom and rehash the events of the first movie.

Nick Schager of The Daily Beast put it best when he compared his viewing experience to a famous show about nothing.

“‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ often recalls the series finale of ‘Seinfeld,’ insofar as it puts its main character on trial for his former misdeeds,” he wrote. “It’s a crime to make the DC Comics icon this lackluster, and to neuter Phoenix’s live-wire scariness through endless psychoanalysis.”

‘Folie à Deux’ really is a musical — just not a good one

Lady Gaga is one of the few performers who can convincingly hold her own opposite Phoenix’s unpredictable Joker. So critics were especially disappointed that her talents were underused.

Vulture’s Alison Willmore said the movie was a “waste of her presence.”

“In its relentless gloom, ‘Folie à Deux’ plunks Gaga in a visitation booth where she tries to pretend she couldn’t blow the plexiglass walls off the place with her rendition of ‘(They Long to Be) Close to You,'” she wrote.

But The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney points out in his review that there’s a reason why Phillips doesn’t have her go full Gaga.

“Since Lee is not meant to be a polished singer, Gaga tamps down her vocals into a raw, scratchy sound,” he wrote. “But in the handful of scenes where fantasy liberates her in full-throated glory, the movie soars right along with her.”

Regardless, Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson felt Gaga’s performance was “startlingly dull.”

“Her presence suggested something big and gregarious and more broadly accessible, inviting in those who were maybe alienated from Joker’s grim vision of lonely straight male rage,” he wrote.

“She is woefully underused, her character acting as mere emissary of Arthur’s acolytes, there to prove that the attention of women is fleeting and conditional,” Lawson continued. “Phillips sneers at the idea that Lee could ever truly love someone like Arthur. She ultimately comes across as a fickle creature who can’t abide the real truth of a man.”

It’s definitely not a movie for the fans

Critics pointed out that Phillips seems to relish doing the opposite of fan service at every turn, essentially burning down the goodwill he built up with fans of the first movie.

“There are plenty of scenes with Arthur dressed as Joker, defending himself in the courtroom, singing this or that chestnut, sometimes in fantasy numbers that might almost be taking place in his head. But there’s no longer any danger to his presence. He’s not trying to kill someone, and he’s not leading a revolution. He’s just singing and (on occasion) dancing his way into his Joker daydream,” Variety’s Owen Gleiberman wrote.

“He’s a nobody,” wrote BBC’s Nicholas Barber of the Arthur Fleck character. “Depending on how you look at it, this demythologising exercise is either daring or it’s irritatingly smug, but it’s definitely not much fun. Phillips seems to be saying that if you fell for Fleck’s Messianic self-image the last time around, then the joke’s on you.”

“With ‘Folie à Deux,‘ Phillips gives fans a come-down that essentially punishes them for enjoying the volatile energy of the first film,” TIME’s Zacharek concluded. “It’s more a corrective than a sequel, a Go Directly to Jail card in movie form.”