Mary Magdalene Risen

Two movies for Easter.

Mary Magdalene

When home life becomes far too aggressive, Mary (Rooney Mara) makes the decision to follow a wise healer (Jesus, played by Joaquin Phoenix) to travel and teach across Judea until the end of his mortal days. Pretty good cinematography in this one and I do like their take on Judas too. If anything I'd complain they whisper too much. Obviously a movie for religious people though, and if you aren't one of those there's not much in it here for you. I suppose it's pretty challenging to make a movie about a tale people already know about (or on the flip side, don't care about). This was an OK attempt.

Risen

With the impending visit of the Emperor, Roman Tribune Clavius (Joseph Fiennes) is tasked with keeping the peace which includes finding the missing body of a recently crucified man claimed to be the Messiah  "Yeshua" which could act as the spark for rebellion. Props on making a different story to tell for the Easter season and while it still falls well into the religious film category they managed to get some fight scenes in there too. However, there are way too many quiet scenes which quite literally were putting us to sleep. For that problem alone Mary Magdalene is a better movie.

Joker

Everything in Gotham is dark, even its comedy.

Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) just wants to bring laughter into the world. Unfortunately being poor in Gotham and afflicted by mental illness leads him to be victimized by so many scum bags, until one day... he breaks and becomes more than a little murderous. Joaquin does a great rendition of this soon-to-be Batman villain, and old, dirty Gotham is done well cinematography wise.

Being retarded doesn't make you cool or exclude you from the LAW!

There's also enough difference from the usual Joker origin story to be interesting without being different enough to become alien. Obviously the tone of the whole thing is very dark, especially as so many Gothamites are such scum. Definitely one Batman fans or Joaquin Phoenix fans will enjoy, but for everyone else your mileage may vary. I give it 3.5 knock knock jokes out of 5, but would probably not watch it again.