A quick, repeated warning, this may have some spoilers so read at your own risk.

As the mass media feared, I am now incurably insane and have an uncontrollable urge to murder people. Actually, no...no that's just because I work in customer service. Apparently if that doesn't happen to you, that's when people start getting worried.

Anyway, jokes aside, I thought it was a pretty good movie. Is it going to appeal to everyone? Of course not. What about the controversies surrounding this movie? Well, I don't think it's bad to explore and speculate on villains before they became these maniacal forces of evil or whatever, or even attempt to make them sympathetic...within reason. There was a lot of concern that this movie was going to make the Joker out to be a more morally ambiguous character, I guess, and justify things like mass murder. It touched an especially sore spot with family and survivors of the shooting in Aurora, CO, which is understandable.

Does this movie make the Joker a sympathetic character? Uhmm...I would say they make the man who becomes Joker sympathetic. Also the movie asks some tough questions, exploring if maybe things like better access to counseling, services, healthcare, etc. for mentally ill people may have prevented Arthur Fleck from becoming this thing, but it doesn't bash you over the head with it. In fact it's pretty ambiguous on what the answer may be in a lot of ways, more on that in a bit.

I have seen Taxi Driver and I really like that movie, so the influence that movie had on this one is pretty clear. But I also feel like, funny enough, there are a lot of similarities to a Christian Bale movie, American Psycho. If you've seen that movie, you might be able to tell now where this movie might go. There are hints and implications that things as we have seen them, through the protagonist's perspective, are unreliable. Add to that other misleading information in-story, and there is a distinct possibility that the truth of this character's arc isn't actually that complex.

To get right down to it, by the end of the movie, I feel like the question being presented is: was the Joker (as he is shown in THIS movie) a product of apathy, or was this thing always there lurking underneath the protagonist's skin? I think it's very telling they modeled his face paint after none other than John Wayne Gacy (thankfully the nature of the crimes he commits are much less squicky), and absolutely none of the crimes he commits are really justified (a bit more to it, but not going that deep into spoiler territory). The thing about serial killers, mass murderers, etc. that is really jarring is that none of them are born with any kind of mark saying "I'm going to do horrible things when I get older", and mental illness MAY explain things, but only to a degree. When somebody makes the choice to commit murder, a line is crossed and when they do it multiple times it's not really relevant anymore if they were failed in some way because people with depression, paranoia, anxiety, schizophrenia, and whatever else don't go around killing people en masse.

I think I've had enough of being super edgy, crawling up my own ass with this analysis of the movie, you may relax now! My bottom line is I think the movie's good, it has a style to it, and it's not making excuses for anyone, fictitious characters or otherwise, who commit horrible crimes. With all that being said, if you don't like it, I don't blame you! It's not for everyone and I honestly hope they don't start making a ton of movies like this...not sure I could handle the uber gritty origin story of Gorilla Grodd.