Not impressed after watching it for the 2nd time...

I know this may be an extremely unpopular opinion. But after watching Joker for the second time, I must say...I wasn't impressed. Now, there have been a ton of movies that I watched for the first time, and didn't like; but then after a second viewing, I ended up enjoying. But in this case, it was the exact opposite. The first time I watched this movie, I thought it was great. I was ranting and raving about how epic it was. But now...not so much. And here's why:

First off, let me just say that Joaquin Phoenix's performance was most certainly not the problem in this film. He delivered an excellent performance. No doubt about that. In my opinion, this film suffered from bad and lazy writing. Simple as that.

There were so many subplots that I felt were unnecessary. For example; Arthur's dad being Thomas Wayne. Arthur having a past of his mom abusing him. Arthur living with his mom. Arthur's relationship being all in his head. These elements within the story weren't appealing. In fact, they were just downright boring, and made the story drag on into a pointless and bland direction. I really hated the whole Thomas Wayne aspect of the story. Seriously, that didn't do anything for me.

And overall, after 20 minutes or so, I just felt so bored with the film. Which is shame really. Yet again, this goes back to the writing. The poor writing is what made this film boring. This film suffered from many dull moments.

And one thing that really, really bothered the living hell out of me...was Arthur's constant laughter. Now I know some people might attribute Arthur's laughing condition to the whole Joker persona. But after a while, I just found it downright annoying. I mean, don't get me wrong, a few manic laughs here and there would've been okay. But I actually feel like some moments of laughter were used in the film as a dialogue filler. Like the writers couldn't think of anything else. It just annoyed me.

And lastly, the dialogue. Yet again, this goes back to the writing. I felt like some of the dialogue in this film was so weak and unimaginative. Improved and more in-depth dialogue would've helped.

The first upside to this film was the cinematography. I mean, seriously, the cinematography was great. But still, great cinematography simply isn't enough to save a film from bad writing. Yet again, Joaquin's performance was great. The score was really good. And there were definitely a few memorable scenes. But overall, I think this film didn't live up to it's full potential. It was a missed opportunity. It could've been so much better.