Wasn’t my thing. I went to see it for Phoenix and got exactly what I expected. Not getting the comparison to taxi driver, or any other Scorsese movie for that matter. I liked the cinematography and a couple (no more) of the scenes there; 1 when joker made his first kill, 2 when he made his third kill (does that make me a violent person?)
I think the movie needed either more of a steady pace to compare to Scorsese or stronger lines/dialogs. As it was, it felt like it was CONSTANTLY getting somewhere but never did. It didn’t go deep enough for me.
I agree with what people said here that it’s a shame it was only an origin story, it would have been brilliant if there were more action scenes, definitely in the vein of taxi driver’s Action finale. Realistic looking ones taken in interesting angles.
Also there needed to be a hero/villain element which never really happened with this movie. It was Arthur with a bunch of supporting characters (Thomas Wayne, Murray Franklin, the two cops...), either one of those should have been expanded and built up in The Joker, as the relationship between him and them never really developed intensely enough.
by next year this movie will be a flash in the pan, and in the next few years I doubt people will even remember that there was a movie based on a strong DC comic book character which added nothing to its cinematic universe.
A total miss (and a very unfortunate one at that)