JOKER
                                                                        

                                                                   

In that film, of course, De Niro played the unhinged fan; now, he’s assuming the chair occupied by Jerry Lewis in that film. The reversal is clever, but maybe too clever by half, as “Joker” doubles down on the movie quotes, invoking “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times” and the entire ’70s canon of grimy urban classics. (Apparently Gotham has its version of Stephen Sondheim, too.) Although Phillips can be commended for borrowing from the best, the hat-tips become exhausting, as “Joker” begins to feel less like an original film (it’s the first production that Warner Bros. is releasing on its label of stand-alone films inspired by DC Comics), and more like a funhouse reflection of images and themes we’ve seen before.

And, yes, it’s a reflection of our own modern times, albeit not a particularly insightful one. Drawing on such notorious historical figures as John Wayne Gacy and “subway vigilante” Bernhard Goetz, Phoenix creates a character who epitomizes the self-pity, entitlement and rage that have infected a small but disproportionately vocal (and psychotically violent) cohort of American society. He doesn’t start out as a miscreant — it takes him being victimized by a wanton mugging to set him on that path — but by the time “Joker” reaches its anarchic, blood-spattered climax, he’s become the avatar of a populistred noses.

As an origin story, “Joker” is vivid and convincing (and offers a tantalizingly fateful encounter connecting Arthur to the wider universe), but mostly it serves as a canvas for Phoenix, who goes to strenuous lengths to deliver a performance of operatic bombast. Alarmingly emaciated, affecting a maniacal laugh that Arthur barks out when he’s scared or angry or confused, he delivers a self-consciously larger-than-life performance in a role that simply doesn’t warrant the gravitas afforded to it by fans and filmmakers alike. “Joker” is, finally, so monotonously grandiose and full of its own pretensions that it winds up feeling puny and predictable. Like the anti-hero at its center, it's a movie trying so hard to be capital-b Big that it can’t help looking small.