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The presentation: I suppose I MOSTLY feel duped because I paid for a ticket to watch something that I probably should have watched on YouTube. I don't think that people shouldn't make movies just because they don't have the funds for it, but I *do* feel like I can judge it on its quality if it chooses to cut corners. The green screen looks terrible, and this is barely "directed." Conversations are shot super close up, and the actors fall out of frame frequently. The effects look like Red Letter Media videos when Mr. Plinkett's house was floating at the bottom of the ocean. I don't even really feel like calling this a movie.

The DC property: I suppose if it stripped all of the IP away, some might still frame it as a "Joker origin story." But I still don't believe that the solution was to lean into it. It undercuts its trans journey message with...superhero fiction. This movie wants you to take it seriously and as a joke at the same time. And as for the boldness of copyright infringement, "Escape from Tomorrow" is also, similarly, not good, despite its ballsiness to try to slip it by Disney.

Only the actors and quick, cutaway gags are worth mentioning.

This is much more "enjoyable" than its predecessor, and it's not solely because it doesn't contain the toxic Anthony. I felt so disappointed by the flat direction in the first film, and I was delighted to see more chances taken in this one. There is more life and color in Part II, and some meta moments were really quite surprising.

This *feels* like it was made for television, as if it were an episode of CSI (with all of the quirky side characters). Only worse.

Kirby Bliss Blanton is fine here but a lot of the other actors deliver some stunningly bad work (the two geeks are unbearable). And the poor special effects make this truly feel amateurish.