Love it or loathe it, 2019’s Joker had a lot going for it, in a down-and-dirty, getting-into-the-mind-of-a-psycho way. With Joker’s regular comic-book squeeze Harleen Quinzel joining him for the sequel, you might have expected director Todd Phillips to go down a Natural Born Killers route and take these lovers on the run. Instead, the film pores over the events of the original, staying largely confined to the courtroom and Arkham State Hospital, as the eponymous villain goes on trial for murder, with escapism provided by jukebox musical numbers.

Joaquin Phoenix is once again magnificent as the despondent, twitchy and downright deranged Arthur Fleck/Joker, with Lady Gaga bringing suitably crazy amounts of charisma to fellow Arkham inmate Quinzel (who goes by the name Lee here). The pair meet in a music class and, once Lee is released, she becomes Arthur’s champion during his trial. Brendan Gleeson is a prison guard, who swings between sadism and sympathy, with Catherine Keener playing Arthur’s lawyer.

For the most part, Folie À Deux feels lacklustre, with an absence of tension and tangible threat; Gaga threatens to lift it out of its funk with her singing and appetite for chaos, but unfortunately that never quite happens, with the musical numbers infused with a melancholy that fits the film’s dour worldview, and a jarring dearth of new story ideas. It’s all immaculately staged and performed, but a bit of a drag, making you long for Christopher Nolan’s equivalently moody but exhilaratingly action-packed takes on Gotham. After well over two hours of this, it’s hard to shake the feeling that the joke may be on us.

Joker: Folie À Deux is in cinemas from Friday 4 October.