Batman: The Killing Joke

When "The Killing Joke" is actually about the source material, it's a decent adaptation. It's dialogue-faithful, the tone is good, and really, if they've gotten Conroy and Hamill as the two leads, you know they're taking this seriously. And that infamous scene is incredibly effective.

But it's that first half-hour that doesn't work. It's tacked-on and certainly doesn't do Batgirl or Batman any favors (the latter of whom just seems a tad creepy). This is (for better or worse) the Joker's origin story, incendiary though it is, and I can understand why they'd want to flesh out Barbara's character; but it still doesn't work because Batman doesn't recall her horrific fate later on in the movie. She's no longer relevant beyond the shock value. The intentions were there, but it could've been done better.

Within this running time, there are 45 minutes of good movie. Skip the first 30 and you don't miss a thing.

6/10

The complete first half hour was completely unnecessary, it may have intended to add emotional weight to when Barbara got shot, but the studio could have encapsulated that in a much better way. The main antagonist of the film failed to show up until half way through the movie which made the first half utterly boring. In addition, the needless sexualization of Batgirl and her 'special' relationship with Batman was also among the list of unnecessary items that were in this movie, this also contributed to ruining the characterization of Batman. The Joker was on point as one would usually expect. However, in summation the movie fails to capture the magic that the comic presented us with.

So obviously when i first heard about this movie, i was really pumped, and kept up with updates as it came closer to the release.

I've always loved the PG-13 animated Batman movies, and of course I hear about this one's R rating I'm wow this is going to more amazing than any ever before it.

So the time finally comes and of course I go to the one night theater showing.

Strong start, love it, some good action, funny moments. But then I notice that all the bad guys say "freaking" quite often. Was this a prelude to the rest of the movie?

Yes. It was. The R rating was a total scam. There's some brief bloody shots, like 2 actual curse words (mild too), an IMPLIED sex scene, an even what was to be considered the most controversial part of the original comic...was completely censored as well. It was PG-13 by my standards. "The Dark Knight Returns" and "Assault on Arkham" were both PG-13 and had WAYYY more blood, violence and language than this did. (Assault on Arkham also had more sexual scenes and still remained PG-13). It was just really disappointing.

The plot was really loose too. When the movie ended I was like..."wait what?" There was no climax. The rising action just quickly crashed into the falling action and ended. This just goes to show that not every comic looks good on the big screen.

Really the only thing I liked was the fact that Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill were in it.

Would I recommend it? It's worth a watch, I guess. Just as long as you go into it thinking, "This is a PG-13 movie."

If you want to watch something better as far as PG-13 Animated Batman goes, "The Dark Knight Returns" (not to be confused with "The Dark Knight Rises"), "Assault on Arkham", and "Under The Red Hood" are all three very amazing movies.

OK... I'll be honest: I was waiting something great and I didn't get it. Maybe because of the very high expectations that the movie just couldn't reach. There was a couple of things that bothered me. I think the important part was too short (about 45 minutes), they gave too much emphasis to the Batgirl prologue, I mean, the Joker appeared 30 minutes after the movie initiated, for God sake! Yes, there was some things from that part that I thought were interesting, I'm sure some people will hate them though. I was very uncomfortable with the inconsistency of the art style, sometimes The Joker looked amazing, sometimes... not very good; besides, the animation was very weak in several scenes, I mean like 10 fps and that's unacceptable Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy's work was the best of the movie, I can't complain about that. It was OK. But they could do it a lot better.

Goddamn it.

I really wanted The Killing Joke to be DC Animation's return to greatness.

The parts that are actually The Killing Joke are great, but I just can't ignore the first 30 minutes. It felt like a random episode of a completely unrelated Batman TV show. I get that they wanted to make Batgirl more sympathetic and an actual character in the movie, rather than just a plot point, but honestly, who cares? Who gives a crap about Batgirl? She doesn't matter, she's irrelevant to the story. The Killing Joke is supposed to be about Batman's relationship with The Joker. Instead, it felt almost as If Barbara Gordon was the main character. If they didn't want to just do a direct adaptation of the novel because it'd be too short, I get it, but find another way to expand it.

But still, like I said, as soon as the actual movie starts, it's great. Hamill and Conroy were obviously great. They stole the show, specially Hamill. I didn't like Commissioner Gordon's voice though, it sounded weird.

Overall, good movie, but it should have been great.