The Killing Joke. A title so perfect you’ll either get some British bloke thinking about the late 70’s English rock group or more preferably, somebody nerding out about the 1988 Alan Moore graphic novel. It’s a standalone, a one-shot if you will, one of those multiple choice pasts the most renowned villain in comic book history has. The Joker is an enigma when it comes to his pre-clown days and through this graphic novel we get a could’ve been into his past. 30 years later and people are still talking about it, dissecting its infamous lines and panels back to back in hopes of knowing more about that infamous one bad day.
The world of DC animated films has been at its peak, releasing beloved stories such as The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Under The Red Hood. Fans were eagerly expecting for the iconic Moore graphic novel to be among one of the next projects to be tackled and prayers were answered when a year ago the project was finally green lit. Alongside the project being made was the blessing of it getting an R rating instead of the usual PG-PG13 ration the animated films have gotten as of late. It was a big step acquiring that rating. An even bigger step was getting on board the iconic voices of Kevin Conroy, Tara Strong and the man himself, Mark Hamill. Involved in the project where Bruce Timm and Brian Azzarello, well known and respected individuals when it came to The Caped Crusader and comics in general.
What could possibly go wrong?
Unfortunately, several things went wrong.
The animated film isn’t bad, but it isn’t the best either. Such a top billed graphic novel as this was expected to be the finest if not the greatest to date. Again, it isn’t atrocious, it’s just one of those cases where so much could’ve been done. Between sloppy art animation, underwhelming execution of lines and odd pacing, the movie did not live up to its notoriety. Conroy, Strong and Hamill deliver a superb job but amongst the many errors even their great execution could be somewhat lost a mist the bad.
Given the graphic novel is short, a prologue of sorts was included to add more time. Said prologue centers around Batgirl/Barbara Gordon. A beloved character amongst us fans, a pupil to the Dark Knight and comrade. The infamous prologue that was highly discussed during the San Diego Comic Con weekend caused quite a fuzz from many fans. Some claim that it’s unnecessary, others took to verbally harassing Azzarello during the panel and many just heaved a tired sigh. It was, well it was uncomfortable to watch. Many of us are used to the father/daughter dynamics between Batman and Batgirl. While the two have been written to be a romantic pair in Batman Beyond, in this setting for The Killing Joke just felt out of place and odd. The entire 30 something prologue feels out of place, choppily written and hard to make it fit into the events of The Killing Joke.
The other half of the movie is the graphic novel in all of its glory, while certain things were added and worked over differently it still remained close to the novel. Certain iconic scenes were done just right while others were just underwhelming. The infamous last panel fell short in its execution and many casual movie goers did not enjoy it. The horrific scene where Barbara is shot also felt like it could’ve had a bigger impact but fell short as well. The carnival ride with Gordon could not be appreciated due to it being sped up. Over all the movie did not take much advantage of its R rating and many have consider it to be a soft R rating.
TL;DR:
It’s not a bad film, the mantra here is that it could’ve been so much more. Enjoyable but riddled with error and nitpicks that many fans will continue to pick until the end of time. Casual fans will perhaps enjoy it. A solid 7.0 that could’ve been a 10.
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