'Batman: The Killing Joke' is the animated adaptation of the 1988 graphic novel by Alan Moore and stars the voices of Kevin Conroy returning as Batman and Mark Hamill returning as the Joker. The story tells the most famous (but only one of many) origins of the Clown Prince of Crime himself, along with his newest scheme of driving poor Commissioner Gordon mad in his effort to prove that anyone can become like the Joker himself after just 'One Bad Day'.
The film starts the adaptation about thirty to forty minutes in with some new opening material focusing on Batgirl (Tara Strong). This opening sequence is meant to show her various feelings of fighting alongside Batman and her ultimate feelings towards the life of fighting crime. This film also explores a romantic relationship with herself and Batman with very...mixed results. I suppose we should talk about the elephant in the room before we move on. This opening sequence, which takes up half the feature length film really feels out of place and in all honesty, it may have been a smarter idea to release these two halves as individual stories rather than trying to connect a Batgirl origin story of sorts with an adaptation that many already know and will point out the many inconsistencies.
On its own, the first half works fine, although the romantic scene between Batman and Batgirl is really jarring and is completely unearned. Nothing before this scene would ever give you the slightest hint that this would happen and just feels unneeded. It ultimately amounts to nothing in the end anyway when it not only doesn't affect the rest of the first half, but has no factor whatsoever in the 'Killing Joke' segment so yes, this should have been left on the floor.
As for the 'Killing Joke' segment itself, it is faithful enough and hearing Mark Hamill portray this much darker Joker adaptation is a very nice cherry on top. And dark this film is indeed, with the first DC animated film to receive an 'R' rating 'The Killing Joke' is not for children and frankly not for the weak stomach either as implications of torture, rape, and sequences of heavy violence make this one pretty metal.
It's really hard to write much about this film without spoiling the various small twists and turns that 'The Killing Joke' will take you, so this review may not be the most helpful and for that I do truly apologize. What I can tell you is that it's definitely worth seeing even if for only the second half. There are some negatives to discuss however, with the beginning segement I already went over, the animation does feel cheaper than other DC animated films. You would think 'The Killing Joke' would have a larger budget given its historic significance in comic books but here it seems like something's just off. This lack of polish is really noticeable in a song sequence by Joker which looks ugly as hell on top of the song being annoying.
Some of the voice work also doesn't work for me, particularly Ray Wise (Twin Peaks) who seems to come off like he's either asleep or just not into this role here. This applies unfortunately to Tara Strong's Batgirl as well. She is not at her usual 'A' game here which is really sad as these two are always usually great. However, even with some gripes I still recommend 'The Killing Joke' but try to leave your hype at the door.
(B-)
No comments:
Post a Comment