LitleWiggle
Since: Feb, 2013
08/18/2016 00:00:00
Honestly I\'d say the accusations of stuffing Barbara in the fridge are pretty justified, since that\'s what happened. But, attempting to add a prologue to flesh her out was simply an awful idea. Especially since it\'s really only there for Bruce Timm to engage in his odd fascination in having Barbara and Batman screw.
Other than that, yeah, pretty much agreed. The only real reason to watch the movie would be to year Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy\'s acting. And even then, not really worth the price.
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The Killing Joke, now available in multiple choice media! Except, not.
Batman: The Killing Joke manages to massively disappoint even with a tepid level of expectations on the part of yours truly. This to the point of being a lazy and clumsy adaptation that fails to justify its own existence at best, or an unmitigated disaster that retroactively damages its source material at the worst.
...well, to be honest, it's more of a middle ground.
Although an admirable notion, the film tries to do away with the comic's (rather unjustified) nagging accusations of crippling and traumatizing a female character for the sake of motivating male characters into action. Their answer to the problem? Basically throw pieces of an entirely unrelated, middling Batgirl story at their Killing Joke storyboards and see what sticks. It reduces Ms. Gordon come off as a Jason Todd-style moody teenager using the platform of crime fighting as an outlet for self-centered teenage frustrations. And that's not even getting into the controversy minefield that is the instantly infamous BatFucking. Christ, anyone got any bleach that I can pour on the part of my brain storing that particular memory? Even Frank fucking Miller in his most ludicrous of psychoses didn't go there. The conceit of the entire first half of the movie is sloppy and problematic (not to mention pretty damn dull), and is as disingenuous an attempt as anything on the part of the comic medium to combat its ever-increasing criticism regarding exploitation of the opposite sex.
But you know, that's livable. They had to lengthen the runtime somehow, after all. I'd rather they do something like this rather than risk bloating the real meat of the story. Oh, speaking of which...
The "real meat"—such as it is—is just a forgettable shot-for-shot adaptation of TKJ, albeit utterly bereft of Brian Bolland's haunting, thick lines and attention to detail that irrevocably burned every panel into your mind's eye and provided at least one iconic moment for every two pages. The art style used really fails to enhance the story in any way, and that's not even mentioning the choppy, uneven framerate. It's a kick hearing Mark Hamill reciting Joker's iconic "You're going mad" monologue but that's what I hear in the back of my mind reading the comic anyway. Conroy, to his credit, delivers his best Batman voice-over in years. I guess something about animation brings out a fire in his performance that he often fails to convey in other mediums (*cough* ARKHAM GAMES *cough*).
Batman: The Killing Joke is a redundant stinker from start to finish. when it isn't biting off more than it can chew, it props up its entire raison d'etree on the source material without any risk or sense of innovation. Had it not had a full voice cast, it would've been as pointless as those dreaded motion comics. It might be a decent watch for the uninitiated, but brings next to nothing new to long-time fans of the Moore/Bolland masterwork. Just go read that again.