Batman: The Killing Joke (2016) Review

After a small group of dead bodies are discovered at a crime scene by Detective Harvey Bullock and Batman, Gotham City's sworn protector decides to pay a visit to one particular criminal, his longtime enemy The Joker, inside the confines of Arkham Asylum, hoping to unravel the meaning behind them. When he arrives, his usually harsher, more physically dangerous methods of getting someone to spill the beans take a back seat to the decision to just talk to his nemesis, in the hopes that after all of these years feuding, they should not end up killing each other in the end. Very shortly thereafter, Batman discovers that The Joker has escaped his prison. Unknown to everyone involved, the psychopath has been devising his most fiendish and sick plan to date: the kidnapping and slow, almost ritualistic torture of the city's own Gordon family, wherein he aims to prove that all it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy.

For all of the continuously negative feedback that DC Comics Inc. has been receiving over the past few years, I believe that not all of it is warranted. Yes, their live-action franchises have been of varying quality, and admittedly, I have little desire to watch that one motion picture released earlier this year ever again. And yet, there is always a beacon of hope. In the television department, we have the unabashed fun of shows such as The Flash and future releases like Justice League Action. In the realm of video games, Injustice 2, the highly-anticipated sequel to one of the better fighting games for this last generation of consoles, is set to be released within the first quarter of 2017 (if you haven't watched the Wonder Woman and Blue Beetle reveal trailer, check it out here!). Finally, as I have discussed many times before, Warner Bros. Animation has been pumping out at least two or three new animated films per year for over a decade, with several consisting of popular and beloved storylines from the pages of their own books. During last year's San Diego Comic-Con, producer and friend-of-all-nerds Bruce Timm announced that an adaptation of Alan Moore's Batman: The Killing Joke, a highly influential work whose actions and decisions still ripple throughout the pages of their biggest titles today, was in the plans and set to be released a year later. Over time, further details kept emerging, as did animatics, casting news, and all-too-brief clips of this dream that was finally becoming a reality. I was certainly excited, but even amongst all of this, I had my reservations about what the finished product would look like.

The animation is certainly a step above DC's occasional tendency to hit or miss in the straight-to-home video department. Brian Bolland's design for the Joker has always been one of my favorites, and bringing even the smallest of details to life, such as the shadows surrounding and blocking out his eyes in the infamous "apartment" scene, or his emergence from a pond of hazardous chemicals, look rather splendid. Other technical aspects, such as the score by longtime DCAU composer Kristopher Carter (Batman Beyond) are also exceptional. Obviously, the thing that will attract most fans (other than the sheer intrigue of the movie's existence) is the return of veteran Batman voice actors such as Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, and Tara Strong. As predicted, they are all in top form, with Hamill delivering one of his finest performances to date as our crazed main antagonist. Some men were just destined to stay attached to a character for as long as they live, and as much as I have respected other portrayals over the years from the likes of Heath Ledger (R.I.P.) Richard Epcar, and John DiMaggio, ol' Luke Skywalker is just irreplaceable to someone like me. Prior to the actual flick starting, the audience was even treated to a short, taped interview with the man himself, wherein he discussed his history with voicing this fictional nutjob, including how he initially thought that he would be selected for a villain such as Two-Face or Ra's Al Ghul instead. It was certainly a nice treat for every fan in attendance.

Okay, so now that we have gotten through the positive aspects of Batman: The Killing Joke, I can kick off my shoes and remove my gloves. Firstly, my fear of the source material being far too short to adapt into any sort of feature length film was realized in a way that I could have never imagined. Without trying to spoil anything for those that are reading, only the second half of The Killing Joke is dedicated to the comic of the same name. While I understand that filler is necessary when the time calls for it (I am a twenty plus year fan of the Dragon Ball franchise after all), attempting to recreate any writing style as unique as Alan Moore's just feels far too difficult to do, especially when your lead-in consists of a weak Batgirl-centric story (with a villain named Paris Franz....not making that up) that does more to harm the reputation and respect that you have for the well-known protagonists. Even if you are not well-versed with Batman outside of the big or small screens, you can meticulously pick out every single portion of this that feels like it was written solely for this picture and every other chunk that was lifted from the printed story. This is all the more shocking when you notice that this project's script was penned by the immensely talented Brian Azzarello of 100 Bullets and Wonder Woman fame. It's the cinematic equivalent of when you go to a fancy restaurant, pining for your favorite dish. Once you receive said entree, somebody that you know walks by, observes what it is that you are eating, and says "Hey, that looks pretty good. But I think it's missing something." This person proceeds to pull ingredients out of their pocket, dumping them onto your meal and making it nearly indigestable as a result, then walks away before you can get a good word in about why they think that this was a good idea.

There has also been a humongous amount of outrage surrounding said filler, as it changes and scrambles the connection between two of our four central characters of Batman: The Killing Joke. While it initially didn't make me fume as badly as it has for others, and I feel that it may have been due to the need for stirring "more controversy" just as Moore and Boland's work did back during its initial release, all it took was about two hours for me to realize that this bold decision was anything but. In fact, it was really, really bad. As a fan of cinema, I've always believed that implications are sometimes best left as just that. It reminded me of the assortment of unnecessary backstories to other madmen in the world of entertainment such as Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers, or when two characters from your favorite form of media would do something completely out of left field because producers and writers thought that a small collection of fans that wanted this could somehow outweigh the larger amount of opinions of those that didn't. Sure, there will always be an air of mystery to it that a select few want to see explained, but a majority of fans prefer to just leave things be. It also casts a broken, dim light on our titular hero that no fan of the Dark Knight would ever wish to see, and worse yet, makes another champion of the DC universe into something that even a modern day Frank Miller would shake his head at. That, or make him wish that he had thought of something so "brilliant." And before I am accused of being an elitist or purist fanboy by my fellow geeks, I am one hundred percent fine with attempting to change or add something to an adaptation. Heck, it's one of the things that is keeping AMC's Preacher, which still stands as my favorite series of graphic novels ever written, so entertaining. But when you're taking one of the very best comic books about the perplexing, dark, and surprisingly complicated relationship between the Caped Crusader and the Clown Prince of Crime, and tacking on an incredible amount of groan-inducing stupid writing, thusly twisting at least half of it into something that more closely resembles high school fan-fiction written by a misogynist masquerading as a feminist, you aren't exactly going to please a good portion of your fanbase. 

Though these following sentences may come across as childish, I am at the point where I just can not wear a fake smile (even with the help of patented Joker gas) and give this a good recommendation. Yes, the handling of the original source material is, for the most part, done decently well, but in the end, it isn't enough to lift this above the most definitive labeling of "an eternal disappointment." Personally, I feel that a shorter, more compact iteration would have worked far better, perhaps in the form of an anthology along the lines of the excellent DC Showcase Original Shorts Collection, especially when you consider that the eccentric English author behind this has a myriad of tales that have yet to receive the animated treatment (Superman: Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow? comes to mind). If you're an Alan Moore or Batman completist, I know that there isn't anything that I've said that will ultimately tell you to save your money and just stick to the graphic novel instead, but if you're paying money in the double digits to see this (I paid THIRTEEN DOLLARS to see this in a theater), I worry that you may be just as insane as any of the inmates in Arkham Asylum.

Speaking of that, I'd highly suggest that you go and watch the Killing Joke recreations in that series of games instead. They're shorter, creepier, and also feature the same top notch voice actors.