Review: The Killing Joke
Our review of the animated adaptation of The Killing Joke
So, the Killing Joke was always a controversial book, that’s part of the reason it’s taken so long to be adapted to even an animated film, much less anything resembling a full-fledged movie. Nevertheless, it’s considered a rather seminal work of fiction for its time as well. So making an adaptation of such a work is super tricky. Not to mention the fact that for a story, it’s actually super short, not really long enough for a full-length animated film.
So for the animated release, what did Bruce Timm, Brian Azarello and the rest of the crew behind the animated adaptation of the Killing Joke do? Well they added a Batgirl story. You see in the original Killing Joke, Barbara Gordon was really just Commissioner Gordon’s daughter. She had retired from the role of Batgirl. She’s basically a prop in the story and nothing more.
So you would think adding 30 or so minutes of Batgirl to flesh out her story would be great, right?
Ok, before I go further, I will throw in a slight spoiler warning here. But the Killing Joke has been around as a story for a long time, and presumably most people reading this review are at least familiar with the material.
Sadly the first 30 or so opening minutes of The Killing Joke, which focuses mostly on Batgirl and her tracking down this random mobster who fixates on her (in a very lame and clumsy attempt to parallel Batman’s Joker I guess). Then having a one-night fling with Batman, which they both get weird and awkward about. It’s honestly just clumsy, some may find it super creepy (either because of the age difference or the fact that they have a very teacher/student relationship) and just doesn’t add anything to the story, period. Aside from Barbara Gordon retiring, it doesn’t even tie into the rest of the story.
Then it’s like the actual movie starts, and as straight adaptations go, The Killing Joke is about what you could hope for in that it doesn’t mess anything up, but it almost sticks a little too close to the source material. It doesn’t really take any risks with the material. I would’ve almost preferred an adaptation that expands and plays around with the story some more while keeping the important elements.
Balancing this out a bit is that the performances across the board are fairly solid. Tara Strong does a pretty decent job as Batgirl, and Ray Wise is ok as Commissioner Gordon. But not surprisingly, Kevin Conroy & Mark Hamill as Batman and The Joker respectively, deliver some great performances of the material. My one complaint about Hamill’s performance is that they turn a monologue from the book into a musical number, and it just really didn’t work for me. And I’ve heard Hamill sing as the Joker on a couple different occasions. He’s usually very funny and or creepy/disturbing, this was not one of those times.
I’m not horribly impressed by the animation style either, it’s like a botched combination of the old animated series look and the style from the book. At best it’s fine, but the Killing Joke, despite it’s dark matter, was a super colorful book. If the movie’s visual style reflected that, it could’ve gone a long way.
Next: Killing Joke Makes Bank At Box Office
Ultimately I feel like the Killing Joke movie just fails to deliver on most levels. The last half is super faithful to the source material, but to a fault and doesn’t do anything interesting with it. And the first 30 minutes is just clumsy filler that adds nothing and means nothing. So if you love Killing Joke, I feel like this does a disservice to the hardcore fans. And if you hate Killing Joke, this might actually make your opinion of it worse. The only thing elevating it above a very average animated film with a little more blood in it than most in the performances of Conroy and Hamill, which at least make it rent-worthy, but certainly not any kind of classic.