#46 - The Killing Joke (Rage Issues 3rd Anniversary)

Well, we’ve done it. This tiny little site that struggles to get more than 20 views a post has managed to keep running for 3 years!

Sorry if I sound rather un-optimistic but this year’s calibre of movies just keeps getting worse, from the abysmal Barley Lethal to the insulting Riverdale and Back again, this year has been on fire for Rage reviews, and yet I still did less than I did last year. And I’ll probably do even fewer this year as I try and expand my range a bit. But today, to celebrate my third year of doing this, I’ll be reviewing a movie I’ve intended to review for a long… actually it’s the Killing Joke.

I was (un)fortunate enough to see this movie in cinemas before its release onto DVD, I gave it a mixed review but I was positive overall in my short summary. Something needs to be done about that because let me be clear, this is not a good movie.

But before we begin a little info about the Killing Joke comic book that the work is based on. Considered an iconic Joker story, it was written by Alan Moore, a writer famous for being somewhat grouchy about his work at DC and for Watchmen and V for Vendetta. He doesn’t ever attach his names to adaptations of such projects and this is no exception. In fact, he doesn’t think it’s very good and in one aspect it is controversial. I’ll get to that later. In the production team, we have an old friend in Bruce Timm, someone who should know better than this sh*t.

In the voice acting department we have some old friends. Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill and Tara Strong are voicing Batman, the Joker and Barbara Gordon respectively, as they did during the last part of the animated series (Batgirl went through several voice actors) but on the other hand with the writer we have Brian Azzerello, who did the controversial New52 Wonder Woman, a well-acclaimed(ish) Joker story and at point of writing is working with Frank Miller to make DKIII not Suck, most likely without success because this is still Frank Miller… Yeah, I’d rather put my head in a blender than read DKIII, especially at the price they’re selling these issues at, it’s insane!

OK, I’m going off track. So, let’s just dive into Batman: The Killing Joke and see why this deserves an anniversary review.

We open with narration

“I know this isn’t how you expected the story to start”

You’re damn right! You see problem with the Killing Joke is it’s a very short story. It wouldn’t do the comic any service to adapt it into an hour and a half long movie. So instead they’ve tacked on a 40-minute prologue with the intent of introducing newcomers to Barbara Gordon before well… I’ll get to it. In a way, I get it, but they do in the worst way possible.

So, Barbara has been Batgirl for 3 years at this point. One night she watches as Batman receives a file about a robbery, surely Batman receiving the file would take up a lot of time, time better spent actually catching the robber. I can’t imagine Batman doesn’t have police scanners in the Batmobile. This is not the first time this issue has come up in shows but it is the most blatent. The Bat-signal is to inform Batman of unusual crimes that have already happened for him to investigate, or to give him more information, using it to inform him of crimes in progress is a distraction from the crime itself.

Batgirl watches from the rooftop opposite, not wanting to get too close to her father in costume. Yeah, they don’t share a single conversation in this prelude, not even out of costume. That is a massive oversight and you’ll see what I mean later on.

So, the car chase and Jesus, that CGI does not blend nicely with the live action stuff, also this is the most lifeless Gotham City has ever looked, just a bunch of samey looking buildings. This was the first DC animated movie since Mask of the Phantasm to get a cinematic release, you’d think they’d throw in a few more bucks for the animation. Anyway, Batgirl lands on the truck, lets out a bad pun and blasts open the back doors so Batman can retrieve the armoured car with the Batmobile. The detach the truck so Batgirl jumps off, she avoids a few bullets before landing on the side window where the driver blows a kiss at her before she falls off. I’m willing to believe the suit protected her from the impact.

One of the guards inside the truck holds a gun at her, and it sounds like someone was holding a gun at Tara Strong when she said these lines. There is something incredibly off about her delivery and it’s not just her, I’m willing to think the vocal direction is off. Batman knocks him down with Batmobile but somehow doesn’t kill him. Batgirl heads off as the guy is interrogated by Batman.

The driver and his sidekick go to see his Uncle. He’s not happy about the reports which prominently feature Batgirl, the loss of the money and the fact that Batman’s now breathing down his neck. He wants his Nephew to pay him back the lost money.

Barbara works/is studying in the Library and is visited by her gay best friend stereotype that refuses to die a painful and horrible death. Yes, I know they have one in Riverdale too. He tries to set Barbara up with someone but she says she’s kinda sorta involved with someone and I’m getting flashes of what’s to come. Terrible, horrible things, I’m not gonna sleep tonight.

So anyway, she’s looking at the convenient cameras that she helped set up and apparently don’t have restrictions stopping people who aren’t police from accessing them. Yes, I know in the comics Barbara is a master hacker but that’s never established here. Anyway, she finds the guy in a car in an alley which narrows it down to only 50 million different places in Gotham.

Also, conveniently they’re about to commit a robbery and didn’t decide to take out the camera that could immediately alert the police. Also, since the police don’t come I think it’s safe to say they’re not monitoring the cameras properly. Says something when a civilian can stop a robbery the police don’t even know is happening. The driver has decided to be a moron and rob his own Uncle for the money. Batgirl arrives, easily taking out the two henchmen but not moving immediately onto the lead whilst she has momentum. I’m saving his name for the next scene, it’s too funny. Instead she walks slowly towards him and he takes her down like she was a rank amateur. Good to see character consistency.

She locks herself in the safe before passing out so she can’t get shot. But they do get away with the money. With the Police finally on the scene, Batgirl and Batman meet on a rooftop. The guy’s name is Paris, Paris Franz. Are you f*cking serious, Azzarello? What kind of dumb name is that. I can’t take that name seriously. But even their reaction is laughter, so it’s not unintentional like Jupiter Jones was. I’m just calling him Slappy Squirrel

I can take that more seriously that Paris f*cking Franz. Batman tells Batgirl not to go near him without him. Time for another scene with the 90's best friend stereotype. I know, like me, you’re just thrilled at this prospect. Skipping. We cut to a yacht where Slappy Squirrel has apparently enjoyed an intimate night with some sluts. Lovely, so Slappy Squirrel has just gained access to his uncle’s accounts but his uncle has sent the hit squad. Fortunately, Slappy Squirrel has some explosives lined up to take care of them.

Slappy Squirrel sends Batgirl a message saying he has ‘something special’ for her, where they first met. Batgirl takes flattery from this for some reason but Batman says it’s bad news when things get personal, that Slappy Squirrel has objectified her and he wants her off the case entirely. Ah, I see where we’re going. It’s that strong independent woman defying her objectifying man by beating him senseless routine. I know the comic is from the 80s but maybe you could try a less cliché story. Beyond that nearly every version of this plot thread is done terribly. This is no exception.

Batman heads to the warehouse Slappy Squirrel robbed to investigate but Batgirl realises that she actually met him in the cab of the truck during the robbery. She goes to the impound where it’s kept which apparently has no security as Slappy Squirrel is able to plant a phone. It takes her to Slappy Squirrel’s uncle’s apartment, she walks in and finds the Uncle dead. 2 of the guards walk in and Batgirl begins taking them out. A wiser tactic here would’ve been to stay hidden since you could be blamed from the guy’s murder. Batman arrives having worked out… something I guess. Somehow.

Time for Batman and Batgirl to have an argument. Batman claims that she hasn’t been taken to the edge yet, it’s still a thrill for her. The arguing continues, it gets aggressive and soon they’re having rooftop sex. 

Right, first off, there’s an age gap between these two characters, that makes this uncomfortable, especially given how young Barbara is. It’s mostly implied so we don’t know much but we see Batgirl take off her cowl and shirt. Say Deadshot was in town and sniping a target, you’d think he’d miss a shot at Batgirl without the protection of her costume! If Batman did the same, even worse.

But that’s not the end of things, because it was inferred in Batman Beyond that Batman and Batgirl were a couple, despite most of the relationship stuff being between her and Nightwing. So, this is not uncommon in a Bruce Timm-verse, leading many to believe this might’ve come from him. An interview with him says the idea was solidified in a meeting between him, Brian Azarello and Alan Burnett, another veteran from Batman: The Animated series that was co-producing things. 

At least when it was inferred in Batman Beyond the implication is this was later down the line, when the age gap mattered less but here she’s in her 20's, at best, Batman as at least twice her age from what I can tell. This. Element. Should. Have. Been. Dropped! It does not add to anything that they were a couple, it doesn’t add to the story, it doesn’t make what happens next more tragic, it is unnecessary and is not a great way to make Barbara a strong character.

Another scene with 90's sit-com gay stereotype. Skip. Barbara Gordon is having coffee and deals with a sort-of abusive boyfriend? Yay feminism?

On the rooftop, Batgirl calls Batman, who reveals that Slappy Squirrel is hiding out at the docks, she warns Batgirl to stay away and says they’ll talk later. Soon the Batmobile is hit by a missile and Batgirl can see the explosion, the fuel line is exposed but Batman manages to eject out before Slappy Squirrel hits it with the rocket launcher. Batman is injured and bleeding.

Batgirl comes to his aid and does what she should’ve done in their first encounter, beat him senseless. Of course, she angry and taking it too far, drawing blood and almost killing him. After some budget saving freeze frames, Batgirl sees a couple kiss and she and Batman meet on the rooftop that night. She does so out of costume. She returns the costume, knowing they’d had to end this eventually. Well, this was pointless and adds nothing to the story, now to the actual Killing Joke part of the movie.

Batman is called to a crime scene, 4 dead, apparently 3 years ago, there was a Dentists convention where 4 people didn’t return, here they are. Harvey Bullock is voiced by Robin Atkin Downes and much like when he was in Bad Blood, I think it’s a bad choice. I know they wanted to save money on voice actors since Downes also voiced the kind of British lackey to Slappy Squirrel but come on. Robert Costanzo is Harvey Bullock, even Arkham Origins knew this. Accept no substitutes.

Batman wants to talk to the Joker but it’s Gordon’s father-daughter night. Something we really should’ve seen earlier considering what’s about to go down. Meanwhile Barbara is having a badly animated run, returns home and finds her dad calling her saying they’ll have to delay as Batman’s asking for a favour. Now, here’s the thing, in the book, Arkham Asylum was dripping with atmosphere and this fails quite miserably at this, take a look at the opening panel inside Arkham and compare it to this, it’s insane how these details are missed.

Batman goes to talk to the Joker, who’s playing cards. Batman knows that the game is heading towards one of them killing the other. He wants to make an attempt to talk things out but soon discovers the Joker is not the Joker, he’s an imposter in white make-up. Batman interrogates him but apparently comes up unsuccessful.

The Joker is at a derelict amusement park, he loves it and wants to buy it. He sees a poster for the Fat Lady and flashes back to his pregnant wife and good god is that transition clunky. What may work in a comic panel does not necessarily work on screen, the angles were wrong. So, they never do give a name for the Joker in this story, I’ll call him Jack because that’s what he was called in the 1989 Batman movie.

Jack had an audition but it didn’t go too well. He begins breaking down, the baby's coming and they haven’t even the money to pay the rent. He just wants a break so they can get set up in a decent neighbourhood, the transition back to the present is even worse than the flash back. The Joker shakes the seller’s hand but reveals his henchmen had forced his colleague to hand over the deeds to the park an hour ago and he’s left drugged with a Joker smile.

Batman begins searching his files on the Joker, including one with Jason Todd, referring to an event that in comics hadn’t even happened yet. Alfred shows up for the first time and I’ll admit it is kinda strange to have new characters show up over half way through the movie, it makes it much more apparent that this is just two stories loosely tied together.

Gordon and Barbara talk about the Joker briefly before there’s a knock at the door, it’s the Joker, who shoots her in the stomach, his henchmen beat up Gordon. They close in on the Joker unbuttoning Barbara’s shirt. He raises his glass “Here’s to crime” and we flash back to him in a bar drinking out of the same sort of glass. See, here the transition should’ve been perfected easily. The Joker raises his glass, and flash back to someone putting the glass down on the table, instead we get an establishing shot of the bar. This is purely laziness.

Jack is talking to some crooks. They need his help to get through the Ace chemical plant to the playing card company next door. Playing card company? What money is there likely to be there? And yes, this one’s from the comic but couldn’t it have been a bank or something? Anyway, to assure his name isn’t connected to the crime he’ll be wearing a red hood. In other words, be the one with a massive great big target on his head, great idea. It has some mirrors embedded in it so he can see. He agrees to help them out.

We transition extremely poorly back to the theme park, being lit up all nice and transition from there to the hospital where Batman and Harvey are. The Doctors say she’ll recover but be completely paralysed from the waist down and she’ll never walk again. This was the controversial aspect of the Killing Joke and yeah, it’s horrible, especially since she played no part in the main story, that’s why they had the terrible opening. 

The problem is now she’s twice the victim since she was really the victim in the prologue too. Beyond that, in interviews Alan Moore has said he thought DC should’ve reined him in on doing this. Even so this was not supposed to be an in-canon story, it only became canon because of its popularity.

Adding to that they say they found Barbara in a state of undress. The implications are subtle and could be completely false but it does sound like the Joker raped her, that is horrible and disgusting! Barbara wakes up and says the Joker’s taking it to the limit this time and expresses concern over her father and rather little concern for herself.

Jim Gordon is woken up by the circus freaks the Joker now has. He’s completely naked aside for a dog collar and chain. The Joker explains that he plans to drive Jim Gordon mad. And here’s where I have more problems with the opening. Batman wasn’t the Joker’s target with Barbara’s crippling. Jim Gordon. The only scene where Jim and Barbara share screen-time is short and cut even shorter by the Joker.

The relationship between Barbara and her father should’ve been the centrepiece of the prequel, not the relationship between Barbara and Batman. He puts Gordon on the ghost train. We transition badly back to Jack getting some bad news from the police. His wife is dead and it’s heavily implied the two gangsters he was setting up were involved. He starts to have doubts, there’s no reason to do it anymore but they threaten him to keep going.

Batman takes down some thugs, asking about the Joker, the usual recruits haven’t been called. Batman tries a nightclub but the guy who owns it hasn’t heard from him either. Gordon is placed in judge’s wig. They describe what Jim Gordon things is the Joker and he says he’d throw the book at him, but it’s not the Joker they’re describing, it’s Batman.

Batman investigates a bunch of hookers, he usually visits them but hasn’t this time. The bat-signal is in the sky.

Meanwhile the Joker sings his song from the book. Mark Hamill sings really well as the Joker, he’s had some practice in the Arkham Games and this one brings some of trademark theatricality to it that even the comic couldn’t really do. Jim is dragged through pictures of Barbara, eyes open and bleeding. Batman is given an invite to the amusement park.

Bad transition to the chemical plant. Jack puts on the helmet and leads them through the plant, but they’ve added security guards since he left and they’re spotted. Two cops arrive and shoot the gangsters but Batman arrives to go after Jack, he scares him and he trips over the cape that came with the hood and falls into the tank of acid. He’s washed out, takes off his helmet and sees what he’s become, bad transition into Batman arriving at the amusement park.

The Joker activates the amusement park and his circus freaks attack, Batman defeats them and goes up to the Joker only to discover it’s another circus freak. After defeating him, the Joker shows him Gordon. The Joker escapes into the hall of Mirrors but Batman stops to rescue Gordon. He wants the Joker brought in by the book.

Batman walks through the Hall of Mirrors, as the Joker comments on Batman’s origin. Batman defeats more circus freaks and goes to attack the Joker. He enters a room turned upside-down. He mentions that he remembers his past in different ways and says he prefers his past to be multiple choice. 

The fact is in the comic, there is no upside-down room. The entire scene is done in the hall of mirrors and it helps hammer in the reflections between the Joker and Batman even further. Here, they use the upside-down room to elongate the fight scene. And to be honest, it’s mostly the Joker kicking Batman’s ass. Meh? I don’t really care to see the Joker physically beat Batman, the Joker is not supposed to be Batman’s physical equal, leave that to someone like Ra’s al Ghul.

When Batman starts putting the punches in is about where the comic has the two confront. Batman comments that Gordon didn’t crack. They end up outside, the Joker has his gun ready but it’s a fake and there’s no pole shooting out of this one. Batman tries to appeal to the Joker but the Joker thinks it’s too late and they share a Joke. They both laugh but Joker’s laugh stops before Batman’s does. Some think that in the comic, that was supposed to imply that Batman killed the Joker. 

I honestly disagree, I think Batman respects Commissioner Gordon enough for that not to happen, plus in comic canon obviously that can’t be true. The make it clearer here that Batman grabs Joker’s shoulders, in the comic it’s in silhouette and you could argue he was grabbing his neck.

In an after credits scene, it’s shown that Barbara has recovered and is about to begin her new career as Oracle.

This movie is a mess.

The animation is sub-par, the voice acting is surprisingly sub-par but the story is the worst offence this commits by far!

In attempting to make Batgirl look stronger, they make her look worse and what really annoys me about this is how it could’ve been so much better. How’s this for an idea, short prologue, a mission with Batman and Barbara together, have some talk between Gordon and Barbara, maybe have Gordon find out and convince her to give it up and do it that way. That incites a connection that helps better the story.

But it needn’t be long, there could just as easily be an epilogue showing Barbara growing from the accident and the road to her becoming Oracle. This would’ve shown Barbara as a strong character. What people don’t understand is that strong characters are defined by having them deal with flaws and/or hardships. Not by showing they’re above sexual relationships. And you’re seeing more and more of them in movies, television, this felt heavily dated in that aspect.

But the Killing Joke portion itself is not above criticism, whilst the story remains faithful, the animation and voice issues persist and by far the biggest issue is the transitions between flashbacks. Hell, I think they’re better in the comic, and that doesn’t have the advantage of animation!

THIS MOVIE GIVES ME RAGE ISSUES!

If you want to see the Killing Joke, read the comic. If you’re desperate to see it, skip the first half. The second half is better.

Rating 300%