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.
