Well, after seeing Suicide Squad I was optimistic that The Killing Joke might cleanse my DC comics movie palette. The best of the DC films have been animated, with legitimate classics like Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, and Batman: Assault on Arkham (a Suicide Squad film you should see now) DC has far overshadowed the boring efforts that Marvel has shelled out. This begs the question as to what would happen if someone made a movie out of one of the most intentionally wrenching and skillfully forced comics of all time? It turns out not much. Batman: The Killing Joke is a fluke, that while not horrible, never really comes to life.. Throughout its entire length, the book felt paranoid and almost poisoning, including the almost slightly misogynistic implications that it’s plot brought into play. The Killing Joke follows the Joker as he shoots Barbara Gordon in the spine, tries to drive her Commissioner father insane in an amusement park reveals his backstory, and slowly attempts to drive Batman insane. It was about a horrible thing happening to squeeze out a feeling of dread and fear, that while overwhelming and effective, was a little too persistent. It is really crushing though. The movie of The Killing Joke only ever reaches the hysterical nature that the book created during moments of its climax. The rest is boring and not very well directed animation. This is kind of a surprise because of how startlingly good the team and voice cast on the film is. Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, Tara Strong, and Ray Wise are all veterans. Sam Liu, director of the well written and animated Batman: Year One animated film obviously knows what he’s doing, but here seems to be doing things too straightforwardly. The nature of Brian Bolland’s almost surrealistic panels don’t translate well as the film version plays it all realistically. The intention was probably to create a world where all of this crazy stuff could in fact happen, but it robs the story of its fangs until a crazed final battle between Batman and the Joker. The camera movement and action is excellent during this beautiful final confrontation. The nothingness that is the first 30 minutes isn’t completely mentionable. It comes and goes and ends as it is, but doesn’t effect the plot to much. Wow, this is not a good month for the DC Comics cinematic department. As is The Killing Joke doesn’t seem to hold the depth the cartoon that much of its pedigree came from or the book it was based on. This may come from the forced nature of the original material, but seems more a product of execution unfortunately. Not as bad as the DCEU, not close to previous animated films, The Killing Joke is still an an indication that DC needs to get back on track. Batman: The Killing Joke gets a 5 out of 10.
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |