What can I say about Batman: The Killing Joke? With a fantastic and dark story, with an ending that truely leaves you thinking, it deserves its legacy and the mark it left on the DC Universe. Hell, it's so good that it was a major influence on Tim Burton and Chris Nolan when they were making their Jokers. So when the announcement came that Bruce Timm was making an animated adaptation of the novel, and that the cast of The Animated Series would reprise their roles for the movie, and that it would be getting a hard 'R' rating, it was like Christmas came early for us Batman fans. So is this a worthy adaptation.
By the way, I'm doing something different this time. I'll be having Pros first and Cons last, instead of the reverse as usual. You'll see why.
PROS
The voice acting in this movie is incerdible. Getting back Tara Strong to reprise Batgirl was smart. New actors like Ray Wise and Robin Atkins Downes do good as Gordon and Bullock. But the two standouts are Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamil, aka THE Batman and THE Joker. Kevin Conroy has still got it as Batman. And Mark Hamil is not only great as the Joker, but the pre-transformation Joker in the flashbacks.
Also, for a direct-to-DVD feature film, the animation is pretty good. They're faithful enough to the illustrations, while adding that DC animated touch. The movements are fine. The animation is at it's best during the Joker's musical number. The only time the animation is iffy is when they try to incoprerate some pretty bad CGI.
I'd say my favorite stuff with this movie is with the Joker. From the fantastic musical number that take a dark turn near the end to the flashbacks, to the ending that is translated amazingly onto the screen. Not only does Hamil give a great performance, but the Joker is surprisingly well-developed, like in the novel. You end up feeling conflicted on the character, as you do see his human side, but you also see hime do some horrible things in the course of the film.
When this movie is actually faithful to the novel, it's pretty good. It's suspensful. It's creepy. It has a couple of funny moments (Well, funny in a dark way) It's got a great ending. What about this film isn't great? Well...
CONS
Now, Killing Joke is a short story, unlike a lot of the DC Animation films based on long stories. So the makers felt they had to expand it. With a 30-minute prolouge about Batgirl. But what they did, was... wrong. WRONG!!! ALL KINDS OF WRONG!!!
Since Batgirl suffers the most in the story, it's seems fitting she gets some development. However, it's not good development. The stuff they add on either sexualizes Batgirl or makes her seem immature. Her romance with Bruce Wayne. Her gay best friend who talks with her about sex and nothing else. The sex scene. The new character, Paris Franz, who keeps hitting on her. The part where she's all "Should I call Bruce about our sex or not". The parts where she keeps whining about Batman holding her back. The scene where she's jogging and they have some closeups of her butt and breasts. And the worst thing is, you could remove this entir first act, and nothing would change. You know you've done something wrong when an entire act of your movie feels pointless.
And because of all this, it really does screw up the story. I should feel something when Barbera gets shot and paralyzed. But all the stuff menntioned above just makes unlikeable. I don't feel anything for this character except exasperation. And the thing is, that's one of the things that's supposed to hold this movie together. You should feel like "Wow. The Joker is horrible. He paralyzed that character I like". But here, sure Joker is horrible for paralyzing Barbera. But when you can't get behind her, it really does take some of the meat out of the story. It's what takes a great movie, and drops it all the way down to 'eh'.
VERDICT:
There's a great movie hidden in The Killing Joke. It has great vocal performaces and some half-decent animation. And when it focuses on Joker and sticks to the original graphic novel, it's pretty good. But it's all bogged down by a pretty bad first act that almost damages the story and absolutely damages the character of Batgirl. It really does drop the quality movie down a few notches. If you have read Killing Joke and loved it, you'll get some enjoyment out of the second and third act but I'm not sure you'll enjoy the prolouge. If you haven't read Killing Joke, you might like this. This could have been really good and expanding on Batgirl could have been a good idea. It just needed better writers.
6/10