Review of Batman: The Killing Joke (2016) by Abemc — 30 Jul 2016

If you're a fan of the other Batman movies, give it a watch. It's dark, depressing, and moody – and (perhaps purposefully) unsatisfying. Conroy, Hamill and Tara Strong are great as always. The animations looked a little stiff sometimes, but usually as good as Under the Red Hood. Good direction and decent music.

But the writing. Oh, man. It didn't really hit me until I had reached the ending (SPOILERS follow). Usually the "bad guy" tries to decrease the height of his crimes by pointing out similarities between himself and the “good guy.” Instead Batman is the one saying that he and the Joker are very alike. Joker gets the tired line, “It's too late to help me,” while sounding all too sane. He tells a joke, and they laugh like two old friends. Batman not wanting to give a “moral high ground” speech was strange. The fact that he laughed was stranger. Is Bruce beginning to go insane? The ending scenes would have been amazing in that case, but it's never established or built up. The one-night-stand with Barbara could even have played into that (I always thought they “did it” anyway, so I wasn't surprised by it). Would it have been THAT hard to play up a Batgirl v. Joker vendetta in the beginning, instead of using a throwaway gangster character as a vehicle for Batgirl angst?

Average movie that never earns the empathy it demands.