Review of Batman: The Killing Joke (2016) by Ahnehnois — 28 Jul 2016

It's easy to see why the story is held in high regard. It touches on powerful ideas. That being said, the source material and this adaptation of it are both clumsy and somewhat trashy takes on the subject. On top of the stultifying dialogue and surrealistic plot jumps, the movie adds an out of touch prologue that really wasn't needed, apparently for no good reason other than to fluff the limited runtime.

Of course, the movie has been met with plenty of dumb criticism on the gendered aspects of its violence, but that isn't really the problem. The villain here seems genuinely villainous; nothing in the movie could be seen as an endorsement of his sadism. If anything, the movie caricatures its men more negatively, with the prologue adding a gratuitous extra villain delivering silly lines about women, and Batman having been given an extra layer of emotional ice that his already difficult character hardly needs. Combine that with some weak animation and you've got plenty of room for legitimate criticism here.

Several iconic, quotable moments do emerge, but the rest of the movie seems like an exercise in waiting for them. The story seems like it needs to be reexplored with smarter writing, more nuance, and a big budget live action production. Given that The Dark Knight comes pretty close to meeting those criteria, I'd sooner watch that again than revisit this one.