Review of Batman: The Killing Joke (2016) by Talia F — 29 Jul 2016

The opening Batgirl storyline felt like a teen drama whilst the Killing Joke section was -- well, Killing Joke. Even the dialogue was noticeably different between the two segments. I think overall if the Batgirl opening storyline had been something more tonally similar to the Killing Joke story, most of the complaints against it would have been null -- the problems Batgirl/Barbara is having with bossy Batman and sexual harassment from a minor villain are just kind of trivial compared to what happens later, and also not well executed even within their context. It kind of seemed like the filmmakers were trying so hard to be feminist that it was backfiring on them -- they ended up instead with some caricature view of women's issues.

The Killing Joke part, however, was very well done. Mark Hamill read those lines like they were poetry. Everyone in the theater was on the edge of their seat, and just dying for the release of laughing at Joker's lame little joke at the end of the story. If half the movie was going to be rotten, better that it was the first half so that it could end on a high note.

I think this may have been the best film I've seen in the theater all year. I don't think it's Oscar material by any means, but (in the Killing Joke section) it succeeds at having high stakes so you worry about the fate of the characters, something many films these days seem to fail at.