Batman: The Killing Joke (2016)- When Being “Faithful” Isn’t Good Enough Anymore

When it comes to superhero films or even just films based off source material, the one thing that fans want to see more than anything else is a fair amount of respect from that source material which it came from. Not only because it will best represented the characters that is presented in movie form, but as a means of feeling rewarded for your loyalty and investment as a longtime fan. However, at times, that can come with a price. While being faithful should always be a key factor into adapting book, comics, games, tv shows, etc. into movies, there can be a line you cross where that can become too much of a good thing. There’s showing respect and then there’s just showing plain laziness. Sure, you want to show your paying customers how much you care about them and what they love but why bother adapting a famous story at all if you are just going to show the exact same thing over again but with minimum changes? This isn’t like a theatre play with a live audience, this is an actual movie with millions of dollars spent on it. When adapting onto the big screen, there must come changes. When making those changes, it must work well to fit with the story, characters, and themes of what you’re adapting. Do that right and you get things like Spider-Man 2, The Dark Knight, The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Solder, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Guardians of the Galaxy, Deadpool, Logan, Wonder Woman, Into the Spider-Verse, along with many others. Do them wrong and you get things like Spider-Man 3, X-Men: The Last Stand, Iron Man 2, Green Lantern, Amazing Spider-Man 2, Fant4stic, Batman v Superman, X-Men: Apocalypse, Suicide Squad, Dark Phoenix, along with many others, including the movie I will be discussing here with Batman: The Killing Joke.

In case, anyone is unaware but the Batman: The Killing Joke movie was based off of a graphic novel of the same name by now infamous (and for good reason) Alan Moore. It was originally published in March 1988 and is meant to be the most personal conflict between Batman and the Joker yet, even going as far as to claiming this has the actual definite final confrontation between these two well-known comic book icons. It dives deeper into the Joker’s actual origins more than ever before, even going as far as to showcases the moment to where he finally snapped and became the terrifying clown prince of crime, proving that all it takes is one bad night for someone to lose themselves. It’s meant to show the similarities and differences between Batman and Joker as well as showing just how those two help compliment with one another with what they do. However, one major element that was heavily criticized within the book (and ESPECIALLY with the film) was the harsh treatment of Barbara Gordon, the lone woman presented in the story.

If you know anything about comic books, you probably know of the term, “women in refrigerators”. This term is specifically meant to refer to female characters that are treated more as plot devices and motivations for the male characters rather than well, their own individual character. That was definitely the case with Barbara Gordon in the original Killing Joke story. Her only sole purpose in the plot is to get shot right through the spine by the Joker and become paralyzed. This is meant as an act of messing with her father Jim Gordon, who not only gets kidnapped by the Joker but is constantly tortured with seeing pics and clips of her poor crippling daughter. Not only to try to get inside Jim’s head mentally but try to crack him like an egg to make him snap just like the Joker did on the night he became the Joker, showing how anyone can become like him after just one bad night. Warts and all, Barbara acts as nothing more than a tragic feature and reason for her father to feel tortured on the inside.

To try to fix the criticism of the original novel “fridging” Barbara Gordon in the novel along with providing more depth and length into the animated feature, director Sam Liu and writer Brian Azzarello made a decision to include an extended prologue that’s about an half hour long where Barbara is Batgirl in an attempt to get the audience to be more invested in her just before her cruel, inevitable fate. That in of itself, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s quite an interesting idea to give more backstory, depth, and investment into Barbara Gordon so that the only female character in this story is able to play some significant role instead of being there to be a cripple. Now, how exactly do they go with giving more screen time to Barbara, A.K.A. Batgirl? In literally the worst ways you can possibly imagine!

What exactly happens during the first half hour of the film, you may ask?! Well, we have Batgirl trying to prove her allegiance to Batman by being a great crime fighter while stalking and flirting around with a couple of bad guys, have her whine and pout a bit about how “over protective” Batman is when he won’t let her go further on her assignment, all while being creepily and unnecessarily sexualized in slow, clumsy animation form. (Seriously, was Michael Bay in charge of the animation process?) Oh, and she gets it on with Batman. *insert Obi-Wan “What?!”*

And yes, you’ve read that last part correctly! Batgirl and Batman actually have sex! They f*ck! See for yourselves!

I’m not going into all the sole reasons why this is nothing short of awful but just the mere thought of Batman doing it with his best friend’s daughter (A.K.A. James Gordon, the commissioner of Gotham Police) is enough to make me not even want bring up this scene ever again. It also doesn’t help with what comes shortly after when Batgirl talks with Batman again and going on about how it’s just sex and that it’s “no big deal”. Do I really need to go any further on that?

So, yeah! That’s exactly how the filmmakers behind this animated feature choose to address the criticism of it’s usage of Barbara Gordon. Instead of actually fleshing her out, giving her more backstory and depth, or even a sole purpose to at least get the actual Killing Joke story itself rolling in motion, they decide to basically double down on that criticism and make Barbara even worse her than she was in the original story. I’m still baffled how you f*cked that up so badly!

And the worst part of all of this is that these exact sequences events are not mention at all throughout the rest of the film. While yes we see at least one or two more scenes with Barbara in the hospital, nothing in the prologue serves a purpose to anything within the rest of the film. You could just fast forward and skip ahead to the very first scene with Batman paying a jail visit to the Joker in Arkham Asylum and you would not miss a single beat. The only thing you would take out is the butchered work that the entire prologue where instead of Batman wanted to stop the Joker for good is because he kidnapped his best friend, it’s more because he actually had some strong, naughty feelings over his daughter. Yet again, using Barbara as strictly a plot device/motivation for our main male protagonist. And this is what I’m talking about when I say being faithful comes at a price.

Then, there’s the course of the rest of the film. Unlike, the prologue, it is in fact very faithful to the graphic novel. It follows practically every note of it beat-by-beat from the characters to the dialogue to the moment-to-moment storytelling. Yet, it still sucks.

You have animation that is limp, stiff and lifeless that it makes you wonder how that other animated Batman animated film (which I will discuss next in this marathon) that came out the same year looks and is animated MUCH better than this one. You have characters that had already been butchered by the prologue of the film or ones that aren’t interesting enough to care about what’s going on. You have iconic voice actors returning to voice their iconic characters perhaps for their final time (at least one of them anyway) and they couldn’t sound more bored to be there. And you have dialogue despite being stripped from the novel, sound incredibly awkward, outdated, and shows just how much comic book dialogue does NOT translate well to film whatsoever. But, hey, at least it’s FAITHFUL, am I right?!

And that is the exact problem with Killing Joke in a nutshell. Even if you took out it’s insulting as hell and pure misogynist treatment of Batgirl, you still got a lame and boring movie that’s badly made, badly acted, and a chore to get through. Not only because of it’s lack of care of source material despite nearly adapting it page-by-page, but that it forgets what made that story stand out in 1988 and not in 2016. Killing Joke is not a kind of story that can stand the test time, as a matter of fact, it’s quite dated.

This is a problem that could have been fixed with an attempt to “modernized” the material, or at least make it to where it can work as an actual film rather than a read-along. A major update on it that helps expand upon it’s thought provoking ideas and the confrontation between Batman and Joker with more realistic dialogue and narrative choices could help make it stand out more. It might have pissed off a comic book fan or two (then again what DOESN’T these days?!), but it would have least shown how the Killing Joke, even after 26 years in it’s prime, can still be an important story worth telling. (Heck, if the reception of this movie is anything to go back, then comic books fans were bound to be upset regardless.) Unfortunately, that isn’t what any of the people behind this animated flick had in mind when making this picture.

As much as we like to talk about whenever a controversial superhero movie doesn’t “get” it’s source material with the changes it makes to the story and characters, we don’t talk nearly enough about how there can be certain superhero movies that doesn’t get it’s material by sticking too closely to it. Sticking too close to the source material can be a legit thing that holds your movie back. It prevents of seeing something truly bold, creative, risky, or possibly even better than the material it’s based off of. What makes sticking too close to the source material hurt even more is not only when you forget the point and intent behind it but literally try to add in unnecessary elements that brings a giant rain cloud on the whole thing and makes you want to stay inside. It’s only then that being faithful is not only not good enough anymore but it’s arguably even worse than being unfaithful.

A couple of other side notes:

• Seriously, how is it that Return of the Caped Crusader (the animated sequel to Adam West’s Batman from 40 YEARS AGO!) have better animation and is an overall better movie than this?
• This is Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill’s worst performances as Batman and Joker by a long shot. I’ve found glimpses of it in Arkham Knight but those two are clearly over with and might be time to call it a career with these roles. A shame since they will be forever known as the actual definite voices for those two iconic characters.
• I honestly can’t imagine Batman saying a single line of dialogue to Joker or anyone in this movie in 2021.
• 2016 really was a disastrous year for DC Comics, at least in terms of films.
• I want to say something even slightly remotely positive about this movie but I got nothing. This thing just blows!
• I guess the scene of Gordon going through the circus tunnel is cool and the Joker number is decent.
• I got nothing else!

Next up: Batman- Return of the Caped Crusader