Batman: The Killing Joke (2016)

While it may have had nothing on 2020, 2016 was still a shitty year in general, both for me and just about everyone else. Aside from the most blatant reason that affected everyone, on a more personal level, there was all of the unnecessary outrage and controversy caused by Paul Feig's Ghostbusters, with me becoming really infuriated when James Rolfe got dragged into it for no good reason. And then, not long after that, I went on a road-trip with my parents across the country to Yellowstone National Park, which quickly became a pain in the rear due to the heat, my dad starting the trip off under the weather and grumpy, him getting really sick during the last leg of it, and me catching whatever he had and throwing up constantly, leading to us being stranded in a small town in Colorado for three days. Not long after we got back, I saw Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice for the first time on Blu-Ray and, if you've read my review, you know that, like many, I really did not care for it, especially on the Superman side of things. Little did I know that Batman would have his own controversial turn when another comic book movie came out that same summer. I'd known they were doing an animated adaptation of The Killing Joke for a while and, like their adaptations of other well-known, beloved graphic novels and comics, I was definitely interested. Like all of them, I'd never read The Killing Joke itself but I definitely knew of it and how much of a beloved property it was among fans, being right up there with The Dark Knight Returns and Year One. I first heard of it in Legends of the Dark Knight: The History of Batman, this forty-minute documentary that was part of the many special features on the 2005 DVD of the first Tim Burton movie, where it was lauded by people like Kevin Smith, as well as noted as having a big influence on Burton himself. Jenette Kahn, a former president and editor at DC Comics, mentions in an interview there that, when they began working with him on the movie, he would hold up a copy of the graphic novel and say, "This is what I want the movie to look like." And being that Burton has said he's never been a comic book fan, that was quite profound. So, I knew there would be very high stakes in adapting this story, especially given what I'd heard about its disturbing content. But given the track record of these DC animated movies, as well as that Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill would be doing the voices and that they were going to really delve into the story's darkness and not worry about the rating, I didn't think there was any cause for concern.

Then the movie came out and I heard the less than enthusiastic fan response almost immediately, the main point of contention being the stuff they added to the story, which I learned the details of before I saw it myself; a friend of mine who's much more into comic books than me had seen it and told me about the sex scene between Batman and Batgirl, which left me dumbfounded for a variety of reasons. Regardless, I decided to check it out for myself and got the chance sooner than I expected when I happened to be at my local Wal-Mart one night in August and bought the Blu-Ray. When I watched it the next day, I did agree with many of the criticisms concerning the prologue, especially that one scene (though, I was grateful they didn't show as much as I thought they did), but, overall, I enjoyed it. I thought that once the movie got into the actual story of The Killing Joke, it really redeemed itself, delving into the themes Alan Moore explored in the graphic novel and not holding back on the horror the Joker unleashes on Commissioner Gordon and Barbara, showing a depth to his depravity that has often been hinted at but rarely fully depicted. I also thought the voice acting was really good, with Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, and Tara Strong really giving it their all, and that the ending was just as ambiguous as the comic's, though done so in a way that fit with animation. In the end, I came out liking it a lot more than the diehard comic fans, likely because this movie was the first time I'd ever experienced this story, and upon re-watching it, I still think that when it works, it really works... but, the flaws have also become much more apparent. For one, while I think the movie is well-drawn and animated, it doesn't at all match how awesome, unforgettable, and, in many ways, haunting the artwork of the graphic novel is. For another, because of the prologue, its structure is very shaky and does indeed come off as two very different stories mashed together, especially when you get into the big difference in the tone and quality of the writing. But, most damning of all, despite its trying to add more depth to the story and characters (in its own eyebrow-raising ways), it's ultimately pointless in the long run, and I think an attempt during the credits to come back around to it is especially harmful.

After getting a tip from Commissioner Gordon, Batman is joined by Batgirl in an attempt to stop a cargo truck containing a stolen armored car. They manage to recover the car but the truck's two drivers get away. One of them is Paris Franz, the nephew of Carlos Francesco, a powerful crime boss, who also happens to be a narcissistic sociopath. A few nights later, Franz and his men attempt to rob a warehouse of valuables owned by his uncle, when Batgirl arrives. Though she manages to incapacitate his men, Franz himself sprays her in the face with knockout gas and nearly traps her. Following the robbery, Batman, fearing for Batgirl's safety, warns her not to deal with Franz without him. However, Franz has become obsessed with her and sends a message to her through the police, telling her to meet up with him. This prompts Batman to take her off the case entirely, but Batgirl, instead, follows a hunch that leads to her finding Francesco's body and nearly getting shot up by his men. Batman's intervention saves her but, afterward, he scolds her for letting Franz manipulate her and warns her that, at some point, she'll reach the abyss and attempt to kill the criminals she pursues. Again, he tells her she's off the case, leading to a fight between them that then turns sexual. He avoids for several days afterward, until she calls him to try to make up, when he's ambushed by Franz and his men at the docks. Batman is badly injured and nearly killed as a result, when Batgirl saves him. However, when she fights Franz one on one, her frustration with his obsession and his taunts drive her to beat him to a bloody pulp and nearly kill him. Stopping herself, Batgirl, now understanding what Batman was talking about, retires from crime-fighting shortly afterward. The next week, Batman investigates a murder scene containing the mummified bodies of four men with grisly smiles on their faces. Suspecting the Joker, he, along with Gordon, goes to Arkham Asylum to talk with him, only to find he's escaped and has put a double in his place. Meanwhile, the Joker acquires a long-abandoned amusement park and, after murdering the owner, puts into motion a horrific plan involving Gordon, Barbara, and Batman. A plan meant to prove his point that, as happened to him, one bad day can drive anyone mad and make them lose their morality.

The Killing Joke was the seventh of these movies to be directed by Sam Liu, and it would also prove to be far from the last, as he's since gone on to do Teen Titans: The Judas Contract, Batman and Harley Quinn, Batman: Gotham By Gaslight, Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay, The Death of Superman (which he co-directed with Jake Castorena), and Reign of the Supermen, among many others. However, I think this is one instance where we can see a lot of Bruce Timm's influence, especially in regards to the movie's prologue, which he's admitted was his idea, as well as that of producer Alan Burnett and screenwriter Brian Azzarello, which is also indicative of a weird fixation he has about Batgirl and her relationship with Batman, as we'll get into.

Whatever issues this film may have, it's always a joy when Kevin Conroy voices Batman and here, as always, he manages to give the character a real sense of strength, authority, and stoic badassery, while also showing hints of the true humanity within him. In the opening section with Batgirl, Batman is depicted as the cynical professional who finds it necessary to look out for her, as she's still a newbie who gets a thrill out of crime-fighting. When Paris Franz enters the picture and becomes obsessed with her, Batman, knowing how dangerous a disturbed mindset like his can be, warns her not to tangle with him alone and then orders her off the case altogether, saying Franz has objectified her and, worst of all, doesn't fear her. After she disobeys him and is led into a trap, Batman scolds her not only for falling for it but also for letting her ego and her need to prove herself cloud her judgement. He then puts her in her place, saying that, while partners, "We're not equals. Not even close," and warns her of the ultimate peril of their "line of work": "You're not in it like I am, Barbara. It's still a game for you, it's still a thrill. You haven't been taken to the edge yet... The abyss, the place where you don't care anymore. Where all hope dies." Again, he tells her she's to have no more to do with this case, and when she says she won't stand for his over-protection, he coldly responds, "Then get out." That's when she attacks him in frustration and he, at first, easily fights her off, until she gains the upperhand and literally floors him. Following what happens next, he avoids her for a little while, and when she contacts him, he tells her he's searching for Franz at the docks. He also tells her to stay away yet again, obviously troubled with what happened. He's then ambushed and nearly killed by Franz and his men, leading to Batgirl saving his life. He also witnesses her reaching the edge of the abyss when she goes ballistic on Franz and nearly beats him to death. Shortly afterward, she ends her crime-fighting career and, though Batman does try to apologize for his frigidity, she says she understands his concern and what he meant about the abyss and the two of them part amicably.

A week later, after seeing a crime scene he's sure was the work of the Joker, Batman goes to Arkham Asylum to speak with him and, when he enters his cell, talks with him about the inevitability that one of them will kill the other at some point, adding, "I just... I need to know, for when that time comes, that I'd made a genuine attempt to talk things over. To try and avert the inevitable. Just once." Despite the years the two of them have been total enemies and how much he loathes his sick, demented

schemes and what he stands for as a whole, in the end, he's still somewhat sympathetic towards the Joker and genuinely wants to help him. He's also fascinated by and drawn to him, especially since he's been unable to figure him out after all this time. Though he says he doesn't know who he really is any more than he, in turn, would know who he is, Batman contemplates whether or not that's the case, saying, "He drives me. How can two people hate so much without knowing each

other?" But, when he realizes he's escaped from Arkham, Batman becomes absolutely driven to find him and figure out what his plan is. That drive becomes all the more frantic when, after Barbara Gordon winds up in the hospital, paralyzed from the waist down after the Joker shoots her, Batman visits her and learns the Joker took Gordon himself in order to "prove a point." He starts questioning every lowlife and punk to find his whereabouts, only to receive a personal invitation to the abandoned amusement park where he's taken

Gordon. There, he fights off the sideshow freaks the Joker has made into his minions and manages to save and then comfort Gordon, who's traumatized after what he's been put through but still sane. Gordon then orders Batman to capture the Joker "by the book" in order to prove that his point is null and void. Batman enters the funhouse the Joker hides himself in and, as he makes his way through it, the Joker boasts about having proven his point that anyone can go mad from "one bad day." He also says he knows Batman himself had a

bad day once and accuses him of being unable to admit that he's just as crazy as anyone else, eventually saying, as he beats on him, "By clinging to 'reality,' you're denying the reality of the situation!... It's all a joke! Everything anybody's ever valued or struggled for! It's monstrous!" But then, Batman hits him with this: "I spoke with Commissioner Gordon before I came in here. He told me he wanted this done by the book. You know what that means? It means that despite all your sick, cruel, vicious little games, he's as sane as he ever was. So, ordinary people don't crack. Maybe it's just you."

After their fight ends with the two of them tumbling out of the funhouse, the Joker, finding the gun he was going to use is a fake, tells Batman to go ahead and beat the crap out of him but he, instead, makes an attempt to reach out to him, "I don't want to hurt you. I don't want either of us to end up killing the other. But we're running out of alternatives. Perhaps it all hinges on tonight. I don't know what it was that bent your life out of shape, but maybe I've been there, too. Maybe we could work together. I could rehabilitate you. You

don't need to be alone. We don't have to kill each other. Let me help you." The Joker, however, turns down his offer, saying he's far beyond help, and tells him of the joke the situation reminds him. The two of them then share a laugh over it, with Batman putting his hands on the Joker's shoulders. Just like with the graphic novel, the exact ending is left ambiguous, with the camera panning down to the ground as the two of them laugh, only for the Joker's laugh to cease and Batman's laughing to continue until it slowly but surely trails off. As the

comic's dark shading left it unknown as to whether or not Batman finally snapped and strangled the Joker to death, so does this tweak on it, while also hinting at the possibility that Batman may simply be laughing mad and the Joker stopped laughing because he's actually speechless about it. Either way, when the credits begin, all you're left with for the first few minutes of them is the eerie sound of the pattering rain.

While she's only a small, albeit significant, part of the original story, Barbara Gordon/Batgirl (voiced by Tara Strong) is given much more screentime here, to the point where the movie begins with her narrating, "First of all, I realize this is probably not how you thought the story would start..." Unfortunately, that expanded screentime comes with the baggage of her being the center of the movie's biggest controversy. There are two aspects of her character that are focused on in the first act.

One is that, unlike Batman, she's still a relative newcomer to crime-fighting and gets a genuine thrill and sense of fun out of it. In her opening narration, she even says, "Before the horror began, before it all came crashing down, there was a time when capes and cowls and fighting crime really was exciting." Because of this, she tends to take chances that Batman himself wouldn't, including negotiating with a gunman following the opening truck chase, confident that he wouldn't get the chance to hurt her. She also doesn't realize how dangerous Paris Franz's obsession with her is, even suggesting they use it as a means to catch him, and when Batman takes her off the case, she becomes indignant and frustrated with his being protective of her. Moreover, she attempts to prove she's just as good as him by following a lead that turns out to be a trap set by Franz, as she finds his uncle's murdered body and is nearly gunned down by his men, with Batman arriving in time to save her. When he admonishes her for letting Franz play her the way he did and, again, orders her off the case, warning her about "the abyss," Batgirl becomes all the more defiant and angry, telling him, "This isn't about me, it's about us. It's about you getting protective and sitting in judgment. I won't have it!" And when he tells her to get out if she doesn't like it, she outright attacks him, screaming, "How dare you?! I'm in this because of you! I did what you wanted! I made it work!" But, in the end, Batman turns out to have been right about the abyss, as when Batgirl confronts Franz after saving Batman from his ambush, she gets so angry that she almost beats him to death, only stopping when she snaps out of it and looks at him and then at the blood on her glove. This, along with the knowledge that her being in danger distracts Batman from effectively protecting the people of Gotham, leads her to give up crime-fighting for good. 

The other aspect of the character here is what gets this movie in trouble and that's her relationship with Batman. It comes down to her being attracted to and having romantic feelings for him, surreptitiously telling her friend, Reese, "It just so happens I'm involved with someone... sort of... kind of." Moreover, when Batman becomes protective of her and orders her off the case, Barbara acts like he's a controlling boyfriend, getting heated about it with Reese in the middle of

the library she works at. And finally, part of her reason for nearly killing Franz is due to the trouble he's caused between them, screaming, "You ruined everything!", as she punches him. This aspect of the character can be traced back to Bruce Timm. While Timm has done a lot of great stuff, I've learned over the years that he also has a strange and uncomfortable notion about Batman and Batgirl's relationship. While I and a lot of other people have seen Batman as a surrogate father as

well as a mentor to her, Timm insists he's always seen sexual chemistry between the two, dating all the way back to her appearance on the Adam West TV show. Over the years, he's tried to push that into the animated series in various forms, with Batgirl having a romantic dream about Batman in the episode, Batgirl Returns, her having a close working relationship with him in The New Batman Adventures, and a few implications of it in Batman Beyond. There's even a scene in the movie, Mystery

of the Batwoman, where Barbara calls up Bruce while she's away at college, acting very flirty and asking if she's been replaced (and Timm wasn't even really involved with that movie). Besides her relationship with Batman, Batgirl is, in general, very sexualized here, being drawn with larger breasts than typical and her outfit, as usual, showing off and accentuating every curve. During the actual Killing Joke part of the story, they put in a scene with Barbara out jogging in a tank-top and shorts and give you every chance to ogle her,

especially when she stops and stretches. Again, given Timm's obsession with the character (I've heard he's done some very questionable artwork that he's willing to show people behind the table at conventions), it makes me wonder if he capitalized on the need to expand this story, which he's admitted several times he's not even that big a fan of, to feature length in order to indulge himself.

That said, speaking as a heterosexual guy, I'm not going to complain about eye-candy, and if they think Batgirl having a sexual interest in Batman is an interesting way to go, fine. I personally don't agree with it but, have at it, Hoss. But, where I draw the line and don't like at all is the notorious moment here that really had people up in arms. I wasn't absolutely enraged by Batman and Batgirl actually doing it (again, if nothing else, I'm glad

they didn't go into graphic detail with it) but, still, I was like, "No, no, no." For one, it comes out of freaking nowhere: Batgirl is angry about him being protective, becomes so frustrated that she actually starts fighting him, she manages to get the upper-hand, knocks him to the ground, pins him... and then, she goes from being angry to lustful and kisses him. Wow, Batgirl. Moody much? But what I hate even worse than that is that Batman

reciprocates. He looks like he's about to resist her, only to embrace her and touch her butt, leading her to remove her cape and take off the top of her outfit. It's especially random because, despite how she may feel, he didn't appear to see it that way. When he was being protective, it really felt like an experienced mentor trying to keep his green, overconfident pupil from making a bad mistake or, at the very least, a surrogate father trying to stop his daughter from getting in over her head. I feel

like it would have been more appropriate for him to stop her, say, "What the hell are you doing? Get off me!", and leave, making it clear he doesn't see her that way. The following scene, where she's back in her apartment, looking at herself in the mirror, and asking herself what she's done, would've worked just as well with that scenario, especially since the act is never expounded upon in a meaningful way afterward, with Batgirl herself even saying, "It was just sex, for God's sake!" Well, if that's the case, then why was that moment even here?

But the real tragedy behind this extended first act and the bad decisions that were made is that, in the end, it was all meaningless. The intent was to build up the character of Barbara Gordon, showing what she's gone through, how she decided to give up on crime-fighting after maturing and realizing the possible moral perils of it, and that she's now having a nice, normal life, which is destroyed by the Joker when he paralyzes her, hideously assaults her, and uses her to torment her father, but it was

for nothing. Not only is this first act so markedly different from the rest of the movie that the intent behind it doesn't gel but what was in the original story was horrifying enough as it was. In fact, it was more horrifying there because Barbara hadn't been seen up to this point, making the Joker's doing this to her feel all the more random and senseless. The only benefit I could say the prologue has is that it makes the idea of the abyss and the point of no return a little more potent, as we've seen Batgirl

nearly reach that moment both Batman and the Joker talk about, and her telling Batman that she doesn't know how he's managed to resist it all this time could potentially enhance the question of whether or not he did go over the edge in his final scene with the Joker. But that could've been done better, as well. And speaking of which, there's a moment in the middle of the credits that I feel harms the whole point of the ending: Barbara is now getting along well, despite her paralysis, and has become the Oracle. I don't want to come off as nihilistic but, because of the meaning behind this story and the question of the ending, I feel like putting some light at the end of it doesn't do it any favors.

Another problem with the first act is that the main baddie, Paris Franz (voiced by Maury Sterling), is pretty lame, despite how much they try to make him seem like a truly dangerous criminal with the knowledge that he's a narcissistic sociopath, as well as his sudden, consuming infatuation with Batgirl, which he develops after getting only a brief glimpse of her when she thwarts his stealing an armored car. He becomes so obsessed with her, in fact, that, while he and his cronies are hiding out on a boat at the harbor, it's revealed he had a woman put on a makeshift cowl while she "entertained" him. While attempting to take over his uncle's criminal enterprise by murdering him, Franz also lures Batgirl to his body, essentially to show her that he has the power to take her whenever he wants, but it almost leads to her getting killed when Francesco's men try to take her down. During the first act's climax, where Franz and his men ambush Batman down at the docks, he gets his chance to be alone with Batgirl for the second time (the first time, he sprays her with knockout gas while he's trying to rob a warehouse but she manages to escape before she loses consciousness). This almost proves to be his undoing, as she nearly beats him to death out of anger due to his causing problems between her and Batman, but he's undeterred, even going as far as to mockingly say, "Must be that time of the month." Even after that, as he's being taken away, he sends a message to her through a news camera, saying, "Love you, Batgirl! Love you!" But, in the end, he mainly comes off as just a spoiled, bratty punk rather than someone with a dangerously unhinged mindset.

Also in the prologue, Barbara has a friend named Reese (voiced by J.P. Karliak), a blonde gay guy who's often trying to set her up and becomes intrigued when she tells him she's "involved with someone." Though he never learns the details, he proves to be someone she can talk to about the complicated relationship she has with Batman, whom she refers as her "yoga instructor," and after he doesn't contact her following their night of intimacy, Reese encourages her to talk to him, saying, "Some guys need a period of adjustment. They get nervous about commitment. He's only human, right?" As nice and well meaning a character as he is, though, the problem with Reese is that, in the small handful of scenes he's in, he comes off as a big gay stereotype in the way he looks, speaks, and some of the phrases he uses, like, "I've been to that dance," and, "And they say the gay scene is complicated. Ugh, whaaat?"

It's hard to say who suffers worse at the Joker's hands: Barbara or Commissioner Gordon (voiced by Ray Wise), who's having a nice visit with his daughter when the Joker comes calling. In fact, he's already on edge after having visited Arkham with Batman and discovered the Joker's missing, later telling Barbara, "I hate this. Whenever we jail him, I pray, 'Please, God, just keep him there.' And then when he escapes, it's, 'Please don't let him do something too awful this time.'" Well, that prayer is ignored completely, as Barbara getting shot in front of him and the Joker's goons beating on him are just the beginning of Gordon's torment. He later awakens at the abandoned amusement park to find himself stripped naked and being led on a collar and leash. The Joker taunts him about the dark side of memories and suggests madness as an alternative, before making Gordon the judge of a kangaroo court, where he's asked the question of what he would do to someone who breaks the laws he must uphold. Gordon, naturally, answers, "If it were up to me, I'd throw the book at him," and he gets the chance to literally do so... only, when he tosses a book with "THE LAW" written on its blank cover, it hits a wooden cutout of Batman that pops up in front of the Joker. He was so sure they were describing the Joker, and this revelation that their description does fit Batman as well does further damage to his psyche. The Joker then attempts to break it completely, singing the song, I Go Loony, while surrounding him with projected images of Barbara, naked, in misery and agony, and obviously being violated. This leaves Gordon in a catatonic state, to which the Joker comments, "That's what a dose of reality will do to you." With this, he assumes he's won and proved his point about madness, but when Batman arrives and saves Gordon, the commissioner is revealed to be sane, albeit traumatized. He then sends Batman after the Joker, telling him, "I want him brought in. And I want it done by the book. By the book! You have to! We have to show him our way works." Of course, whether or not that's how it went is ultimately up in the air.

Detective Harvey Bullock (voiced by Robin Atkin Downes) has a small role during the real story, first appearing at the crime scene that Batman ascribes to the Joker. While I'm not sure about his portrayal in the comics, before or after The Killing Joke, I know this version of Bullock isn't as antagonistic towards Batman as he was in Batman: The Animated Series. He's willing to work with him, sharing the coroner's report on the bodies found there and even coming up with a hunch as to when

and where the Joker may have abducted them. He also contacts Commissioner Gordon so he can meet up with him at Arkham and later, after Barbara is shot and taken to the hospital, Bullock tells Batman that she was found naked, disgustedly adding, "Pretty sick, ain't it?" And before the climax, he uses the signal to contact Batman and give him the Joker's personal invite to the amusement park. Alfred (voiced by Brian George) appears in one scene in the Batcave, when Batman is trying to figure out the Joker's plan. He takes his master's cape and cowl, and when Bruce says, "All these years, and I don't know who he is any more than he knows who I am," Alfred counters with, "Are you sure of that?", warning him not to underestimate him. Before he leaves, he also advises him, "You can't save everyone, sir," alluding to what the Joker himself will say about his being far beyond help.

Fortunately, while Batgirl/Barbara Gordon is the movie's biggest blunder, what it got absolutely right is the Joker himself. When Mark Hamill announced after the Arkham games that he was done voicing the character but would do it one more time for an adaptation of The Killing Joke, fans made it their mission to make sure this movie got made and, while it may have kind of turned out to be a case of be careful what you wish for, Hamill really came through, as he always does in this role. He's always voiced the Joker in a manner that was quite funny, and even really over-the-top at points, but also reminded you of the dangerous, demented psychopath underneath it all and he really gets to indulge in that latter side here. Not since the Batman Beyond movie has Hamill had the opportunity to play a version of the Joker this depraved, sick, and twisted. Even before he's introduced, his foreboding presence is felt in the eerie scene with the murder victims that have the twisted smiles on their faces, and the scene in Arkham where Batman engages with him as he plays a game of solitaire hints at a real feeling of darkness and menace, which is only amped up when Batman realizes he's talking to an imposter and that the real Joker is on the loose. When you see him at the abandoned amusement park, "negotiating" with the owner, you know he's up to something really bad, especially when he talks about hoping the place is just as bad and dangerous as it looks. He shakes the owner's hand, revealing afterward he was wearing a band laced with with one of his deadly toxins, which kills the man almost instantly, leaving him with a pale face, blood dripping from his mouth, and a crazed expression not unlike those seen on the bodies from before. He then goes to fetch his "main attraction," which is when he shows up at Barbara's apartment, shoots and paralyzes her, and has her father beaten and abducted. All the while, he makes cruel comments about what's happened to Barbara, like, "It's just a psychological manifestation, common among librarians. She thinks she's a coffee table edition, though I can't say much for this volume's condition. I mean, there's a hole in the jacket and the spine appears to be damaged." As Gordon is taken away by his thugs, the Joker tells Barbara, "It really is a shame you'll miss your father's debut, Ms. Gordon. Sadly, our venue wasn't built with the disabled in mind," and proceeds to get on with the truly appalling part of his plan, slowly opening Barbara's blouse. When she, with her last bit of strength, asks, "Why are you doing this?", he coldly and evilly says, "To prove a point. Here's to crime."

Once Gordon awakens at the amusement park and is brought before the Joker, he begins his psychological assault on the commissioner. Upon his remembering what happened at Barbara's apartment, the Joker gives him some "advice": "Remembering's dangerous. I find the past such a worrying, anxious place. Yes, memory is so treacherous. One moment you're lost in a carnival of delight, childhood aromas, the flashing neon of puberty, all that sentimental candyfloss. The next,

it takes you somewhere you don't want to be. Somewhere dark and cold, filled with the damp, ambiguous shapes of things you'd rather forget. Memories can be vile, repulsive little brutes. Like children, no? But can we live without them? Memories are what our reason is based on. If we deny them, we deny reason itself. Although, what's wrong with that, really? It's not liked we're contractually tied down to rationality. There is no sanity clause. So when you find yourself locked

onto an unpleasant train of thought, headed for places in your past where the screaming is unavoidable, remember this: there's always madness. You can just step outside, close the door on all those dreadful things that happened. You can lock them away... forever." This soliloquy is something the Joker hopes Gordon will take to heart when trying to deal with what he's about to put him through. Following the kangaroo court scene, where he tricks Gordon into literally and metaphorically throwing the book at Batman,

telling him, "Truth is, Commissioner, the man on trial here you consider your friend," he goes into a song and dance number with the carnival freaks he has working for him. While the visuals of it and the lyrics themselves are funny, especially with how Hamill sings them, what accompanies them is anything but, as he bombards Gordon with numerous images of Barbara, paralyzed, naked, and in pain, possibly having been raped, as the song itself reinforces his "advice" about dealing with life's bad side. By the time it's all said and done, Gordon is in a virtual catatonic state, which the Joker doesn't like, as it slightly interferes with the last phase of his plan.

All throughout the film, we continually flash back to the bad day that turned the Joker's life upside down and made him the depraved, nihilistic maniac he is. You see that he was a former technician at a chemical plant who quit his job to become a comic, a venue he failed miserably at. That, combined with having to support his pregnant wife, Jeannie, made him a very miserable man with no self-confidence and so insecure that he took a simple, "Oh," from Jeannie to be disappointment at his

being such a loser. Desperate to get enough money so they could leave the crappy apartment they were stuck in, he agreed to help two gangsters rob a place next to the plant he worked at, helping them navigate their way through it in exchange for a cut. They also promised to cover up that he was involved by having him dress up as the Red Hood and the comic, despite being creeped out by chemical plant, agreed to help them. But, come the night of the job, he was met by the police and

informed that both his wife and unborn child were killed when a baby-bottle heater malfunctioned. Distraught, he intended to back out of the job, saying there was no reason for him to go through with it, but the gangsters weren't keen on letting him out, one showing him his gun to prove they meant business. With that, he went through with it, meeting them at the plant and donning the Red Hood outfit to guide them. Unfortunately, there was a new security team there, resulting in them being spotted and the comic getting caught up in a

shootout. Disoriented and unable to find the right path due to the mask he was wearing, he was almost killed by one of the gangsters, who felt he was useless, only for him to get shot down. Before the other gangster was also shot, he framed the comic as the ringleader, leading to him being confronted by Batman when he arrived. Terrified, he fell over a walkway and into a vat of chemicals before being swept outside through a large pipe. He crawled up onto a bank and, removing the mask, saw his reflection in a puddle of water. Seeing the clown-like visage he now had, he proceeded to laugh maniacally, leading to the birth of the Joker.

At least, this is one version of what happened. The Joker admits to Batman that he's been taking his own advice about memories and has reached the point where, "I'm not exactly sure what happened. Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another. If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice." Whatever really happened to him, his ultimate plan is to show that, just like him, every person, no matter how seemingly sane, just needs one good push to fall into madness, saying, "All it takes is one bad day. That's how far the

world is from where I am. Just one bad day." However, his plan proves to be flawed when Gordon remains sane, and when Batman tells the Joker this, suggesting that what happened to him was the exception rather than the norm, he can't take it and attempts to shoot him, only to get tackled out of the funhouse, leading to the final scene between them. One of the main themes of this story is the classic notion that Batman and the Joker are really two sides of the same coin. Whether or not Batman had anything to do with

what happened to the Joker, there's no denying that they're both men who've been shaped by tragedy but have taken drastically different paths to deal with it. In the Joker's eyes, Batman's crime-fighting and moral code are a way for him to pretend that nothing changed when his parents were murdered, telling him, "You had a bad day and everything changed. Dressing up like a flying rat doesn't hide it, it screams it. You had a bad day and it drove you as crazy as everybody else, only you won't admit it.

You have to keep pretending that life makes sense, that there's some point to all this struggling... My point is I went crazy. And I'm smart enough to admit it. Why can't you?!... Why can't you see the funny side?! Why aren't you laughing?!" The truth of the matter, though, is that Batman isn't denying anything. He is, indeed, just as mentally damaged as the Joker; but the only difference is that he channeled his madness into trying to ensure no one would have to go through what he did, rather than tormenting and torturing people just to prove that a cynical, narcissistic, misanthropic viewpoint he developed as a result isn't just his own problem.

Most shocking of all is that, during the final scene, there's a moment where the Joker shows a genuine spark of humanity. After they tumble out of the funhouse, he expects Batman to start whaling on him, only for him to instead offer to help rehabilitate him, even extending a hand to help him up. The Joker looks at his hand and seems to consider it for a second but then, stands up himself and apologetically, as well as sadly, answers, "I'm sorry, but no. No. It's far too late for that." It comes

off as though he genuinely wants it but has enough sense to know that any hope of rehabilitation and redemption was lost a long time ago. He then snickers and tells Batman the joke the scenario reminds him of: "See, there were two guys locked in a lunatic asylum and one night... one night, they decided they didn't like that anymore. They decided to escape. So, they made it up to the roof and there, just across this narrow gap, they see rooftops, stretching across town, stretching to freedom. Now the first guy, he jumps right across, no problem. But his friend, oh, ho, no way. He's afraid of falling. So, the first guy has an idea. He says, 'Hey, I got this flashlight with me. I'll shine it across the gap between the buildings and you can walk across the beam and join me.' But the second guy says, 'What do you think I am, crazy? You'll just turn it off when I'm halfway across!'" That's when he starts laughing at the punchline and parallel to what's going on, leading to Batman joining him. 

Going back to the first act, besides its controversial additions and its ostensible purpose ultimately falling flat, another problem is that it tonally doesn't fit with the main story of The Killing Joke. We start out with this sleek, fast-paced, action-packed story involving Batman and Batgirl, with a lot of emphasis on their relationship, as well as overt sexuality, not just in Batgirl's hot design and that scene that must not be mentioned but also in Paris Franz's obsession with her, which has him getting a call-girl to put on a makeshift mask

during an obviously kinky act. Plus, when the girls leave the boat Franz is staying on with his guys, the camera stays on the one girl's butt as she climbs onto the dock and then focuses on their legs as they walk off. To go from that to the dark and deeply disturbing story that follows, where Barbara Gordon is violated in just about every way someone can violate a person and her father is stripped naked and horribly traumatized by it, is not only jarring but it can make you feel icky if you found Barbara really sexy in the first act. Also,

Batman and Batgirl's relationship has no impact on the rest of the movie, even when he's at her bedside. The writing styles are also totally different. In the first act, you have moments of dialogue like Batman and Batgirl's exchange about "negotiating," Batgirl's quips of, "Caution. Falling debris," and, "No withdrawals today, boys," and lines from Franz like, "What can I tell you? Batgirl's hot," but then, once we get into the actual story of The Killing Joke, we get a lot of Alan Moore's deep, rich

writing, often spoken virtually verbatim. Even those who've never read or know of the graphic novel should be able to detect a sudden, obvious shift. And finally, there's a sleekness and brightness to the first act that doesn't gel with the gritty, grungy style of the rest of the movie, even if it is meant to emphasize the calm before the storm.

While it was necessary to expand on the graphic novel, as the movie wouldn't have been much longer than thirty minutes if they hadn't, the irony is that they could've easily done so within its actual story. In fact, there's already an example of such within it: the scene with Batman and Detective Bullock at the crime scene with those long dead Joker murder victims. As I said earlier, that effectively gives off a creepy vibe and already makes you apprehensive about the Joker's inevitable appearance, and plus, Batman having

Bullock contact Commissioner Gordon gives a more concrete reason as to why he's there when Batman goes to Arkham. Instead of wasting nearly thirty minutes on a prologue that most people ultimately hated, they could have done more enhancing of the story they were adapting, especially the Joker's supposed backstory. Maybe they could've shown the comic bombing at one of his standup shows, emphasizing why he would strike a deal with the gangsters, him spending time

with his wife and showing how much he loved her and how excited he was to be a dad, more scenes going into his personal despair over failing as a comic, or, as I heard another person once suggest, when he first becomes the Joker, have him stare at his reflection for a long time without making a sound and then slowly build and build on his laughing before climaxing with that famous close-up of his maddened, cackling face.

On a visual level, The Killing Joke is another really good-looking movie from Warner Bros. animation, one that's very slick and well-produced, with animation that's nice, albeit not exactly feature-level, and instances of CGI that are only used sparingly, predominantly in the action scenes involving the vehicles. Like I said, the first act has a lot of gloss and brightness, especially in the shots of Gotham City, while the rest of the movie has a much gloomier, darker look to it, with more grit and a dreary atmosphere added to it by continual

rain. Throughout it all, the color palette, while not exactly muted, is also not quite as vibrant as it might be otherwise, instead having a bit of a dim, harsher contrast to it. That's especially true during the actual story of The Killing Joke, with the major exceptions being the Joker's musical number and when Batman first enters the funhouse and is greeted by a brightly colorful hall of mirrors. Otherwise, it's downbeat, dark, and even has some noir touches, like in the scene between Batman and "the Joker" at Arkham Asylum, with the latter

almost completely immersed in darkness, and the notable shadow pattern created by the Venetian blinds in Barbara's hospital room. It's also much grimier, more decadent, and just plain skin-crawling in the way it feels, with the Se7en-like crime scene that opens it, the inside of Arkham (you see a bit of Two-Face reaching through the bars on his cell's door, clawing at it in desperation to get at his lost coin), the general horror the Joker inflicts upon both Commissioner Gordon and

Barbara, the chief setting of the abandoned, rundown carnival, which has an especially murky look, poor Gordon being led around it totally naked on a collar and leash, and the circus freaks the Joker makes into his gang. And the flashback to the Joker's origin is done in a sepia tone and, notably, looks and feels like it's taking place in the 40's, what with the clothes everybody's wearing.

Design-wise, the characters don't look the way they did in the graphic novel at all, and that's because the filmmakers found it really hard to adapt Brian Bolland's art style into animation; instead, they went with that of Kevin Nowlan. For me, though, this feels more like an adult, edgy incarnation of Batman: The Animated Series, with Batman's own design looking like a combination of the way he did there and Justice League, as well as a dash of the way he looks in the movies based on the New 52, mainly from how his mouth and jaw look and

how the ears on his cowl have a horn-like appearance. When you briefly see him with his mask off while he's in the Batcave, you can see that the way Bruce Wayne's face looks very similar to his design in The New Batman Adventures and Alfred also looks similar to the way he did in the animated series, as do Harvey Bullock, Commissioner Gordon, and Barbara/Batgirl, the latter definitely coming off as a more mature-looking version of the way she looked in TNBA. As for the Joker, while there are definitely callbacks to

his designs from the animated shows, he does look more akin to the way he did in the graphic novel, at some points looking like they dialed up the insanity from what was there, like when you first see him at the amusement park. One thing's for sure, though: they really managed to make him look scary, sometimes recreating shots of his face directly from the comic, like when it's hidden in shadow, save for a glint in his eyes, when he paralyzes Barbara and the shot of him after having first

become the Joker. And the looks of the circus freaks he employs can really make your stomach churn, such as these monstrous midgets who lead Gordon around, a pair of conjoined twins who look like a woman with two heads, a hideously thin man, and a hairy man who often looks and acts more like an animal. The same goes for his murder victims, like those years-old corpses and the way the carnival's old owner looks following his deadly handshake with him.

But, as good as this movie looks, it just doesn't have the same impact as the graphic novel. I understand they had trouble adapting that artwork to animation and I'm not going to fault them for finding a style that better suited their purposes, but I would've liked if they tried a little harder to, at least, replicate the comic's general dark, Gothic, noirish look (speaking of which, you can definitely see how much inspiration Tim Burton took from it, in both his movie's visual aesthetic and in the Joker's origin). You certainly get a taste of it here, and they effectively recreate certain images from it almost exactly, but why not go even farther with it? Of course, I'm not an animator or an artist, so what do I know?

Going back to the nods to Bruce Timm's animated shows, you have the Batmobile from The New Batman Adventures featuring in the first act, and after it's destroyed, it's replaced by the version of the vehicle from Batman: The Animated Series. Those are far from the only nods to past incarnations of Batman, as when he looks up information on the Joker in the Batcave, you see images that allude to other comics, movies, and shows. Among them is an image of the Joker sitting on a beach chair and holding a bottle, a

reference to the Smylex commercial Jack Nicholson's Joker broadcast in the first Burton movie; a shot of the Joker sitting in a jail cell, dressed and poised the way Heath Ledger was in The Dark Knight; an image of a bloody Robin, which is an obvious callback to the comic storyline, A Death in the Family; a photo of the Joker and Harley Quinn; the Joker fish from the comic story and BTAS episode, The Laughing Fish; a close-up of the Joker that's based on the cover of the comic he was first introduced in; and a shot of

the "Laffco" toy company, which is where the climax of the BTAS episode, Christmas with the Joker, takes place. Also, when Commissioner Gordon is putting together a scrapbook of newspaper clippings, you see an image of Batman swinging through the air while choke-holding the Joker, which Gordon says is the, "First time they met." That's actually based on the cover of Detective Comics #27, the comic where Batman himself made his debut, with the Joker put in place

of a random thug in the original image. When Batman is interrogating a criminal about the Joker's whereabouts, the man says, "I swear to God, man, he ain't been around," and Batman responds, "Swear to me!", almost exactly like an exchange between Batman and Detective Flass in Batman Begins. And when he later questions three women about the Joker's whereabouts, said women look like Harley Quinn, Selina Kyle, and Pamela Eisley's designs from both animated series.

As Barbara Gordon herself says, the movie starts in a manner you wouldn't expect: Batgirl running across some rooftops and using her grappling gun to swing at and grab onto the side of a water-tower, where she uses a pair of binoculars to watch Batman speak with Commissioner Gordon on the roof with the Bat Singal. After Gordon gives Batman a file, he contacts Batgirl on her cowl's built-in transmitter, telling her, "We've got a robbery." Elsewhere in Gotham City, the police are chasing after Paris

Franz and his English partner, Lonnie, as they drive a cargo truck through the streets. They take a hard left but this doesn't shake them, and when Lonnie says they need to lose the armored truck in the back, Franz suggests they lose the cops instead. One of the squad cars gets on the truck's right side and Lonnie swerves into it, sending it flying into an outdoor cafe and nearly hitting a couple there. The other squad car gets on the truck's left side and one of the officers attempts to shoot out its tires, only to

get slammed out in front of the truck and then sent spinning across the sidewalk on the right side, slamming into a streetlight. That's when the Batmobile joins the chase, prompting Franz to say, "This is gonna be a night to remember." Batgirl then lands on the truck's hood and jumps up to and sprints across the container's roof, planting a bat-shaped explosive in its doors. She runs back, warning Batman of it, and ducks, as the container's doors are blown open. Some men inside fire upon

the Batmobile with machine guns but Batman ignores them and fires a grappling hook from the car's front and into the container. He then swerves the Batmobile, yanking out the armored car. Seeing this, Franz tells Lonnie to lose the truck and he pulls a lever that disengages the container. Batgirl, still standing atop it, runs back to the cab and jumps for it just as Lonnie makes a sharp turn. She grabs onto the cab's roof, hanging on by plunging a sharp Batarang into it, when Franz shoots up at her through the roof. This causes her to roll across it

and grab onto cab's right side, where Franz blows her a kiss before kicking her off and sending her tumbling across the road. Once she stops, she watches the truck drive away, then spies one of the gunmen staggering out of the crashed container. When she confronts him, he pulls a gun on her. She asks if he wants to go from robbery to murder, and as they circle each other, adds, "I know you're in a bad spot, but there's bad and then, there's worse." At that moment, the Batmobile comes in and hits

the man with its side, knocking him out cold, Batgirl commenting, "Like that." Batman gets out and revives the man with some smelling salts, telling Batgirl, "I'm gonna need some alone time." It takes a second but she realizes what he means and walks away, as Batman takes the gunman away and he screams.

A few days later, while showing her friend, Reese, a computer program linked to security cameras throughout the city, Barbara spots Franz sitting in the back of a car in an alley. That night, he, Lonnie, and another man break into a warehouse full of expensive items like statues, cars, artwork, and a vault full of money. Although Lonnie is horrified to learn they're stealing from Franz's crime lord uncle, Franz insists he won't learn what's happened until it'll be too late for him to do anything. However,

when the third member of the gang joins them while carrying a satchel full of money, a Batarang comes flying in, knocking one of the wads of cash out of it. Batgirl then makes her presence known, much to Franz's delight. When they see a cloaked figure coming at them, Lonnie and the other man fire on it, only to find it was just a tarp with a statue's head wrapped up inside it. The one man's foot is snagged by a grappling line and he's hoisted up to the ceiling, while Batgirl comes up behind

Lonnie and easily knocks him unconscious. She then approaches Franz, who's more than happy to be alone with her. She tells him, "I don't want to have to hurt you," and he, rolling up his sleeves, counters, "Why should you be different from all the other girls?" She dodges a punch and a kick from him, then counters with some punches and spinning kicks he blocks and dodges, before kicking her back in the face, leaving her with a bleeding lip. She wipes the blood away and comes at him with some more punches and kicks, only for him to grab

her from behind. He comments, "Too bad we can't sit this one out," to which she responds, "I don't waste my time with punk amateurs." His tone then goes from playful to sinister, as he tells her, "Oh, baby, I think you've misjudged me." He takes out a bottle and sprays her in the face. She elbows him to get free and stumbles away from him, her vision blurring. He approaches her, telling her she has maybe ten seconds before losing consciousness, and as she futilely punches at him and falls into his arms, he says, "Can't end the night without a kiss." She, however, knees him in the gut and runs away. He pulls out a gun, telling her she won't make it to the door, only for her to lock herself inside the vault. Lonnie awakens and Franz tells him they should grab the money and run now.

Later, up on a rooftop, Batman gives Batgirl a coffee, telling her she was only out for a few minutes. He goes on to tell her about Franz, explaining, "He's a nasty combination of narcissist and sociopath. He'll have you smiling right up to the moment he cuts your throat. I haven't had to deal with his type of crazy in a while." He then adds, "I don't want you to, either... Don't go near him without me." Batgirl doesn't like this, saying, "We're not exactly attached at the hip," but Batman

counters, "We are on this. You want to work with me, you do what I say." He then shoots his grappling gun and swings away, leaving a very frustrated Batgirl behind. Meanwhile, Franz is shown living it up on a boat at the harbor with Lonnie and the other henchman, although Lonnie is a little too uptight to relax. Franz then says he just accessed all of his uncle's accounts, bragging, "And she called me an amateur." A cellphone rings and the other man picks it up to see it's Francesco. But,

before he can give Franz the phone, he's shot right through the head, and Franz and Lonnie are fired upon by some thugs in a nearby boat. They get away from the windows and run down a hallway, where Franz opens up a compartment to reveal some scuba equipment. The assassins then board the boat but, while they don't find their targets, one of them comes across a time bomb left behind in the scuba compartment. It completely destroys the boat and kills those onboard, leaving only one man to speed off in the assassins' boat. Down below,

Franz and Lonnie use the scuba gear to swim to safety. That night, Batman gives Batgirl a video message the police received for her from Franz, where he says, "Batgirl, I'm afraid I didn't get your number. So I'm sending this video to the police to give to you. They've got to be good for something. You may have heard that I've come into some family money. I told you I'm no punk. In fact, I got you a gift. Something special for my special girl. Just go back to where we met. You'll see." Though Batgirl thinks it's cute, Batman tells her it's

anything but, and then tells her she's off the case. He gets in the Batmobile and heads to the warehouse where Batgirl battled with Franz, intending to join Commissioner Gordon and his men as they search the place and ignoring Batgirl trying to continue the discussion.

Batgirl, however, isn't having it and chases after him on her motorcycle. At one point, she passes by a parked cargo truck and realizes she actually met Franz during the chase. On a hunch, she goes to the impound yard and finds the truck's cab, as well as a tablet wrapped in a bow sitting in the passenger seat. Grabbing it and activating it, she sees an image of Franz sitting somewhere. He tells her the "gift" he was referring to is actually somewhere else and leads her to the exterior of a building,

which she swings onto and enters through a window. She walks out of that room, creeps down a hallway, and makes her way to a door on the opposite side, with Franz telling her she's getting hotter and hotter. She opens the door and cautiously walks inside, finding it's just an empty office. Not seeing anything, she asks him where the gift is and he tells her to look harder. When she does, she sees evidence of a struggle, as well as blood leaking out from under a closet door. She

opens it and Francesco's horribly shot-up body falls over onto her. She shoves the corpse back into the closet and tells Franz he's insane for killing one of the biggest mob bosses in the city. Franz smugly answers, "He was an artifact. He went out with phone booths and the porkpie hat. I'm the next evolution, baby. Today, it's all about brains and nerve and tech. That's how I got his money, and that's how I'm going to get you." But then, Batgirl hears Francesco's bodyguards pounding on the office door, yelling for their boss, and tells Franz,

"You might have to get in line." She quickly hides when the men smash the door open and enter with their guns drawn. Crouching just above the top of the door-frame, she tackles one of the men to the floor and slams the other back with a chair. She runs out of the room and down the hall, only for another gunman to come out of the room she entered the building through. She jumps over the railing and lands at the bottom of the stairs, coming across two more men in the lobby. She immediately jumps on one's shoulders, twists his

neck, flips to the ground, and throws him over her, before quickly grabbing the other man's arm and throwing him over her shoulder. She runs to the elevator and desperately tries to activate it and even pry open the doors, but more men come at her, shooting. She ducks behind a wooden pillar, then leaps at and knocks over a chair, using its bottom as cover. She takes out a Batarang she intends to use, when the elevator arrives and opens, revealing Batman, who's knocked out two other guards. The gunmen open fire but he jumps at

them, kicking one right in the face and throwing another right beside where Batgirl is hiding. Within seconds, he's mopped the floor with them offscreen, then turns and glares at Batgirl, who drops her head, knowing she's been caught red-handed.

After their argument and sudden sex session, Barbara is encouraged by Reese to talk with Batman about what happened. Later, as she's about to leave a small cafe, she overhears a news report about the murder of Francesco, as well as that Franz is missing and there's now a manhunt for him. On the way out, she passes by a girl going through a nasty breakup with her boyfriend, who calls her clingy and says, "I need space." Barbara grabs his arm and throws him into a hedge behind

him. She growls, "There. Space," and walks away, while the girlfriend stands there, stunned. That night, as Batgirl, she sits atop a water tower, looking at her communicator. She asks a pigeon sitting next to her if it's worth contacting Batman, and even though the pigeon simply flies away, she decides to go for it, regardless. Batman receives her call as he drives around the docks in the Batmobile and answers. She asks him about Franz and he tells her, "He's on the move. We got a tip he

might be hiding out at the docks. That's where I am right now." After he makes it clear he doesn't want her getting involved, she asks if the two of them will be able to work together after he captures Franz. He doesn't answer and Batgirl, in frustration, exclaims, " It was just sex, for God's sake! It doesn't have to mean anything! It's not like we have to care! I don't care. You don't care. We just go back like it was. That's all! Please." Batman coldly says, "Later," and ends the call. Seconds

later, he stops and thinks about what happened, when a rocket suddenly comes in and hits the Batmobile, sending it rolling and tumbling onto its side. Batgirl sees the explosion from where she is, while at the docks, Lonnie hands Franz another rocket launcher and he prepares to finish Batman off. While trapped in the wreckage, Batman just manages to pull the lever for the ejector seat, escaping the Batmobile before it's destroyed. He bounces across the ground in the seat and crashes into a large stack of crates. Franz whistles for two

other gunmen and the four of them converge on the spot. Batman pulls a long splinter from the crates out of his side and unbuckles himself from the seat. One of the gunmen spots him and he quickly takes cover behind another crate when he's fired upon. When the man runs out of shells and goes for another clip, Batman gets him in the face with a Batarang, only to be fired upon by the second gunman. He uses another Batarang to take him out, when Franz himself takes his place and has Lonnie go around to the other side. Franz fires at Batman with a handgun as he flees, and he's then ambushed by Lonnie with an Uzi, who pins him down behind some more crates.

Batgirl arrives on her motorcycle, coming in behind Lonnie, grabbing a hook at the end of a rope, and when he turns around, she knocks him off his feet with it. She then drives past Batman and is fired upon by Franz as she comes around and drives right at him. Her bulletproof windshield protects her from his shots and she then hooks him around the neck and drags him across the ground before slamming him into some crates. Batgirl stops her bike, which falls onto its side, and stomps

towards Franz, who, despite the pain she just put him through, puts up his dukes and snidely says, "Alone at last." Batgirl charges at him, easily dodges his punches, punches him in the stomach, and when he tries to counter with some kicks, she kicks him against two crates stacked on top of each other. She's then on top of him, grabs him by his shirt collar, punches him aside, and, with a crazed look on her face, gets him down and punches him repeatedly in the face, ranting about how he

messed up everything. All he does is reply with a nasty and insulting joke, which goads her into punching him again, then kicking him and sending him smashing into more crates. She beats him again and again and again, sending blood flying onto the ground, as Batman watches from nearby, finding it hard to get to and stop her because of the wound in his side. Fortunately, Batgirl takes a moment to look at the bloody pulp she's made of Franz's face and looks at the blood on her glove. She then turns and looks at Batman, before looking

back at Franz, who's barely conscious and breathing in a labored, raspy manner. Batgirl is clearly horrified with herself, as the sound of police sirens approaches. The next day, in her apartment, Barbara sees a news report about Batman having taken Franz into custody. It shows footage of him as he's about to be taken into arraignment, as he exclaims, "Love you, Batgirl! Love you!" That night, Barbara meets up with Batman on a rooftop and gives back her outfit and equipment. Batman is about to apologize but she

says, "I get it. It's one thing to protect the city, another when it narrows down to one person. Someone you really care about." She adds, "I saw that abyss you spoke about. Very scary, but so tempting. I don't know how you resist it. I don't think it's humanly possible after a while. Be careful." They then part and Barbara narrates, "And that was that. Oh, I'd see him again, but never as Batgirl. I really was done with that part of my life. A week later, it wouldn't matter anyway. A terrible storm was moving in, and we'd all be in for it by then."

Now, we get into the actual story of The Killing Joke, and like the graphic novel, it starts with a shot of rain-soaked pavement. In this case, it's a rooftop that Batman walks to the edge of, seeing a bunch of police cars parked outside of a building. Jumping down, he walks inside and to the end of a hallway, where two cops let him enter a room cordoned off by yellow "CAUTION" tape. Inside, he finds Detective Harvey Bullock, as well as four mummified bodies with hideous grins on their

faces seated in front of a small stage with a mic stand. As Batman inspects the bodies, finding that their feet are tied to the chairs, Bullock tells him, "Coroner came and gave things the eyeball. Says these poor saps died probably three years ago," adding, "Well, we won't know for sure if they was murdered 'til after the autopsies." Batman, however, is sure they were murdered and asks Bullock what he makes of it, to which he answers, "Well, three years ago was that dentists'

convention." Knowing where he's going with it, Batman adds, "The one where a handful of conventioneers never returned home, just went missing. Emptied out their bank accounts and disappeared," and Bullock comments, "I think we're standing in the mouth of that. It's an interesting choice of words, huh?" Batman tells Bullock to let Gordon know he'd like to see him, despite it being his father/daughter night with Barbara. After a short scene where Barbara gets a

phone call from her father, telling her he's not going to be able to make it that night, Batman is shown arriving at Arkham Asylum, parking outside the gate and walking up the path towards the building. He meets Gordon right outside it and the two of them head inside and into the depths of the place, towards the Joker's cell. Batman tells Gordon, "I'm not here because of what was found today. I'm here because I need to be," and enters the cell after a guard unlocks it for him. He sees the Joker sitting at one end of a table, playing solitaire,

and sits across from him. He talks with him about the inevitable outcome of their constant clashes and how he wants to, at least, try to avert it, but gets no response from the Joker. He grabs his hand and yells at him, when he yanks it away and Batman sees he left white paint on his glove. Realizing he's an imposter, he grabs him by the collar and pulls him towards him, ignoring the man saying he has rights and wipes more makeup off his face. Enraged, he demands to know where the Joker is and shoves the man into the corner. Seeing this, Gordon walks in and goes to stop Batman, when he takes off the imposter's wig and hands it to him. He then growls at the imposter, "Now, you stinking, little stain, I'm going to ask you politely one last time: where is he?" 

The Joker is then revealed to be meeting with the owner of a long abandoned amusement park. When asked if the place is what he's looking for, he answers, "Well, it's garish, ugly, and smells like piss. Can't quite make out whether it's bums or rats, but it's piss. I'm a connoisseur when it comes to eau de toilette. As for the rides, any innocent little child getting on one could be maimed or worse." Though the man thinks he doesn't like it, the Joker turns around and proclaims, "Don't like it? I'm crazy for

it! Ha!" He also tells him, in regards to his price, "Sure, your price is steep, but as I look around, all I can see is I'll be making a killing. And money? Not a problem. Not anymore." This leads into the first flashback to his life before he was the Joker, showing him talking to his pregnant wife, Jeannie, about how he didn't get a standup gig at a club, breaking down in tears about it. Back in the present, the Joker gets the owner to shake on their deal, and when he says, "It's my privilege," the

Joker creepily says, "Yes. Yes, it is." Two of his thugs run by and when the owner asks who they are, the Joker, removing a band from around his hand, answers, "Spit and Polish, my attorneys. They persuaded your partner to sign over the deed about an hour ago. The property's already mine." After saying, "I can see that you're happy about that," he leaves, saying, "Now, I must dash. There's equipment to rent, plus workers to hire, and, of course, I need to secure my main attraction. Do

feel free to stick around." He walks away, revealing that the owner is dead from the band, which contained some of his hideous Joker toxin. Following a scene with Batman in the Batcave, it cuts to Gordon at Barbara's apartment, putting a clipping about the Joker's escape into a scrapbook. She's about to give her father the stiff drink he asked for, when there's a knock at the door. Thinking it's a friend she's going to work out with, she walks to the door and opens it to find the Joker standing there, dressed like a tourist and holding a revolver.

He puts it to Barbara's midsection and fires, sending her flying backwards and smashing through the coffee table right in front of Gordon. As she just manages to cover the badly bleeding wound, the Joker enters with two, large thugs and makes a horribly crass comment about what he just did to her. Enraged, Gordon grabs a pair of scissors and threatens to stab him, but one of the thugs punches him in the face, disarming him, and then holds him from behind as the other beats on him. The Joker bends over Barbara's body, commenting

to Gordon, "Will you? Refreshing to hear, not by the book. Speaking of which, this one won't be walking off the shelf anytime soon. In fact, the idea of her walking anywhere seems remote. But then, that's always a problem with softbacks." He tells his men to take Gordon "where he needs to be," adding, "And please, do be careful. After all, he is topping the bill." After the thugs carry Gordon out, the Joker prepares to torture the helpless Barbara even further, raising a glass and saying, "Here's to crime."

Following the flashback where the comic first meets with the two gangsters and agrees to help guide them through the chemical plant so they can rob the building next door, and they show him the Red Hood mask and cape they intend to have him wear, the movie cuts back to the amusement park, where the Joker pulls the lever that activates the park's electricity, switching on the lights and the rides. Elsewhere, at the hospital, a doctor examines Barbara, who's lying unconscious in the bed with a neck-brace. As Batman and Bullock watch, he

takes a sharp instrument and pokes the bottom of her foot in various places. He gets no reaction from her at all and tells Batman that she'll never walk again. He leaves the room, as Batman looks at one of the playing cards he took from the Joker's cell. Bullock then tells him that Barbara's friend, Colleen, found her in a state of undress. He asks Bullock to leave the room and, after he does, he walks over to Barbara's bedside and speaks to her. As he does, she slowly awakens, murmuring, "He took Dad, he... oh, God! I remember." Batman tries

to calm her as she becomes more panicked but she tells him, "He's taking it to the limit this time. You didn't see his eyes. He said he wanted to... to prove a point. Said Dad was top of the bill. What's he gonna do? What's he gonna do to my father?" The film then shows us this, as Gordon is stripped naked at the amusement park and forced to sit up by some hideous midgets, one of which shocks him with a cattle prod in the back. Another puts a collar and leash around his neck and he's led outside,

where other sideshow freaks laugh at the sight of him. Disoriented and frightened, Gordon begs the midgets to tell him where they're taking him but the one guiding him forces him down onto the ground. Frustrated, he yells, "Please, tell me what I'm doing here. Somebody!", to which the Joker answers, "Doing? You're doing what any sane man in your appalling circumstances would do. You're going mad." That's when Gordon remembers what happened and the Joker gives him his spiel about the perils of memories, as the midgets lead him over to a car on a track. As the Joker finishes his monologue, the car heads through the door of the attraction up ahead.

Another flashback shows the comic meeting up with the gangsters for the last time before the job, when the police suddenly show up and ask to see him outside. The gangsters watch as they walk out into the hall and talk, and when the comic is shown a picture and then turns and looks at the gangsters, one of them puts his hand on his gun, ready for any trouble. The comic then walks back inside and rejoins the gangsters, telling them that Jeannie and their unborn child were killed that morning by an electrical short. As a result, he's ready to forget

about the job, as there's no reason for him to do it anymore, but the gangsters make it clear he's not backing out, with the one flashing his gun for emphasis. The other tells him, "No buts and no exceptions. Look, tomorrow you bury your old lady in luxury but tonight, you're with us. Get the picture?" They then leave him there alone at the table, thinking about how, as he'd said before, his life will never be the same. Back in the present, Batman is hunting down any leads to the Joker's whereabouts, easily smacking down a thug who

charges him with an iron bar and quickly subdues another who tries to run for it. Grabbing him and slamming his head against a WANTED poster for the Joker on the wall, he pins his arm behind his back, telling him, "I'm gonna count to ten. One. Nine." The man swears he hasn't seen the Joker, only for Batman to push his arm harder. The man, again, swears he's telling the truth, saying, "When he escapes, it ain't long till he comes around. Recruitin', you know? But not this time. Nobody's

seen him." With that, Batman knocks the man out and rips the poster off the wall. He next goes to a seedy hangout, warning the doorman to step away from the door through the slat in it, after which he blows it open and steps in. The man who runs the place snaps his fingers and his men rush at Batman, who easily trounces all four of them within seconds, throwing the last one through the table in front of his boss. Once he's done, he shows the man the poster of the Joker but he, like the one before, assures him he doesn't know where he is or what his plans are, adding, "Believe me, if I knew anything, I'd tell ya. Honest. People in my, uh, let's call it line of work... we may be scared of you, but we're terrified of him."

Back at the amusement park, the car Gordon is riding in comes to a halt in a room that serves as a kangaroo court (literally; there are fake kangaroos in the back of the room). A powdered wig is placed on Gordon's head, as a large, fat woman yells, "Order in the court!" The Joker responds, "I'll have ham on rye," and when his minions groan, he says, "It doesn't have to be good to be a classic." He then walks up to Gordon, telling him, "So, Commissioner, I need your help... Me and my colleagues, we couldn't come up with one sound

mind and body between us. So we're counting on yours." One of the freaks asks, "What should be done with someone who has no regard for the law?" The fat lady adds, "Someone who treats people like meat?" The really thin man then adds, "A man who has no problem brutalizing his fellow man to get his way?" Despite the Joker seemingly trying to keep order, one of the conjoined twins asks, "What would you do to a man who breaks the laws you are sworn to uphold?", with the other then

adding, "A monster who ignores everything you stand for?" Gordon says he'd throw the book at such a person if it were up to him, with the Joker telling him, "Right now, it is." Everyone starts chanting, "Throw the book!", as Gordon looks down and sees a book titled "THE LAW." Even the Joker eggs him on to actually throw it and Gordon does, only to hit a wooden cutout of Batman that suddenly pops up in its path. This delights the Joker and makes Gordon all the more crestfallen and broken. 

Batman is then shown talking to three prostitutes about the Joker's whereabouts, when one of them points out the Bat Signal in the sky. After that, Gordon is sent through a hall covered in monitors, the midgets forcing him to look up as the Joker taunts him. Deciding a song might be just the thing, he begins the song and dance number, I Go Loony, with the freaks, singing, "When the world is full of care/And every headline screams despair/When all is rape, starvation, war, and life is vile/Then there's a certain thing I do/Which I shall

pass along to you/That's always guaranteed to make me smile. Yes! I... go... loony/As a lightbulb-battered bug!/Simply loony/Sometimes foam and chew the rug!/Mister, life is swell in a padded cell/It'll chase those blues away. You can trade your gloom for a rubber room/And injections twice a day. Just go loony like an acid casualty/Or a moonie/Or a preacher on TV. When the human race/Wears an anxious face/When the bomb hangs overhead/When your kid turns blue/It won't worry you. You can smile and nod instead/When you're

loooony!/Then you just don't give a fig!" (Not only does Mark Hamill sing this really well but, in creating this song from the graphic novel, they had to come up with a melody and wrap it around these lyrics, and I think they managed to make it pretty catchy.) As goofy and silly as this seems, with the Joker dancing and playing along with the freaks, it becomes a different matter when Gordon, who's absolutely exhausted, both mentally and physically, is suddenly surrounded by the numerous, close-up images of Barbara, naked, in agony, and clearly

being violated. This almost breaks him, as he yells Barbara's name in total anguish while the Joker finishes his song. A short cutaway shows Batman meeting with Bullock and the police, who give him an envelope with a bat symbol on it. Inside, he finds a ticket to the amusement park, as well as a card from the Joker that says, "With Compliments." When the Joker finally sees Gordon when he comes to the end of the ride, he comments, "Holy Christ, I must be the best ghost-

train in the business! I mean, when they went in, the fellow in the middle didn't look a day over seventeen." He lifts Gordon's head up, getting no response from him, and he falls out of the car, totally catatonic. He becomes disappointed at this, commenting, "This wasn't supposed to turn out boring," and orders the freaks to put Gordon in his cage. As they do, he looks at his reflection in the wet pavement at his feet, commenting, "Let's hope our main attraction gets livelier, given time to reflect upon life and all its random uncontrolability."

Thus, the final flashback begins, this time to the comic meeting up with the gangsters at the chemical plant. As he reminisces about the time he worked there, one of the gangsters clips a hole in the chain-like fence, while the other takes out the Red Hood costume and puts it on the comic. He puts the cape around him and then brings the mask down over his face, having to manipulate it around as, "You got a funny-shaped head." To that, the comic notes, "Maybe I should've been a clown instead of a comedian." Once it's on, the comic

finds he can see through it, although everything's through a red filter. Regardless, he makes his way through the hole in the fence, the gangsters guiding him, and they all make their way inside the plant. He leads them down a corridor between some tanks, when a nightwatchman appears on a walkway behind them and shines his flashlight while pointing his gun. The gangsters fire at him and then run for it, with him firing back while calling for backup. The three men take cover behind some tanks, the comic saying they must

have beefed up security since he quit his job. Another watchman appears on his and the one gangster's side, firing at them, and they run for it while the gangster fires back. Retreating to a walkway, the comic confesses that he doesn't know where to go in this confusion and in the mask. One of the gangsters decides he's useless and is about to shoot him, when he's shot in the head and the other one in the leg. The injured gangster frames the comic, telling the guards he's their leader, before getting up and firing on the approaching guards.

He's brought down by them and the comic, seeing his dead body lying on the floor with a big, nasty bullet-hole in his forehead, panics and runs up a flight of stairs while being fired upon by the guards. Batman then appears, telling the guards, "No more shooting. I'll take care of this my way." He makes his way up to the walkway the comic finds himself on, telling him as he menacingly approaches him, "So, Red Hood, we meet again." Frightened, the comic backs away, telling Batman

to stay back, when he steps on the tail of his own cape and falls over the railing. He lands in a tank of chemicals and is then flushed out of the building through a pipe. He crawls up onto a hill, coughing and sputtering, and removes the mask. He begins itching all over, and then sees his reflection in a puddle of water in front of him. Seeing this, he collapses down into it, appearing to start crying, only for it to turn out to be a maniacal laugh, as lightning and thunder claps all around him. His face is finally shown as he completely loses his mind from everything that's happened and the Joker is born.

In the present, Batman arrives at the amusement park, stopping the Batmobile in front of the body of the park's original owner. He gets out and walks on into the park, when a wooden cutout of the Joker pops up in front of him at a carousel. His voice comes over a loudspeaker, announcing, "Ladies and gentlemen, although there doesn't seem to be either here... how about, children of all ages? You must've received your free ticket. Oh, I'm so glad." The carousel suddenly comes on behind Batman, and the thin man leaps at him from

it with an axe. He tumbles out of the way, dodges when he swings at him, and jumps onto the carousel, grabs onto some bars, and kicks him right in the face with both feet. Batman stands on the carousel as it brings him around to where he can see what looks like the Joker sitting on a throne at the top of a flight of stairs. A bearded lady comes at him with a knife but he easily grabs and throws her into one of the horses on the carousel, stopping it dead. He ducks around the edge of a booth, only for the really fat lady to jump off its roof and

nearly crush him. Someone also throws some knives at him from offscreen, though they end up sticking into the side of the booth. The woman charges at him, though he dodges her and manages to block her punches, while also dodging her when she leaps at him twice, the second time causing her to face-plant into a puddle. Some more knives come in, one of which gets her in the back, and the thrower is revealed to be the conjoined twins. Batman takes cover in a booth across from them and tosses some gas pellets at them, which explode

when they collide with their knives in midair, creating a choking cloud that allows him to jump out of the booth. He next runs into an enormous man wielding a mallet, but he quickly dodges his swings and tosses a ball at him that covers his face in a sticky adhesive. He runs up the stairs to the apparent Joker, only to find he's actually the hairy animal man, who jumps at him. The two fall to the bottom of the stairs and the man pins Batman down. As Batman tries to hold him back, he

punches him in the face and snaps at him with his sharp teeth, but Batman manages to get off several of his own punches to the face and throw him aside. Standing up, he turns around and is faced with the real Joker, who presents Gordon in a cage as "the average man" and laughs about it. Batman charges at him and knocks him down, but the Joker sprays some acid from his cane onto his shoulder, giving him the chance to escape into a nearby funhouse. Batman sprays some salve on the burn,

then opens the cage to check on Gordon. Though curled up and clearly traumatized, Gordon keeps his sanity. After he embraces him, Batman grabs a tarp and puts it around him, telling him that Barbara is alive and the police aren't far behind him. He offers to stay with him until they arrive but Gordon, instead, insists he go after the Joker and bring him in "by the book." With that, Batman enters the funhouse.

Inside, Batman walks through a colorful hall of mirrors with the midgets' distorted faces projected onto them. Hearing the Joker talk about how he's proven his point, he follows the sound of his voice around a bend, down a corridor, and around another bend to a corridor of mirrors that are totally plain. As he walks down them, the Joker talks about how he knows he had a "bad day" the same as he did. He enters an octagonal section surrounded by mirrors which closes up behind him, and when he looks at the mirror ahead of him, the

"reflection" is one of the midgets dressed up as him. He punches the glass and proceeds to do the same to all of the other mirrors, when a trapdoor opens beneath his feet. He manages to grab onto the edge of the pit, the bottom of which is lined with large spikes, but when he pulls himself up, he finds himself surrounded by the midgets. The one dressed up as him goes to kick him in the face but he grabs and flings him down into the pit, before using his grappling gun to hoist himself out. One of the midgets jumps onto his back and the third one

swings a spiked club at him but misses, and when Batman hoists himself up to the ceiling, he sends the other midget tumbling back down. Batman then finds himself on a stairway and looks up it to see an open doorway with light spilling out of it. As he walks up to it, the Joker continues speaking to him, asking him what made him who he is and saying that something similar happened to him, although he admits he has various versions of it. Batman steps into the room to find that it's upside down

(you may also note that it's the apartment the comic lived in with his wife, suggesting that that story was one of the Joker's fabricated versions), when the door closes behind him. The Joker walks up, smashes a pot of shrimp over his head, and then rips one of the chairs off the ceiling and does the same with that, all the while admonishing Batman for not being able to admit that his bad day drove him mad. He walks by him, kicking him in the face, and throws a blender and a plate from the

counter at him, before grabbing a frying pan and blindsiding him with it. He rants, "Do you ever think about how close we've come to World War III over a flock of geese on a computer screen?", then angrily throws the pan on the floor and starts kicking Batman in the head, ranting about how everything is meaningless.

Once he stops, and Batman wipes away the blood leaking from his lip, the Joker, brandishing a band around his hand with a spike pointing outward from his palm, yells, "Why can't you see the funny side?! Why aren't you laughing?! He swings his hand at him, but Batman quickly uppercuts him against the counter, and when he tries to stick him again, he grabs his arm, punches his face, and throws him over his shoulder, smashing him through the table on the ceiling. Batman then answers, "Because I've heard it before, and it

wasn't funny the first time." Seeing that he smashed the band, the Joker tosses it away, grabs one of the smashed pieces of the table, and tries to hit Batman with it, but he decks him, causing him to drop it, then delivers two punches and a knee to his gut, followed by a kick that slams him against the wall. He tells him that he's failed to drive Gordon insane, and while he grabs another piece of table, Batman grabs his arm, makes him drop it, and then grabs him by the collar and slams him against the wall. That's when he suggests the

Joker is alone in his insanity, something he can't accept, as he yanks his cowl over his eyes and uses that as a chance to get free. Getting behind Batman, he pulls a gun and prepares to shoot, but Batman tackles him and they smash through the window and fall outside the funhouse, smashing through some crates. The Joker drops his gun and flings Batman off in order to go for it, only for Batman to grab his ankle. Though he falls, he kicks him off, grabs the gun, swings around, and pulls

the trigger, only for it to prove to be a trick gun that fires a flag which says "CLICK" three times. Grumbling, "Goddammit," and throwing it away, he tells him, "Well, what are you waiting for? Kick the hell out of me and get your standing ovation." Much to his surprise, Batman opts not to, leading into the ambiguous ending, after which is the mid-credits scene where Barbara, now wheelchair-bound but getting along quite well, becomes the Oracle, entering a secret room behind a mirror in her apartment and powering up computers to prepare to get back to work.

Amazingly, this movie has three composers: Kristopher Carter, Michael McCuistion, and Lolita Ritmanis, who've been working together as a trio since the 90's and have done music for all of the past Bruce Timm animated series, as well as other shows like Teen Titans, Legion of Super Heroes, and the various Ben 10 series, among others. However, aside from I Go Loony, the score is most definitely one of The Killing Joke's least effective aspects. It tries to have a sense of foreboding and dread, as well as a tragic sort of epic feeling for Batman and the Joker's final confrontation and excitement for the fast-paced action sequences in the first act, but none of it is memorable in the slightest and comes off as very bland altogether. Very disappointing coming from three people working together.

Some may see Batman: The Killing Joke as a massive failure of an adaptation but I see it more as a misguided and flawed film that, regardless, does get a number of things right. The voice acting is great all-around, with extra props going to Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, and Tara Strong, the movie is very well designed and executed, it doesn't sugarcoat the darkness and depravity of the graphic novel's story, the themes that Alan Moore explored in the comic are very much there, as is a lot of his great dialogue and the ambiguous ending, which is done in a way that fits well with animation, and there are some nice additions to the story. Unfortunately, additions to the story are also where the movie badly stumbles, as the first act is unnecessary and utterly pointless, delves into aspects of Batman and Batgirl's relationship that will likely leave a lot of people bewildered and skeeved out, doesn't fit tonally and visually with the actual story of The Killing Joke, and as a result, they waste an opportunity to really expound upon the darkness of that story. In addition, the movie, as good as it looks, doesn't have the same visual impact as the comic's Gothic, noirish artwork, the mid-credits scene with Barbara becoming Oracle kind of harms the ambiguity of the ending, and the music score, aside from the Joker's song and dance number, is completely forgettable. I would say it's worth watching for fans of Batman and these animated movies, as it's certainly not the worst of them and does do a lot of things correctly. But, for diehard lovers of the graphic novel, you'd best go in with very tempered expectations, especially for the first act.