Tuesday Night Matinee: Batman: The Killing Joke

Director: Sam Liu

Starring: Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, Tara Strong, Ray Wise

Released: 2016

Trailer

 

As always, keep an open mind.

 

One of my earliest childhood memories was watching Batman: Mask of the Phantasm on video tape. I remember watching it so much as a kid, that by the time we retired it in favor of the newfangled DVD technology, the tape was nearly completely worn out.

Why do I mention this, other than the aforementioned film is also about Batman? I mention Mask of the Phantasm because it was the first time I ever saw and—most importantly—heard Mark Hamill as the Joker. Ever since the first day I watched that tape, Mark Hamill has been and always will be the true voice of the Joker.

So, naturally, when I heard that Hamill would be returning to voice the Joker once againin an animated adaptation of the most famous Joker story, The Killing Joke, I was thrilled. Adding to Hamill’s return, having Kevin Conroy return to voice Batman once again further fueled my anticipation. Finally, as the icing on the cake, the film would be a fairly (with only a few scenes added) faithful adaptation of the now legendary story: the Joker’s nefarious plot to not only cripple Barbara Gordon, but also drive Commissioner Gordon and Batman to his level of insanity.

But does this film deliver? Well, yes and no. In order to fairly analyze the film, one must analyze the film in two parts. Why? Because, essentially, the film consists of two different stories: one involving the story appearing in the film’s namesake comic book, and one involving Barbara Gordon’s past as Batgirl.

Before analyzing each part, this reviewer would like to compliment this film as a whole. For a film made to be released on home video, the sound design is fantastic. The gun shots and explosions add the necessary tension to each action scene, and sound great in a theater setting. But the great sound is not limited to just the percussive portions of the film. During the fight scenes, every punch and kick sounds painful and visceral. The action scenes, though the animation is a touch choppy, are well blocked and filmed. Combine the great sound with the great images, and you have some of the best 2D animated fight scenes I have seen in quite a while. While Mask of the Phantasm may be my favorite animated Batman film, the action scenes—while decent—certainly weren’t as stylized or exciting to watch as those in this film.

The Killing Joke portion of the story—the second half of the film—is easily the best part, as it is an incredibly faithful adaptation of the original comic. Some will argue that certain events or bits of dialogue don’t play out exactly as they do in the comic. I for one am a bit disappointed that the transitions between the past and present don’t occur as smoothly in the film, mostly because the comic’s script—written by the legendary Allan Moore—allows transitions to occur through juxtaposed images.

Yes, this difference is disappointing, but one must remember that this is an adaptation, not a direct translation, meaning that there will be occasional changes to fit the medium. What measures the quality of an adaptation is not so much how much of the story is kept as it was in the source material (though it is still important), but how it all is presented and incorporated.

This second half of film is effective in establishing an especially disturbing, creepy tone. Perhaps it’s because of the score which, from the composers’ own words, was modeled after the great scores of Bernard Hermann. Or, perhaps it’s the film’s effective use of the budget limits to create unsettling moments, such as the close-up on Joker’s head as he looks over his freshly-lit carnival with psychopathic glee. Or, perhaps it’s because of Hamill’s chilling performance as the Joker. Every line Hamill speaks crackles with life and a touch of murderous glee—this is a man who seems to have always been meant to play this character.

Hamill also does a fantastic job in the flashback portions as well, garnering sympathy from the audience in scenes that are far too short, mostly because the comic just glances over them rather than delving deeper into things like the relationship between pre-Joker and his wife. This is precisely where liberties could have been taken, expanding upon these flashbacks rather than tacking on scenes that are ultimately irrelevant to the story (we will get to that portion soon).

Perhaps the best part of this film is the song and dance portion, with Mark Hamill singing the creepy and unbelievably catchy, “I Go Looney,” whose lyrics are ripped straight from the pages of the source material. Scenes like this embody the film’s ability to balance between staying true to the source material and also supplementing it. It’s a shame that this second half is brought down by the first half of the film, the portion written almost specifically to pad out the run time.

Yes, before the excellent second half, we have the Batgirl portion of the film, which has garnered a lot of controversy for…a particular reason that this reviewer won’t disclose here. Oddly enough, my biggest issues with this part of the film do not involve the controversial scene in question, though it does come out of left field. It’s not even with the story itself—Batgirl and Batman hunting down a criminal named Paris Franz, who has an unhealthy obsession with Batgirl—which could honestly be a movie of its own. All in all, it’s this portion of the film’s sloppy handling of its limited animation budget and voice acting as well as its lack of cohesiveness with the second half that brings the film as a whole down.

While the second half hits it out of the park despite its animation limitations, the first half stumbles because of these same limitations.   For example, there are many scenes that become distracting because characters in the foreground seem to be staring out into space while one character is talking. This wouldn’t be a bad thing if these scenarios were relaxed, non-combat situations. But these often occur during scenes of high tension, where physical combat is imminent.

The voice acting is also not as great here. Tara Strong as Batgirl is especially disappointing, as a great deal of her dialogue is delivered in an unusually restrained manner that proves distracting. Strong does do a lot better with the character in the second act, however, so this lack of reasonable vocal expression in the first act is baffling to this reviewer. Conroy’s delivery as Batman in this first act is also similarly restrained and monotonic, as though he weren’t entirely comfortable with the lines he has been given. But who can blame him when a great deal of Batman’s lines in this half come across as pretentious teenage poetry about darkness, especially when compared to Moore’s more mature dialogue in the second act?

But those two issues aside, the biggest issue is the lack of cohesiveness between these two acts. It is incredibly clear that these portions of the story were conceived by two different writers, and almost feels like two completely different films crammed into one. This reviewer can see that the screenwriter, Brian Azzarello, is trying to not only craft a parallel between Batgirl’s potential “fall into the void” and the same fall Batman and Gordon potentially face, but also to give Barbara some character before she is attacked in the second act. And this character development would be fine if it amounted to anything in the long run.

By remaining faithful to the source material in the second act, the film ultimately negates the character development that came before. Instead of trying to make Barbara more than a pawn in the Joker’s plan to break Gordon and Batman, this character development just emphasizes rather than fixes the biggest flaw of both versions of The Killing Joke—Barbara is not a character, she is a catalyst. Despite all of her backstory and all that she has done both in this film and in the more expansive comics, she is relegated to nothing more than a victim and a plot device. And the fact that, despite its best efforts, this film maintains this aspect rather than subverting it, defeats the purpose of even having these additional scenes and makes this reviewer question whether or not the original story is really as deserving of the praise it gets. And this is the worst sin an adaptation can commit.

If one ignores the first act, The Killing Joke is an excellent adaptation of the original comic. But with this first act, the film is brought down a bit. Perhaps if there was a better bridge between these two stories, this could have been a better adaptation, at least in this reviewer’s eyes. Or, if portions of Alan Moore’s story were expanded upon more, rather than tacking on additional bits of story that dissipate once the main action involving the Joker begins. All in all, this film is not as bad as a good deal of critics are saying, but it certainly could have been better. As for this reviewer, this film was worth seeing in the theaters, but future watches of the film will include skipping the first act entirely and watching Mark Hamill’s magnificent return to his iconic character.

 

Now, this will be different than the final scores of other films in the past. Instead of just calculating the film in its entirety, this final score will also include the scores of each act of the film, as they are essentially two different films. There will also be a deduction in the final total, as the lack of cohesiveness between the two parts warrants a penalty.

 

Act One Final Score: 7/10

Act Two Final Score: 9/10

Final Score: 6/10      

---

For more reviews, be sure to like this page as well as the Facebook page. For previous reviews, be sure to check out the full directory of reviews. As always, thank you for reading!

Does Nolan’s Final Foray In the Batman Universe Deliver the Goods?

Originally published in July 2012.

 

This review contains spoilers.

Let’s get this out of the way right now…

There is a major plot hole in the film that, no matter how hard anyone tries, cannot be fully explained away.  This occurs during the last third of the film, after Bruce Wayne escapes from the pit.  After he leaves the prison, the film cuts to Gotham.  Eventually, Selina Kyle shows up onscreen once again to thwart two goons who try to antagonize a kid.  Shortly after that, someone steps out from the shadows.  Who is this person? None other than Bruce Wayne.

Okay.

How did he get to Gotham? All of the bridges except for one have been destroyed by Bane.  And that one bridge is secured by both the police force and Bane’s merry men. Technically, Wayne Manor is located on the mainland, while most of the city that has been attacked is on an island, so Bruce would be able to travel to the mainland, get his gear, and travel to the island using the B.A.T., perhaps with some kind of cloaking feature (which is, unfortunately, never explained or brought up, so one can only assume that this freakishly huge vessel does not have one).  Even if this was the case, how did Bruce get to the mainland? From the looks of things, the pit is in the middle of a desert.  Unless Bruce could teleport or run with his crippled knees, there’s no real way he could arrive at an inhabited area, scrounge up some cash (he lost all of his money, if you remember), find an airport, fly to Gotham, get his stuff, and stop on by the island to make his appearance before that bomb explodes and obliterates everyone.

Now that that’s out of the way, we can begin the real review.

Before its release, this film began to stir up an unbelievable amount of hype.  Hardcore Batman fans and ordinary moviegoers were both excited for the final installment of the trilogy that seemed to be going nowhere but up.

And then the movie was released in theaters.  And, needless to say, there was a lot of backlash from those who were extremely disappointed in the film.  Some cited the impossible-to-understand dialogue from Bane and Batman as the final nail in the coffin, while others blamed the plot hole-ridden script.  Many people agreed that it was a better-than-average film on its own, but subpar when compared to the other two Nolan Batman films.

This is the film I will be looking at and examining today.  Let me say this right now before I proceed: I enjoy this film.  I really do.  But there are many flaws in it that cannot simply be glanced over.  Other than the major plot hole discussed above, what else was there? Well…

1) The film pushes the boundaries of human pain tolerance to a ridiculous degree.

Batman sure does get beaten up a lot in this film.  When he’s examined by the doctor, it is revealed that Bruce’s knees have no cartilage left in them, and it’s the same for his elbows, too.  Despite this, Bruce not one minute later hooks himself to a hospital windowsill with rope and slides down, landing very hard on his feet and putting an ungodly amount of pressure on his knees.  I seem to remember Batman dropping a mob boss from a building in TDK and seeing his legs and knees collapse into themselves like a gruesome slinky.  I was surprised he didn’t scream out in pain just by running and jumping about throughout the film.  I know the film tries to explain this away by giving him robotic braces for his arms and legs, which makes sense, I guess.  But when Batman is in the pit, he is able to move about and somehow rehabilitate himself in five months.  Problem is, there really is no rehabilitating A LACK OF CARTILAGE in the knees.  Also, what did bug me a bit was the incredibly painful and dangerous way that those prison doctors treated the dislocated vertebra.  Basically, a palm strike to the spinal column fixes everything according to this film.  It’s just incredibly unbelievable that Bruce would be walking alright after that without years of rehabilitation and physical therapy.  In addition to that, when Bruce tries to climb up the pit, he does take a couple of nasty tumbles, which should cause the rope to cut into his flesh anywhere between a few centimeters to a few inches, nearly severing him in half or even breaking a few vertebrae.  He is one wrong fall away from becoming Amputee Batman.  Finally, toward the end of the film, Batman gets stabbed in the chest, most likely between his ribs.  I would almost excuse this, except the knife gets twisted around several times, which would no doubt do severe internal damage to his lung and may cause him to drown in his own blood.  Forget about the nuclear blast—Batman would die from internal bleeding and severe lung trauma.

And this isn’t limited to just Batman, either.  Bane’s body remains intact even though a missile that would completely demolish a car hits him squarely in the chest.  When Commissioner Gordon is in the truck trying to defuse the nuclear core, Batman eventually causes the vehicle to topple over a bridge and smash into the pavement.  By the end, Gordon not only comes out of this severe jostling alive, but in one piece with very few injuries.  Think about it: the interior of that truck is not padded but pure metal, the nuke is not secured inside of the trailer, and Gordon’s body is incredibly squishy.  It’s a miracle he wasn’t reduced to a gory Jackson Pollock painting inside of the truck.

Some may argue that, “It’s just a movie.  Get over it.”  The problem is that this series has tried to portray the Batman universe in a more serious and realistic way.  Having Bruce survive and recover from all of these traumatic bodily injuries all in a matter of months was somewhat jarring in hindsight.  He’s been established as a frailer human being, but the action scenes don’t make it look that way.  This inconsistency makes the film hard for many to follow, because the audience is seemingly watching two Batmen: the crippled man who can barely walk without a cane, and an almost superhuman vigilante who cannot be stopped by pain.

2)  The nuclear weapon subplot in the film leaves way too many unknown variables regarding the safety and security of Gotham’s citizens and the entire nation.

I understand that America’s policy is not to negotiate with terrorists.  I understand that. But the fact that a terrorist is threatening not only Gotham but everyone within the blast radius of this improvised nuclear warhead should make the American government rethink its policy a bit.  Sure, the blast might only destroy several miles of city and American land, but how concentrated in the air will the nuclear fallout be? How far will it spread? How many Americans will die as a result of the destruction of Gotham?  I am incredibly surprised that no one in the government had considered this possibility.

This brings something else up.  Batman did take the explosive outside of the city.  How far did he take it? Was it far enough away? What direction is the wind blowing—toward or away from Gotham? If the wind is blowing toward Gotham, the fallout will drift over the city and, rather than dying relatively quick and painless deaths, the citizens of Gotham would die horrifically at the hands of nuclear poisoning.  Will the explosion’s byproducts pollute Gotham Bay’s water with incredibly harmful radiation? Is Gotham Bay Gotham’s water supply source? It sounds like Batman really needed to think about some things before he proceeded with this.

But nothing on this list compares to the worst flaw of the film:

3)  Gordon’s Letter/Moments of incredibly out of character stupidity are the only things keeping the plot of the film moving.

Why did Gordon create that letter about Dent? He mentions it once, then puts it away, presumably never wanting to ever reveal its secrets.  Why keep it? It provides the perfect opportunity for some bizarro super villain to steal it and use it as a weapon.  It would be smarter to shred, then burn it so that nobody knows the truth, or at the very least, not keep it in a coat pocket where anyone could stumble upon it.   What if a coworker at the police station had hung up Gordon’s coat just to be nice, only to have the paper fall out? What if he lost the pages while chasing down some goon? Or, I don’t know, what if some masked villain obsessed with destroying Gotham’s moral infrastructure found it—oh, wait. Bane takes the speech out of Gordon’s coat while Gordon is unconscious. Point proven.

It would be one thing if the speech had been stolen from Gordon’s office, somewhere he thought the document would be safe. But instead, the film opts to have him stop using his brain just to keep the plot going. The Gordon from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight would not make such a bone-headed mistake.

Gordon is not the only one who acts completely out of character. Batman seems to have forgotten all that he learned in the first two films regarding combat and stealth. One would think that even though he has not been fighting crime for a while, Batman would still remember to use his grappling hook and other gadgets wisely. He was doing alright taking down those goons only a few minutes beforehand, why couldn’t he keep fighting like that here? In the battle with Bane, Batman just kind of throws everything at his nemesis without  strategy or thought. Batman seems to lose the fight only because he has chosen to flail around sloppily rather than using his established hand-to-hand combat skills.

With all my bashing of the film, it seems like I shouldn’t enjoy it at all.  But despite all its flaws, the film does deliver the goods.  The actors are very good in their roles, and this is the first time since Batman Begins where I actually felt some sympathy for Bruce. Bane is great as the villain, so great that he rivals Heath Ledger in creepiness and brutality.  He is charismatic when he needs to be, and incredibly brutal when the situation calls for it.  The scene with him talking to all of  Gotham at the football field is one of my favorite scenes in the film.

The story of this film actually does help bring things full circle.  The ascension scene in the pit—Bruce climbing up the wall while remembering falling down the family well as a child—was an incredible scene to watch.  With the exception of the ballroom scene between Bruce and Selina, which had some of the jumpiest and most distracting editing I had ever seen, the way the film was shot was fantastic.  The score is powerful and driving, amping up the action.

Speaking of the action, this has the best fights of all three Dark Knight films.  The first fight between Batman and Bane (despite my complaints earlier) is so incredibly brutal that I actually cringed while Batman was getting beaten to a pulp.  The lack of music in the scene just makes the fight all the more hard to watch, because it allows the sounds of every bone-crushing blow to carry through the scene.  The lack of heroic music indicates that Bruce is no longer the heroic Batman that he was before—he is just an already broken man being shattered by a monster.

Did I like this movie? Yes.  Did I think it was the best way to end the franchise? Heck no. Nolan could have made this film even better with a few edits and proofreads through the script.  Perhaps if he had a few people read it over and check for any major inconsistencies, we would have a more cohesive narrative conclusion for this series.  But as-is, it’s not a terrible film.  It’s a good film that doesn’t quite make it to greatness, but comes pretty darn close.

---

For more reviews, be sure to like this page as well as the Facebook page. For previous reviews, be sure to check out the full directory of reviews. As always, thank you for reading!