The Killing Joke (15)

Synopsis:

The Joker kidnaps and tortures Barbara Gordon in order to psychologically destroy Commissioner Gordon and send him insane to prove that all it takes for a good man to become evil is “one bad day”.

Review:

I should emphasise that this is going to be a review of the film only. I haven’t read the source material, I’m aware there are some big differences between the two.

I liked the voice acting in this film a lot. Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill have been providing the voices for their respective characters for so long and in multiple incarnations that it’s only natural that they should voice their characters in the adaptation of such a well-regarded story. Kevin Conroy delivers a signature tone of broody growling to The Dark Knight and Mark Hamill gives yet another stellar performance as the Clown Prince of Crime. I always feel sorry for Kevin Conroy, because all he really has to do is deliver the lines in a gravelly voice, whereas Mark Hamill always sounds like he’s having the time of his life. It’s the same for The Killing Joke where he gets to deliver an especially sinister and maniacal turn as The Joker. There is a scene where he sings and he doesn’t sound too bad at all.

Ray Wise is the voice of Commissioner Gordon and I was delighted to see his name in the cast list, because I loved him as Leland Palmer in Twin Peaks and Fire Walk With Me and he was simply superb as The Devil in Reaper. Unfortunately, he didn’t get much to say or do aside from the odd grunt of pain and scream of horror, his lines of actual dialogue were very brief especially considering that a great amount of the plot is centred around him.

Tara Strong provides the voice of Batgirl/Barbara Gordon and her voice acting is great, she manages to convey emotions and really sells some of the more unutterable dialogue. She’s a veteran of voicing superhero characters, a quick scan of her IMDb credits proves her to be someone has lent her voice to both DC and Marvel characters.

All in all the voice acting is good, it’s a shame that the rest of the film is so stomach-churningly wretched. I don’t think there was a point during this film when my face wasn’t contorted into a grimace. As someone who loved every second of The Neon Demon I am more than able to stomach all manner of gruesomeness, but this film had such an unpleasant attitude to its only female character and treated her with such contempt. My grimace wasn’t due to any on-screen gore or violence it was due to a really nasty undertone to the whole thing and on top of that the story itself is flimsy trash. The actual part of the film that contains the plot of The Killing Joke is only forty minutes long, the opening thirty minutes is an entirely different story altogether that has no connection to The Killing Joke whatsoever. It was created with the intention of fleshing out the character of Barbara Gordon, but what it actually does is turn her into a hormonal teenager who only fights crime in order to be close to Batman. The opening half of the film pits her against a misogynistic gangster who develops a fetish-like obsession with Batgirl. He seems to best her at every turn, makes derogatory comments at her with no comeuppance and lures her into trap after trap. The most uncomfortable part however is the sex scene between Batgirl and Batman, which mercifully happens off-screen, but nonetheless is such a bizarre storytelling choice, the aftermath of which is that Batman skulks around and avoids Batgirl while Batgirl turns into the superhero equivalent of a clingy girl who tries to turn a one night stand into grounds for marriage. The aim of this Batgirl-centred story was to flesh out her character more, but what it actually did was re-write the whole character and made her decision to give up the mantle of Batgirl down to the fact that Batman wouldn’t spend time with her.

The second half of the film, which is what fans of the source material actually wanted to see is similarly grotesque in its treatment of Batgirl. She only exists to be used to hurt the men of the piece in one of the most blatant examples of “fridging” that I have ever seen. She barely has any lines of dialogue, in fact most of her on-screen appearances are the photos of her in a state of undress that are shown to Jim Gordon by The Joker in an attempt to send him insane. I never thought a cartoon could be leery, but The Killing Joke takes a decent punt at it: the barrel of the gun being pressed into Barbara’s stomach and the delicate unbuttoning of her blouse to reveal her bra. The gender politics of this adaptation are hateful and left a bad taste in my mouth.

There is a mid-credits sequence showing Barbara assuming the role of Oracle and managing to live a good life despite her lack of mobility, but it doesn’t undo any of the damage already done.

(For further information on what “fridging” is, I urge you to look up Women In Refrigerators by Gail Simone.)

Verdict:

An utterly loathsome film that aims to be gritty, but only succeeds in being grotty. The worst Batman film this year…worse than Batman V Superman.

Stars: 0/5