Prime source material and this is the result? It's watered down, incoherent and lacks direction. I'm saddened by the fact that this is the result of the cinematic adaptation of this groundbreaking novel.

I'm a fan of the book, and about half of this is an exact copy of it. However, the tacked-on prologue with the weird, borderline-statutory bat-sex? No thanks.

Batman: The Killing Joke fails both its source material as well as a general movie. It doesn't understand what made the original story so good. It doesn't understand the character of Barbara Gordon a.k.a. Bat girl. Its technical aspects leave a lot to be desired. And it doesn't even know how pacing works.But first, let's go over the upsides. It is genuinely pleasing to hear both Mark Hamill as well as Kevin Conroy reprise their roles as Joker and Batman, respectively. Tara Strong as Barbara is also something I will never complain about. The story is not half bad when it is actually about The Killing Joke, especially about Joker's supposed past. And even the animation, cheap though as it looks, can be forgiven when you remember that this was made direct to video on a shoestring budget.Then the problems. They needed to pad out the story. This I can somewhat understand because the original story isn't that long. Making that padding about Barbara is also understandable because the original story has her in a large part and she's the least known out of the principal characters. But did they really have to give her a gay best friend? Did they really have to make the entire first half of the film revolve around her teenage angst because Bruce doesn't luv luv her? I mean, here I thought superhero stories could be about man's struggle with his inner demons reflected on the horrors of the real world. About symbolic battle between shades of light and dark. About discrimination, racism, oppression, difficulties of morality in a world where nothing is truly black or white. But no, apparently superhero stories are just sitcoms where people dress funny.Furthermore, The Killing Joke, the original comic, was such a big thing because it was one of the first stories to really explore the possibility of Joker having a past. Plus it challenged the status quo. Things changed because of it, characters evolved. And this film simply cannot deliver that. Joker's backstory has already been suggested millions of times, there is no status quo to be broken and even the shock value of Joker doing such brutal things that they seem out of character even for him doesn't have much impact because we've seen worse from him. In a movie called The Dark Knight. One of the greatest movies ever made. Perhaps you've heard of it.To add insult to injury, the movie doesn't even earn its R rating. It's a marketing ploy. I've seen movies from the 80s rated PG-13 that have more gore, violence and sexual content than this has.And yet this film is not the worst. Not even the worst animated Batman film. The voice acting is strong, the original story is good, borderline great, and the animation has some good moments. Even its flaws are merely annoying. Not something I'd recommend, but it's watchable.

Batman and Batgirl doing the nasty. Remember in Batman Beyond Barbara admits to Terry Mcginnis that she dated Batman (Bruce Wayne). Then she quit as Batgirl. This movie delved into that idea. Well a third of the movie was dedicated to that before they actually dove into the killing joke which apparently was taken frame for frame from the comic book of the same name. I did not read it or any batman comic at all but maybe that is why there is a big difference in peoples opinions. It is between those who read the comic and those who did not. The first third has no tie in with the rest of the film except for showing the end of everything. With Robin gone the only other partner of Batman left was Batgirl. Also the villain they were taking on gets obsessed with Batgirl just like the Joker with Batman. After some time passes Joker escapes from the asylum. Flashbacks showing how Joker got into crime emerges right about now i.e. Joker origins. All that while Joker shoots Batgirl, crippling her in the process and kidnaps officer Gordon apparently trying to prove a point. What follows is a musical number by the Joker. The hood worn by the red hood was really constricting how did he think he was going to manage with it? We get what we wanted anyway the origins of Joker. The best part of the movie is undeniably the ending. The Joker made a valid point and Batman provides a counter point. This was an ultimatum but Batman says that it does not have to be this way and even offers to help the Joker. The Joker then tells the killing joke and what Batman does while laughing is open for interpretation as it ended ambiguously. This conversation showed depth in both characters. We then cut to Barbara during the credits and with her actions here perhaps there is a continuation of this story in the future