Batman: The Killing Joke

Kameňák is one of the most famous, most fundamental and, after all, the best Batman stories. It is the pure essence of what Batman/Jokers is about. Like any good "joke", it's short, striking and damn impressive. And therefore completely unsuitable for full-length footage. Which the creators somewhat clumsily handled so that the introductory half is about something completely different, and no matter how hard the creators try to fit it to Kameňák itself, this effort has zero result. It is decent and not that bad, but completely useless padding which is too lengthy and nothing more. Scenes from the second half, which are taken one to one (including picture framing), work, but paradoxically this is also detrimental, as it is not so much an adaptation as an illustration of the original. But what stands out is the great voicover (Hamill confirms that he is still the best voiceover artist) and worse portrayed. It is therefore something between a cat and a dog, which does not give the original a good name (rather the opposite), but it is only and only thanks to the high quality of the script that it will stand up to the result. (27.07.2016)

Specially adapted for kids, but some extremely rough moments mean that in the end there was no point (I won’t let my daughter watch it before her 18th birthday). The Killing Joke is a story about how Batman breaks his only rule, not that he laughs at the joke. The animated Batman: The Dark Knight Returns shows that this can be done better. Much, much better. (15.11.2020)

An adaptation of Alan Moore's famous and great “The Killing Joke" comic books. I was a little worried about what the creators would use to stretch the story, which is in fact impressive just because of how relatively short and impactful it is. The good news is that they didn't directly stretch the length of “The Killing Joke" with anything. The slightly worse news is that before it begins to unfold, we follow a completely different story for almost half an hour, which, although it can be justified by the need to introduce Batgirl/Barbara to complete newcomers, the mob plotline and action scenes were not necessary. But I wasn't bored, I got used to the animation after a while... Mark Hamill is perfect as the Joker. (15.11.2020)

This is one of the legendary comic book Batmans, but what they made out of it in the film adaptation is just a simple action movie about how one idiot went too far. It doesn't have a hint of the magic that the comic has, nor a hint of what Alan Moore brought to the script. The animation is fine, but that is somehow expected. (29.07.2016)