Batman: The Killing Joke

_The Killing Joke_ deserved a better adaptation. Not even that. Just re-edit this to cut out the first half and you have a perfect adaptation. This is one of my favorite Batman stories ever. Unfortunately, the first part is spent irrelevantly on Barbara, and has largely nothing to do with the rest of the movie. However, after about a half hour of filler, the ACTUAL adaptation of _The Killing Joke_ is awesome. Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill deliver another classic performance of Batman and Joker. Half of this movie I despise and half of this I love. 5/10

OK, so I'll admit I was expecting something closer to the graphic novel, and I was pretty disappointed that it only really loosely followed something that was epicly brilliant as the comic. However, I'm not a stickler for total accuracy. And, really it is better than most of the other Batman movies, it does manage to tell a good story and reveal some of the Joker's ever-changing and never consistent backstory, even if it does gloss over a lot of it. In the end, especially in this current era it's a reminder of how great comic books used to be and how great they could be again if they only started telling actual stories once more.

The first 30 minutes was wasted with Barbara being so annoying! I just didn't see why that whole bit was thrown in when the movie itself is meant to center on the Joker. Even with Mark Hamill's final bow out as the iconic villain couldn't save the film. Still, at least that joke at the end was a little amusing! Other than that, they could've done better with the story.