I am not much into Batman, but I wanted to watch this because of all the hype of it being R-rated and because I liked the trailer. It is a bit longer than an hour and in it there are only defective people. The R-ratedness was not really something that I noticed, really. Maybe because I am from Europe. It just seemed a normal violent hero movie.
I could go into the Joker origin story, I could understand the senpai fixation of Bat-Girl, I could even get Batman's uberdominant stance - I mean, it's his signature mark. What I couldn't get was the ending. It completely went as nuts as Joker himself and deconstructed the entire Batman universe.
Now here come mild spoilers: Batman almost wants to get killed walking calmly into what is clearly a trap, only to finally catch the Joker and then... he talks to him. The reason for it is because he knows at one time or another he will kill Joker or viceversa. But that pretty much dissolves the reason Batman does anything he does. If he knows jails won't hold the Joker, why is he jailing him all the time?
The entire film underlines the futility of every character's efforts and even life. Batman jails people only for them to always get away, Batgirl does things for the kicks and then she loses them, Joker doesn't understand why a sociopath like him is the joke of the story and the other - Batman - is a hero, the gangsters go through the motions only to be foiled at the end, almost expecting it, and Gordon fails in everything: as a father, as a cop and as an upholder of order.
Bottom line: the joke at the end... it's not funny. I feel it was intentional and therefore my analysis holds ground: this is a story that outlines the pointlessness of the Batman universe and if you look into the story of the writer, it may very well be what he had meant all along. The Killing Joke was supposed to kill Batman, the comic book.
I could go into the Joker origin story, I could understand the senpai fixation of Bat-Girl, I could even get Batman's uberdominant stance - I mean, it's his signature mark. What I couldn't get was the ending. It completely went as nuts as Joker himself and deconstructed the entire Batman universe.
Now here come mild spoilers: Batman almost wants to get killed walking calmly into what is clearly a trap, only to finally catch the Joker and then... he talks to him. The reason for it is because he knows at one time or another he will kill Joker or viceversa. But that pretty much dissolves the reason Batman does anything he does. If he knows jails won't hold the Joker, why is he jailing him all the time?
The entire film underlines the futility of every character's efforts and even life. Batman jails people only for them to always get away, Batgirl does things for the kicks and then she loses them, Joker doesn't understand why a sociopath like him is the joke of the story and the other - Batman - is a hero, the gangsters go through the motions only to be foiled at the end, almost expecting it, and Gordon fails in everything: as a father, as a cop and as an upholder of order.
Bottom line: the joke at the end... it's not funny. I feel it was intentional and therefore my analysis holds ground: this is a story that outlines the pointlessness of the Batman universe and if you look into the story of the writer, it may very well be what he had meant all along. The Killing Joke was supposed to kill Batman, the comic book.