BEFORE: And here's part 2 of today's DC Comics double-feature, second of two films with Batman vs. the Joker.
Mark Hamill carries over from "Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker" and so do three other voice actors.
THE PLOT: As Batman hunts for the escaped Joker, the Clown Prince of Crime attacks the Gordon family to prove a diabolical point mirroring his own fall into madness.
AFTER: This film is based on the graphic novel of the same name, which was released back in 1988 - it took 28 years to turn it into an animated film. Part of that delay was apparently due to the unimpressive box-office returns of "Watchmen" back in 2011. Development started in 2009, but suddenly there was doubt over whether audiences wanted to see more adult stories in their superhero films. (More on that in a bit...). But SPOILER ALERT if you haven't seen this film, or read the 1988 (very) graphic graphic novel.
But this is what I was talking about in my review of "Joker", this is what I think of as the definitive origin story for the character, although as Joker says in this film, "If I have to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple-choice!" Meaning that as an insane psychopathic villain, he's an unreliable narrator at best, even when it comes to his own story! But this was the first attempt at making the pre-villain Joker somewhat sympathetic, and it did so by saying, "Hey, maybe he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time." From the flashbacks we see here, he was a struggling comedian (unnamed in the story) who needed money to support his pregnant wife, and so he agreed to adopt the persona of the Red Hood for ONE robbery, a break-in at the Ace Chemical Plant to rob the Monarch Playing Card Company next door. (Because as we all know, nobody has more money than banks except for small, independent playing card manufacturers...)
Now, they had to change the story a little bit for contemporary audiences - they added a whole sequence at the beginning about Batgirl being trained by Batman to fight crime, though for her this has also turned into something of an issue with me, because the writers here used this to set up a sort of love triangle between her, Batman and a flirty mob criminal named Paris Franz. (And yes, his adopted name is just horrible, but acknowledging that it's a bad pun and terrible name for a character doesn't prevent it from being both of those things.). First off, Batgirl shouldn't be flirting with a criminal, not even to trap him, not even to give him the illusion that she's into him and playing his game. That's a no-no where superheroes are concerned. The last time a superhero dated a villain was, hmm, let's see, NEVER. No wait, I guess Batman and Catwoman are the exception here.
But the other leg of the triangle is worse, because Batman is her mentor, her teacher, and for her to have feelings for Batman, well, it complicates things, and it gets too close to the "abuse of power" scenario - besides, in the comic books Batgirl has dated Nightwing (Robin I) and that just feels like a better fit. One night, after fighting crime together, Batman and Batgirl cross that line, and that feels like a very bad idea, both for their characters as people and as part of this particular story. It doesn't even fit with his character to get involved with her, because he's supposed to be super-moral, stoic, the man without emotions, except for the ones he has for Catwoman, and those are buried deep down. Batgirl's much too young for him, and he's teaching her, so this plot point should have been nipped in the bud.
Anyway, those of us who read this comic know what's coming, which is that Joker attacks Commissioner Gordon and his daughter (who is also Batgirl) at home. He shoots one and kidnaps the other, all to prove a point that it just takes one really bad day to turn someone mad, or perhaps evil. As proof of his theory, Joker offers up his own situation (he had that really bad day that culminated in him falling into the vat of chemicals and going looney) and also Batman, who he figures also had a really bad day once. Joker happens to be correct, but he doesn't KNOW for sure that he's correct, and I guess this is what leads him to experiment on James Gordon, who's taken away to an old carnival, tortured by circus freaks, and shown photos of his own daughter, injured and stripped naked, in an attempt to drive him mad. Joker also strips Gordon naked and puts him in a cage, then forces him to be the judge in a mock trial of Batman.
Gordon doesn't break, and Batman does come to the rescue, but the damage done to the Gordon family is long-lasting - Barbara ended up paralyzed (at least until the next reboot) but continued fighting crime as the computer expert Oracle. There's a strong implication that Joker raped Barbara, though neither the comic or the film could come out and SAY that, but then again, he's crazy, so who knows. Maybe he just wanted those photos and the ability to make bad librarian puns.
And Batman, god bless him, he still thinks he can fix crazy - he's seen at the start of the film visiting Joker in prison (or maybe Arkham Asylum) and trying to reason with him, come to some agreement before one of them crosses the line and kills the other. Too bad the Joker is long gone at this point and he's talking to a decoy. Joker always finds a way out of his imprisonment, and always lives to torture and kill another day. It isn't until the far-off future that Batman finally learns that killing him is the only way to stop him - here, instead, for some reason, they share a good laugh at the end. It's an odd moment, because Batman's laughing with the man who tortured his best friend and shot his lover. Is it appropriate to joke around with her assailant while she's lying in a hospital bed?
Time and time again, these two men are somehow portrayed as opposites, yet also somehow similar. At least the flashbacks here are used appropriately, to shore up that point, and suggest that maybe, just maybe, this struggling comedian didn't choose this life for himself, he just had a bad day once and it colored his whole life. Whereas in "Joker" Arthur Fleck had a bad few years, and that eventually pushed him over the edge - but I think at some point you have to stop making excuses for the Joker, especially when his body count rises past any level where he could possibly be forgiven.
Still, this is powerful stuff, both the comic version of "The Killing Joke" and also the film. It's just a shame they had to add the Batgirl chapter at the beginning as a lead-in, and that sort of cocked the whole thing up. There had to be a better way to introduce Batgirl as a character before Joker's attack, because this portrayal of her as a love-struck fledgling crime-fighter really weakened her. What happened to the new trend of portraying women as strong, independent superheroes who don't need a man's help to fight crime? Wouldn't that have been a better way to view the character? Instead we get a Batgirl so clueless that she needs someone to Batman-splain crimefighting to her?
Also starring the voices of Kevin Conroy, Tara Strong, Bruce Timm (all carrying over from "Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker"), Ray Wise (last seen in "Bob Roberts"), Robin Atkin Downes (last heard in "All-Star Superman"), John DiMaggio (ditto), Fred Tatasciore (ditto), Brian George (last heard in "The Boxtrolls"), J.P. Karliak, Andrew Kishino, Nolan North, Maury Sterling (last seen in "Outbreak"), Anna Vocino, Kari Wahlgren (last heard in "The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature"), Rick D. Wasserman.
RATING: 6 out of 10 dangerous carnival rides
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