I'd read the gist of the 1988 Alan Moore graphic novel by this title long ago: The Joker attempts to drive Gotham City Police Commissioner Jim Gordon mad with grief in just one day, hoping to demonstrate how easily a decent man can become like the Joker. More recently, I saw a clip from near the end of this adaptation. It looked so promising that I paid no mind to the viewers' mixed reactions before I decided to watch the whole thing.
The primary reason for those mixed reactions is that while the majority of the 77 minutes is highly faithful, the first third has no basis in that comic or, to my knowledge, any other. In it, the focal character and part-time narrator is Jim's daughter, Barbara, a.k.a. Batgirl (Tara Strong), who gains the quasi-affectionate attention of nonthematic mobster Paris Franz (Maury Sterling). She's in no danger of falling for his charisma, but Batman (Kevin Conroy) doesn't trust her judgment on how to deal with a twistedly playful opponent, since she hasn't dealt with the likes of the Joker (Mark Hamill). In truth, she's more interested in exploring her feelings toward Batman.
By contrast, the preexisting portion of TKJ has a rather brief, undignified role for Barbara: The Joker makes her suffer big time so that Jim (Ray Wise) does too. The occasion never sat well with feminists, which might be one reason for the new intro, but they're not crazy about her characterization there either. Oh, she's quite capable at fighting and acrobatics, and it's understandable that she'd resent Batman's injunction against facing Paris -- perhaps his bossiness in general. But it doesn't seem right for her to pursue an intimate relationship with her significantly older leader, even if that's better than the other way around. And ultimately, having her go from star to throwaway victim serves mainly to highlight the original problem in the most troubling way. I was just a little relieved that she reappears in a mid-credits sequence, assuring us that her life, while changed, isn't perpetually miserable.
To some extent, this movie is like Julie & Julia: It feels like two stories inorganically smooshed together, and viewers have definite preferences between the two. And in each case, I'm in the minority. I can see why someone wanted to tell the Batgirl story, and it could have been great with some fine-tuning and fleshing out. It's also, I must say, easier to watch than what follows.
Who'd've thought that the first R-rated Batman feature would be a cartoon? There's mild to moderate swearing, talk and implication of sex, and strategically censored nudity (you won't see so much as a male crack), but what really merits the rating is the level of violence and sheer trauma. Viewers were glad to hear those voices dating back to Batman: The Animated Series, but I found their use in kid-unfriendly material a tad jarring. I suppose it would have been worse if the art style were closer. Good thing I'd already seen Flashpoint Paradox to get used to gritty DC animation and Arrow to get used to permanent losses for heroes.
From the initial summary, I had assumed that the Joker would engineer a series of "accidents" with no obvious traceability. Instead, he's entirely forthright with torments, repeatedly urging Jim to cast off the burden of sanity. And that "one bad day" is actually just part of a night, because the Dark Knight has little use for daylight.
Speaking of which, it's the sickest Joker plot I've seen this side of The Dark Knight. Never have I wished more strongly that Batman would stop being so merciful to him, especially when minions pay bigger prices. I blame my viewing in part for my insomnia that night, and it wasn't even the last thing I watched before bed.
One of the most popular aspects of TKJ is the set of periodic flashbacks to the Joker's apparent origin. If you combine the one in the 1989 Batman with the one in Joker, you won't be far off. Strange to feel so sorry for him one minute and think death too good for him the next. Actually, since he claims to avoid dwelling on his tragic past or, failing that, make up alternate pasts, perhaps "flashbacks" isn't the right word.
I have one objection that I haven't noticed anyone else bringing up: All the Joker's minions this time around are freak show employees. We have no explanation for why so many of them would side with him, we don't see any who didn't, and the circus midgets practically look like goblins. Is the lesson that ugly equals evil? That's one more reason for me to prefer the intro; Paris is pretty handsome.
For all my complaints, I've been a trifle more generous to this adaptation than the average IMDb rater. When it's skilled, it's very skilled. It usually evokes the intended emotions in spades. And its overt moral is agreeable: Not everyone responds to misfortune the same way. (Heck, even if Jim did go mad, there's no guarantee he'd be villainous.) It doesn't make me any more of a fan of Moore or the Batman mythos, but neither does it drive me further away. By now, you should know whether TKJ is worth your time to stream.
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