Barbara Gordon is Batgirl. She tries to help Batman but he decides to keep her off the case. Even after having sex, Batman tries to keep her away. Batman is almost killed and Batgirl almost kills the criminal Franz in anger. Batgirl quits. Batman investigates a murder scene and suspects the Joker. He goes to Arkham Asylum and finds that the Joker had escaped putting a doppelganger in his place. The Joker kidnaps Commissioner Gordon and shoots Barbara.

This doesn't start with the Joker. Why? It seems obvious that this should start with the Joker. Instead, it's trying to give depth to Batgirl but not necessarily good depth. I don't like the sex and then quickly drop the sex. She starts as the lead and then becomes coma girl. If she's the lead, she should be the lead for the whole movie. This is fine but it's not anything great.

Batman: The Killing Joke is adapted from the Alan Moore graphic comic.

The animation is dark with some bone crunching violence, this is a cartoon not aimed at kids as it examines the violent psyche of the loony Joker (Mark Hamill) but also shows the character in more normal times in flashback.

Batman (Kevin Conroy) plays second fiddle here as he tries to look for alternative ways to deal with the clown prince of crime who has escaped from the asylum again. The trouble is the film relegates Batman as a second fiddle to Batgirl who appears for the opening part of the film and tells of her relationship with Batman.

This is one of these DVD releases that would go straight to pay television. It still comes across as being rather quickly and cheaply made. Hamill provides a good vocal performance.

I expected a lot more from this animated story, particularly since the graphic novel of the same name by Alan Moore was such a well regarded and popular work. The first part of the picture dealt with Barbara Gordon/Batgirl and her working relationship with Batman, and really didn't have much bearing on the Joker portion of the story. The segue of Batgirl getting frisky with the caped super-hero left me kind of cold, that really has no place in a super-hero movie to my way of thinking. The main story line has The Joker humiliating Commissioner Gordon while attempting to prove to Batman that just about anyone is one bad day away from going crazy. With a blocky art style and cliched dialog, I thought this film could have used a lot of improvement. There's a cringe worthy line uttered by a security guard when he sees Batman for the first time; you have to wonder if he'd been sleeping under a rock when he comes out with - "It's that human bat-guy"! Almost as cringe worthy as seeing Batman and the Joker yucking it up at the end over a stupid joke. When did that ever happen in the comics?