Batman: The Killing Joke (R)
Batman Wiki; Council of Geeks; DC; DC Database; IMDb; Rotten Tomatoes; TV Tropes; Warner Bros.; Wikipedia; World's Finest
streaming sites: Amazon; Google Play; iTunes; Max; Movies Anywhere; Vudu; YouTube

This 2016 film is an adaptation of the seminal 1988 graphic novel of the same name. (I've read it before, but don't remember many details about it, so I can't comment on how much the film adheres to or diverges from the original story.) I'm fairly sure the graphic novel was better than the movie, but I still liked the movie a lot, because of its dark and serious tone, as well as the story itself, and the animation. Plus it was good to hear familiar voice actors from Batman: The Animated Series, even though the movie isn't part of that show's continuity: Batman (Kevin Conroy), Joker (Mark Hamill), and Batgirl (Tara Strong, who voiced her in the spin-off series "The New Batman Adventures").

The movie is narrated by Batgirl, aka Barbara Gordon. It is essentially made up of two parts, in the first of which the main villain is a mobster named Parry Francesco, aka Paris Franz. He becomes obsessed with Batgirl, which leads to Batman ordering her to stay off the case. This makes her extremely angry, and nearly dissolves their partnership. And... I don't want to say any more about that part of the movie. But at least we get to see Batgirl being a total badass.

The second, more important part of the movie is about the Joker. We see flashbacks to before he became the Joker, and what led him to go mad. In the present, Batman is worried that someday either he'll end up killing Joker, or vice versa. Meanwhile, the Joker has just escaped from Arkham Asylum, and takes possession of a disused carnival. After shooting Barbara at her father's house, he kidnaps Commissioner Gordon (Ray Wise) and takes him to the carnival, where he tries to drive Gordon insane. And... I don't want to say any more about that part of the movie. But at least we get to see Batman laugh at a joke that the Joker tells. There's also a nice little mid-credits scene featuring Barbara.

Well, I've left out plenty of details, I think, but that's basically the gist of the story. Like I said, it's darker than most Batman stories. It didn't do very well critically, but I thought it was pretty good. It does have its flaws, but I didn't have much trouble overlooking them. And I definitely think there's more good than bad about the movie.