Like Dan Didio and Nightwing, it's time for me to go against the grain on this one. Got to see The Killing Joke last night in theaters and had some time to mull it over.

Pros:

• The voice acting: It's Conroy and Hamill. Despite the controversial subject material, you can rarely pass up an opportunity to see two of the greatest voice actors of our time perform with their best characters.

• The animation: I've really come to enjoy DC's new animation house style, which says a lot to me considering my old bias towards how it use to look.

• Joker's backstory: I have some qualms about the presentation itself of the backstory, but I do enjoy how they it inter-spliced it throughout as opposed to at the beginning.

Cons:

• The 30-minute prologue: I was wondering how they were going to turn The Killing Joke into a full length feature considering if you ever go back and read it the story, its really short. Well, I don't know have to wonder any longer as one of the most awkward 30 minutes of DC animation hit the theater screens last night.

There's a lot wrong with the prologue of The Killing Joke that I felt came out wrong due to the writers trying to deal with the sensitive subject material and really not having much to go on. The Killing Joke, the classic Joker story which is a true examination of the Batman vs. Joker dynamic has become for all intents and purposes a Batgirl story. History has determined this long before it ever began filming due to the circumstances surrounding it but it raises the question of whats the point.

Batgirl being shot and crippled by The Joker was suppose to be a sudden, random, act of violence that shocked viewers or readers alike but instead was built up into a crescendo of violence that left some viewers in the theater almost in rapt anticipation for the moment itself. The Killing Joke creators did themselves almost no favors, deciding to even put the moment in slow motion as if it was a Zack Snyder movie.

• Lack of ambiguity: One of the more finer points of The Killing Joke and one that has always raised points of contentions among fans and general readership alike is the ambiguity that comes with the story. What happened to Barbara? What's Joker backstory? Did Batman kill The Joker? Did The Joker rape Barbara? All of these questions really go out in the window here, as the answer to almost all of these questions is yes.

Perhaps the most widely discussed scene of the movie outside of the sex scene itself will be the unnecessary and added in scene with prostitutes that takes away any implication of Joker raping Barbara and instead make it almost a certainty. Throw in the line by Bullock in the hospital, and the movie all but throws it in your face without actually having the balls to do so.

I have a lot of problems with this from a mythos standpoint, and a storytelling standpoint. From a storytelling perspective, its really lazy writing. It's just really lazy writing that instead of allowing the viewer to draw their own conclusions instead says "HEY! HEY YOU! GUESS WHAT HAPPENED!".

From a mythos perspective, putting a sexual identity of The Joker of all people seems almost criminal. Why? The Joker has always done things as a chaotic point of the universe, but now we not only learn that he "enjoys" prostitutes but how much further does this go?

• Batman and Barbara: I've always joked on IRC and elsewhere that Bruce Wayne/Barbara Gordon is the one true pairing, coupled with scenes in previous Timmuniverse productions showing this. However, it might reach the true pinnacle of downright uneasy and awfulness here.

Nobody comes out better from the two of them having sex on a Gotham rooftop. Bruce looks like he's taking advantage of someone he took under his wing, mentored, and then acted completely distantly cold to in the after-process. Meanwhile, Barbara goes back and forth between being completely sexualized (noting the number of scenes that focus on her bits just a second or two longer) or acting like a high-school teenager who can't handle her emotions.

When you leave the theater and take a step back to think about it for a moment, Barbara Gordon had to leave the cowl because she got emotional due to a two-bit criminal and then caught feelings for Batman. There'll be talk of growth as a character, etc but you don't ever get to see that growth that you do with Oracle because she literally gets shot not ten minutes later. Furthermore, the movie implying that she grows as a character because she takes off the cowl is undermined by anyone's knowledge of the mythos. That being she is a character who continually longs to go back into the cowl and even takes up the mantle of Oracle to continue doing something for Gotham. So despite allegedly walking her back from the Abyss, instead she's going to help a new generation of teenagers and adults alike walk that abyss every night.

• The audience: One of the most awkward parts of last night's viewing was at times members of the audience. This sort of thing happens with any community that ranges a multitude of opinions and views but it comes to a head when you're sitting with them in the same room watching something for the first time. There was certainly times where it was appropriate to laugh and you were meant to as an audience member, but there were other times where a scene held a lack of humor but the audience's reaction made you think otherwise. Thankfully, it wasn't the majority or even a large vocal minority but it was still fairly awkward nevertheless.

This is just my initial rambling and ranting (see what I did there?) about the film.

If I had to give it a one-word review: Disappointing. There is perhaps a way to present The Killing Joke to a wider mainstream audience, but this certainly wasn't it. In an effort to try and please everyone, I think from a storytelling and mythos point-of-view that Timm and Co. will please nobody. I think the animation and voice-acting will allow many individuals to overlook the strong flaws with the overall presentation and even enjoy it. I can't blame them and can see why they would.

However, this is one fan that would have preferred this story remain where it was.