Okay, it’s not really a movie, but it’s based on a classic piece of comicdom, so in my book that means it’s worth a look.
If you’re even just an occasional reader of Batman comics, then the chances are you’ve heard of the Killing Joke. When it was released in 1988, comics stopped being comics; they became graphic novels. Up until then, Batman was a fairly nice guy; a bit like the fella in the sixties series staring Adam West. Hell, he even smiled. But the Killing Joke introduced a different caped crusader: obsessed, brutal and brooding, and this was a different kind of comi—sorry—graphic novel: gothic, violent and raw. It turns out that Batman is as much of a whack-job as the Joker, but I think we all kind of suspected that.
Fans loved it, and the new Batman stuck.
So of course, the Killing Joke needs to be a movie, or at the very least, a cartoon. The only thing I don’t get is why it took so long. It’s not as if Mark Hamill is that busy.
If I was going to sum up this book then I’d say that it was gritty, surreal and lacked specifics. The characters remain unnamed, the setting: likewise unnamed, along with an unspecified location and no hint as to when it is set. Annihilation is the first in a trilogy detailing the events surrounding a region of coast that seems to have been taken over by an alien ecological force. The main character is a biologist who is a member of a exploration team sent into investigate the infected (if that’s the right word) region. As well as having to contend with strange creatures who may or may not be imaginary, alien doppelgangers and transformed humans, the team also has to deal with a member who may not be on their side …