The Joker’s deleted scene from The Batman gives the franchise its first bona fide monster

polygon.com:

The Joker, Batman’s most infamous foe, has been through many onscreen iterations over the decades: He’s been a jovial clown, a mobster, an anarchist, possibly a Juggalo, and a failed comedian. With the release of a deleted scene from Matt Reeves’ The Batman, which features Robert Pattinson’s Caped Crusader locked in a room with 29-year-old Irish actor Barry Keoghan, the Joker becomes something entirely new to Warner Bros.’ billion-dollar Bat-empire: a bonafide movie monster.

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Such a turn might be old hat for Keoghan, who already effectively portrayed an unnerving fiend in Yorgos Lanthimos’ 2017 film The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and an equally cracked and calculating killer in David Lowery’s The Green Knight. For the cinematic world of Batman, however, his performance is a daunting first step into a far more disturbing, horror-tinged world. It’s all in the audiovisual language of the scene’s first few seconds: Within the confines of a small interview room at Arkham State Hospital, a series of formidable locks slam into place and alarms blare a warning to all within earshot. Before a word has even been spoken, it’s already been made abundantly clear that something dangerous is free from its cage.

[Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for The Batman.]

This is where we find Pattinson’s Dark Knight Detective, who seeks advice about the Ridder (Paul Dano) from what turns out to be a well-acquainted foe. “It’s almost our anniversary, isn’t it?” Keoghan’s Joker asks, his face just out of focus. This is mostly how we view the Joker throughout the deleted scene: blurred, from behind glass, from behind the villain’s back, from over Pattinson’s armored shoulders. The camera just itches to snap into focus to reveal the villain in all