The Batman Honors Joker's Most Defining Trait (Despite Being So Different)
A deleted scene from The Batman properly introduces Barry Keoghan's Joker. Though radically different, this version honors Joker's most vital trait.
Barry Keoghan's Joker in The Batman may signal a huge departure from past iterations, but his characterization still honors the DC villain's most important trait - a psychological bond with the Dark Knight. When Matt Reeves' The Batman introduces its Joker, precious little is given away. Barry Keoghan cuts a shadowy figure as an Arkham prisoner, extending a hand of friendship toward Paul Dano's Riddler, but only utters a choice few lines and never appears in full. Warner Bros. has now released a full 5-minute deleted scene of an exchange between Keoghan's Joker and Robert Pattinson's Batman, affording a glimpse into the new Clown Prince's personality, backstory and mannerisms.
Immediately, it's clear this is a Joker like no other - especially compared to big screen incarnations of the past. Suffering a congenital condition that forces his mouth to smile (a detail confirmed by Matt Reeves), Joker's face is not only heavily scarred, but covered by lesions and broken skin that extends all the way down to his hands. Though Keoghan nails the manic laugh, The Batman's Joker shows a unique personality too - a more casual, youthful, dismissive kind of sadist, which speaks to how the character isn't yet the fully-formed "Joker" package in Pattinson's continuity.
Though it's impossible to deny Barry Keoghan's Joker represents a stark departure from the norm, one key commonality of the DC villain shines through strongly... and it's arguably the most important factor of all. He might've started as little more than a deranged clown, but over the past 80 years, The Joker has developed into not only Batman's most infamous adversary, but something of a mirror image to Bruce Wayne's alter ego. Comic writers have delighted in exploring how Batman and Joker are two halves of the same coin, intimately familiar with each other in ways no other villain, friend, or even a lover can be. Alan Moore's The Killing Joke, The Batman Who Laughs, Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, and Scott Snyder's "Death of the Family" (which The Batman is also using as a visual inspiration) all draw upon this idea of duality between Bat and Clown.
During The Batman's deleted Joker scene, the Arkham prisoner takes all of 4 minutes to deduce how his caped nemesis is terrified by a nagging sensation that Riddler could be right, and his victims deserved to die. Joker's uncanny ability to not only read Batman's line of thinking but then predict how badly it scares the vigilante demonstrates how - despite being a very radical, early version of the character - Joker already knows Batman inside out, and developed an unbreakable lifetime bond. You could also point to Pattinson's Caped Crusader seeking Joker's investigative assistance as proof their relationship is a two-way street. Even after putting the villain behind bars, Batman is drawn to The Joker, requesting his perspective on a completely unrelated case.
Barry Keoghan's Joker may have a more horrifying, prosthetic-based design, and Matt Reeves might've crafted a different origin story which involves a "congenital disease" rather than a vat of acid, but this symbiotic, deep-seated relationship with Batman grounds cinema's latest Joker in DC's comic roots. Previous live-action performances have touched upon this famous dynamic, most notably Heath Ledger and Christian Bale in The Dark Knight. But Nicholson didn't really go there, Leto didn't have time to go there, and Phoenix didn't have a Batman to go there with. Reeves' vision is placing far more emphasis upon Batman and Joker as a dysfunctional dichotomy, and not only does that bring comic book fidelity to The Batman, it'll keep audiences glued to the screen every time Keoghan's distinctive laugh echoes through.