A Deleted Scene From "The Batman" Featuring Barry Keoghan's Joker Has Been Released

I'm conflicted about this. I liked "The Batman" a lot. Despite the few issues that I had, I felt like it was one of the most well-directed and unique comic book movies of recent memory, and it gave us the single best live-action version of Batman. I thought Robert Pattinson knocked it out of the park. And now, as part of a viral marketing campaign that I'm guessing is probably going to continue until the sequel comes out, the deleted scene featuring Robert Pattinson's Batman and Barry Keoghan's Joker has been released to the public.

Barry Keoghan is a great actor, and I expect that he'll be a perfect Joker. I'm happy the scene was cut from the movie though. "The Batman" already ran nearly 3 hours. I felt like it ran just a little bit too long, and this scene would've only bloated the runtime. But that's a minor complaint. People want to know whether or not this Joker works, and quite frankly, the evidence is inconclusive. I think it's cool that we're getting a scene that we rarely get in Batman movies, which is a scene in which the Joker is not in his makeup and out of his element doing things other than just creating chaos. I think Barry Keoghan will grow into the role, and I'm excited to see how he fits into Matt Reeves' world, but I still hope that he's not the prominent villain in the sequel. It has nothing to do with him, but frankly, I'm a bit Joker'd out. Don't get me wrong, the Joker is Batman's number one arch-nemesis. I'd be crazy to deny that. But in the last 14 years, we've now had four different men play the Joker, including two (Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix) who won Academy Awards for it. Maybe it's a time in which we let the character breathe for a bit. Matt Reeves did something with the Riddler that we've never seen before. I prefer that he do something in the sequel with a villain that we haven't seen in a while (please do Mr. Freeze). 

I think it's cool that we're getting a chance to see a scene like this through this engaging viral marketing campaign. I can't wait to see these two go back and forth in future movies. Barry Keoghan looks the part, and he has a tremendously chilling Joker laugh. Just because a scene didn't fit into a film does not necessarily mean that those actors or characters won't fit into future films. I think these two will have tremendous chemistry together. It's a solid scene, just not one that fit into this movie. With that said, in Matt Reeves, we trust.