Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Andy Muschietti
Starring: Ezra Miller, Michael Keaton, Michael
Shannon, Sasha Calle, Ron Livingston, Maribel Verdu, Kiersey Clemons, Antje
Traue
In the summer of 1989 the world succumbed to bat-fever. Tim Burton's
Batman was a sensation in a way few movies have been since.
Sure, other blockbusters have sold more tickets in the years since, but I
can't think of any that have dominated pop culture for an entire summer the
way Burton's film did. Everywhere you looked in '89 people were sporting
black t-shirts bearing the iconic bat logo. Prince's hit singles 'Batdance'
and 'Partyman' seemed to be on an endless loop on radio and MTV. The buzz
around screen legend Jack Nicholson playing the Joker was electric. Strange
as it seems now, nobody was excited about the actor cast as the caped
crusader, Michael Keaton. At the time superheroes were synonymous
with chiselled jaws and bulging biceps. Why was this comedy actor with a
terrible mullet cast as Bruce Wayne? As they so often are, comic book fans
were incensed at the casting choice (thankfully they didn't have internet
access back then). But the fans were proved wrong as Keaton won them over,
convincing as both the charming Wayne and the brooding Batman. Today, most
fans consider him the definitive screen Batman.
When it was announced that Keaton would return to the role for
The Flash, it seemed like a purely cynical piece of fan service. Let's face it, it
is a cynical piece of fan service. But this is a rare case of fan-pandering
that actually works. Keaton is a couple of years older than Harrison Ford in
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and a
couple of decades older than Sean Connery in
Never Say Never Again, yet he brings a vitality to the part that was sorely lacking in those
famous returns to signature roles. In 1989 many people didn't view Keaton as
traditionally good looking enough to play Batman, but now he's the most
handsome 70-year-old you could imagine. When he dons the famous mask, his
jaw is as square as any actor who pulled on the batsuit. Whenever he's on
screen in The Flash, any doubts dissipate instantly. We've doubted Keaton twice, but he's
convinced us yet again. He's Batman!
Of course, this movie isn't called Batman (much to the annoyance of
Hollywood bean counters, no doubt), it's called The Flash. It's the first standalone movie for Ezra Miller's Barry Allen aka
The Flash, and most likely the last, given Miller's well documented string
of real life crimes. It does however open with a fun sequence that sees The
Flash team up with his Justice League buddies Batman (Ben Affleck)
and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot, charismatic in a way she never quite was
in her character's own movies) for a very old school adventure involving a
maternity hospital collapsing into a sinkhole. As director
Andy Muschietti plays around with classic superhero imagery of
falling babies being saved midair and Batman and Wonder Woman flirting
awkwardly like adolescents, we're left to wish we had gotten a light-hearted
Justice League movie rather than the moody bore Zack Snyder delivered.
Wait, if Affleck is Batman, how does Keaton fit into all this? Well, it's
because like the recent
Spider-Man
and
Doctor Strange
movies, The Flash harks back to that 1972 Doctor Who special
The Three Doctors and introduces the concept of a multiverse
to offer various incarnations of the same character. Allen sets this in
motion by using his ability to movie faster than the speed of light to
travel back in time in the hopes of averting his mother's murder, which has
been pinned on his dad. Visiting his childhood home and finding mom alive
and kicking, Allen is chuffed until he runs into an alternate version of
himself who hasn't yet acquired his powers. When it turns out that General
Zod (Michael Shannon, sadly no return for Terence Stamp) has just
arrived on Earth looking for Superman, the two Allens seek out Batman, only
to find it's the Keaton rather than Affleck incarnation.
As I mentioned, once Keaton pops up the movie draws you in. Taking its cues
more from the Marvel Cinematic Universe than its DC counterpart, the script
has an annoying propensity to punctuate too many moments of pathos with
quips, but Keaton manages to make it work. There's a loveable quality to his
Bruce Wayne, whose late life is boosted by being relevant again, and you can
see Keaton is experiencing something similar himself. The joy he feels in
returning to this role is palpable. Remarkably, his 70-year-old form never
looks ridiculous when strutting about in the iconic suit. He made me
nostalgic for 1989's Batman, and I haven't even seen that movie!
To get to Keaton you have to wade through a whole lot of Miller however.
I'm not one of those people who like to pretend someone is a bad actor
because they're a bad person, but as the original Allen Miller lacks the
required vulnerable likeability (perhaps because I'll always associate him
with the creepy sociopaths they played at the start of their career in
Afterschool and We Need to Talk About Kevin) while as the alternate Allen they're as annoying as '90s Pauly Shore. The
portion of the movie in which Allen 1 takes Allen 2 under his wing seems to
go on forever and gets bogged down in a stream of exposition and
plotsplaining. It's nowhere near as funny as it thinks it is, with a gag
about famous movie roles being occupied by alternate actors dragged out
through pages of dialogue when it would have been infinitely more effective
if we had just been shown a wall of movie posters.
Once Keaton arrives, the two Millers are pushed aside, and we're also
introduced to Supergirl (a very good Sasha Calle), with the quartet
forming a sort of makeshift alternate Justice League. As is always the case
with these movies, it all leads up to a poorly staged action climax that's
15 minutes longer than it needs to be. This climactic sequence is a mess,
with a jarring tone (what should be an emotionally affecting moment is
ruined by a sequence of both Flashes dashing around to upbeat power pop) and
shoddy CG effects that make the characters look like Gerry Anderson puppets.
The goodwill generated by Keaton's committed turn is soured by a late swathe
of fan service that includes yet another ethically dubious digital
resurrection of a deceased star.
Ironically, The Flash moves along nicely when it's being
anchored by a 70-year-old actor, but when we're left in the company of the
titular speedster it halts to a snail's pace.
