Nostalgia is a powerful tool in the era of the “Legacy
Sequel.” From Star Wars to Spider-Man to Jurassic World to Ghostbusters,
franchises are banking on millennials’ intense desire to see their childhood
heroes brought back into the spotlight alongside contemporary protagonists for “one
more adventure.” And I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t say I was sold on Andy
Muschietti’s The Flash the moment I saw Michael Keaton don his iconic Batman
cape and cowl in the trailer. If The Flash delivered on the Keaton Bat-Goods,
I would be more than satisfied with the rest of it.
Yes, Keaton delivers, and if you’re planning on seeing The
Flash solely to see your childhood Batman mix it up on the big screen once
again – those wonderful toys in tow – you won’t be disappointed. Of course,
with that must come a strong understanding that this is not his movie.
To provide a sense of what Batman means to me, let’s take a
step or perhaps a slow-motion sprint (ha) back in time to the 1980s with Kenner’s Super Powers Collection, an assortment of DC figures complete with
character-specific action features that would give me my first two superhero
action figures: Batman and Superman. I honestly can’t recall whatever became of
my Batman. It was either lost to a supermarket floor somewhere or fell victim
to a couch cushion boobytrap (Adam West has been through worse). The Superman,
however, was the Sheriff Woody to my Andy, and I took that mini-Man of Steel
everywhere until he, too, was lost to the Phantom Zone. Toy Biz ultimately rekindled
my interest in superhero action figures in 1989 with the release of their line
of movie- and comic-inspired figures tying into Tim Burton’s smash-hit
Batman
film, which included a Keaton-adjacent black-suited Batman, a semi-Jack Nicholson
Joker, the henchman of all henchmen named only Bob the Goon, and an assortment
of other DC characters not in that film, including Robin, Mr. Freeze, The
Penguin and, of course, Superman.
I didn’t see Burton’s Batman until it arrived on home
video, and even though Nicholson’s Joker TERRIFIED me, I was hooked. And when I
learned that there would be a sequel featuring Penguin and Catwoman, I was overcome
with Batmania. The only cure was, apparently, to beg my parents for as many Batman
Returns consumer products as possible, including Kenner’s fantastic action
figure line that gave us about 984 different versions of Batman, a Penguin that
looked nothing like Danny DeVito, a Catwoman no one could find in any stores, a
Robin that wasn’t even hinted at in the final film, and a set of Penguin Commandos.
These were penguins that had rockets strapped to their backs. Penguin.
Commandos. Have I mentioned that I LOVE Batman Returns?
Of course, my dad took me to see the film – my first PG-13
movie in theaters – and although it sparked a mild panic among parents’ groups
and corporate partners for its sexual content, violent nose-biting, and the omnipresent
ooze spewing forth from Penguin’s mouth, there really wasn’t anything else I
could think about in the summer of 1992. Rest assured, I rolled into King
Street Elementary School the following year with a full array of
Batman
Returns school supplies and quoting Christopher Walken’s Max Shreck before
quoting Christopher Walken was cool. “Expensive baubles” indeed.
And even as a kid raised on Star Wars, Keaton’s
Batman quickly became one of my favorite fictional heroes. From the voice to
the attitude to the way he effortlessly took down the bad guys (sometimes to a
permanent end, as purists have always pointed out), Keaton’s Caped Crusader was
cooler than vichyssoise, a soup that, as Alfred Pennyworth himself taught us,
is “supposed to be cold.”
But we’re here to talk about
The Flash, aren’t we? This
is a film that puts a red-and-yellow bow on Zack Snyder’s DCEU before the James Gunn-led
reboot of the film universe. It’s also a film that’s surprisingly fun, full of
genuine laughs and boisterous action set pieces that are sure to entertain. And
yes, Keaton’s not the only returning hero in this one, and some of the cameos
are maddeningly fun, but I won’t spoil them here. I’ll leave that to the TikTokers
who spoiled them for me.
But there’s also a super-powered elephant in the room when
it comes to The Flash thanks to the much publicized and troubling recent
actions of its star, Ezra Miller. It’s difficult to separate the actor from the
work in many instances, and it can be a heavy lift to do so here, but I will
say that Miller carries much of the film through their comedic timing and the
emotional weight they bring to a character who, frankly, wasn’t given all that
much to do in either cut of Justice League that came before. Barry Allen
is kind of a goober – he admits that repeatedly throughout the film – and with
a story that demands two Barrys on-screen through much of it, this could have
been a real chore of a movie. But it isn’t. It’s kind of a blast, and it’s a lot more fun than I thought it would be.
But what’s it about, anyway?
The Flash revolves
around Barry learning he can use his speedster abilities to travel through
time. Barry, obsessed with clearing his father’s name for the murder of his
mother years earlier, comes to a powerful realization: What if that murder
never even happened? After manipulating one small moment in the past – and
encountering a mysterious and violent creature between timelines that sends him
off-course – Barry finds himself in an alternate universe one decade earlier. In
this world, Barry has yet to gain his powers, Superman doesn’t exist, and
Batman has retired. So, when General Zod shows up with a Kryptonian army (as he
did in 2011’s
Man of Steel), it’s up to Barry to team up with his
younger self, an elder Dark Knight and a Kryptonian who is
not Kal-El to
stop Zod and, ultimately, keep reality from imploding on itself.
There’s a lot of action in this film that’s thrilling to
watch despite some surprisingly janky CGI, including a sequence involving multiple
computer-animated babies that was almost uncomfortable to watch. There were
also some slow-motion running sequences that elicited laughter from the
audience I was with (I might have joined them), which is probably not the
intended reaction for a film about a character who, well, runs.
Despite its flaws, the fun I had with The Flash was
undeniable, as was the Joker-esque smile plastered across my face whenever
Keaton was on-screen. To paraphrase Bruce Wayne himself, I wanted The Flash
to get nuts. And it got nuts.
