Photo: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
As the Flash, the nonbinary actorEzra Millersuggests a more faun-like Jeff Goldblum — lithe and angular, talking fast and falteringly to cover insecurities, neurotic, a bit twerpy. In their tight-fitting red suit, they could be an Olympic skater perpetually worried that they’ve got gum on their blades. This is Miller’s fourth time in the role — technically, fourth and fifth, because they end up playing not one but two Flashes — and their first time shouldering the weight of an entire D.C. Justice League vehicle.They carry the whole thing easily, practically in the palm of their hand, as if it were the remote control to the Batcave’s garage door.
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
All he needs to do is make one tiny adjustment on the day of his mother’s killing. It amounts to nothing more than adding a can of tomatoes to a grocery cart at the supermarket.
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This proves to be a boner of an idea. The Flash gets stuck in the past with a younger, more eagerly juvenile version of himself (Miller handles this doubling cleverly, without overdoing it), while the mutation of events creates stranger and stranger complications, including a rather lumpily begrudging version of the Justice League. This introduces us to an older, weirder Bruce Wayne, one with matted gray hair and beard — it could be Howard Hughes or Bruce Dern, but it’s none other than Michael Keaton, who starred in Tim Burton’sBatman(1989) andBatman Returns(1992).
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Meanwhile, the Kryptonian villain General Zod (Michael Shannon), has returned to Earth, disembarking from his spaceship with the snarling fury of someone who had expected to fly first-class and wound up in coach. This means billions of people will probably die.
Well, a lot more than that happens, as Flash 1 and Flash 2 get carried away zipping back and forth through different realities with crazed slapstick energy, trying to repair the cosmic fallout from those damned tomatoes. In the process of expanding their multiverses, the film pulls off an ingenious reevaluation of all its predecessors and iterations — the Batmans, the Supermans. It almost feels like an exorcism of the whole Justice League franchise, which has always been too stubbornly proud of its heroes’ masochistic suffering. The Marvel films, on the other hand, are closer to quest narratives, usually pressing ahead, forgoing brooding — that’s probably why they’re more fun.
The Flash,though, is fabulous. And Miller is super.
The film opens in theaters June 16.
source: people.com
