If it’s not one multiverse, it’s another.
Coming hot on the superhero heels of the mind-blowingly multidimensional animated work of art that is “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “The Flash” is an almost-as-excellent universe-hopping live-action extravaganza.
Almost always moving at what feels like the speed of light (but, ironically, not in theaters until next week), this first feature film featuring the subatomically fast DC Comics hero is a zippy and entertaining blast. And yet it nonetheless manages to serve up a few heartfelt moments amid all its carefully choreographed chaos.
As trailers have made very clear, among the familiar faces showing up in “The Flash” is Michael Keaton, who played the Dark Knight in Tim Burton’s 1989 megahit “Batman” and its 1992 sequel, “Batman Returns.”
You wanna get nuts? This movie will GET NUTS.
And while we get a lot of Keaton — initially as wealthy industrialist Bruce Wayne, retired from caped crusading and living alone in his mansion in a now-much-safer Gotham City — “The Flash” benefits from a super-fun performance from Ezra Miller.
For our purposes, we’ll set aside the controversial “Perks of Being a Wallflower” actor’s well-publicized issues, even as concerns have persisted that their involvement will hurt the movie at the box office. What matters here and now is that Miller, just as they have been in a couple of previous entries in Warner Bros. Pictures’ DC Extended Universe, is consistently engaging and regularly comical as the titular hero and his socially awkward alter ego, Barry Allen.
As the story begins, Barry stops on his way to work at a regular haunt, a coffee shop where he orders a high-calorie breakfast to satisfy his supercharged metabolism. However, he’s called to Gotham City by Alfred Pennyworth (Jeremy Irons), the butler of his universe’s Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck), to help clean up what Barry sees as just the latest “Bat-mess.” (He says he’s accepted that he’s basically the janitor of the Justice League, but that doesn’t mean he likes it.)
Soon, the Flash quickly and cleverly saves a bunch of babies falling through the air from a collapsing hospital wing and Batman stops the bad guys — with a little help from a mutual friend.
Barry’s late for work as a police forensic investigator for Central City, frustrating his boss, but what else is new?
Mainly, he’s focused on the legal proceedings of his father, Henry (Ron Livingston, “The Conjuring”), who is still trying to clear himself in the murder of his wife and Barry’s mother, Nora (Maribel Verdu, “Y tu mama tambien”).
When Barry realizes he can use his power to travel through time and potentially alter the past, Bruce tries to talk himself out of it, noting the murder of his own parents turned him into the hero he is.
Barry doesn’t listen, of course, and — after being knocked off course a bit — finds himself at his childhood home shortly before the incident that gave him his powers. He encounters his parents, who believe him to be their college freshman son home for dinner (and with a haircut) — and then his younger (and longer-haired) self.
The junior Barry is stoked to learn he may soon gain this molecular magic, while the senior Barry wants his help in setting things right — without telling him everything he knows. (Miller is so good acting opposite themselves — and the effects so convincing at this point — that you forget you aren’t actually watching two virtually identical actors share the same physical space.)
The Barrys soon have a bigger problem: General Zod (Michael Shannon, “Bullet Train”) — a powerful Kryptonian first seen in this universe in 2013’s “Man of Steel” — arrives on Earth with planet-altering ambitions.
Ultimately seeking the help of the missing-in-action Superman, the Barrys first go in search of Batman, the older Barry not expecting the version who resides in this Gotham City.
After they encounter Keaton’s Bruce, he gives them (and, by extension, us) the requisite lesson in how time travel can create branches in reality and thus how the older Barry has royally screwed things up. (Bruce uses a plate of spaghetti to illustrate his point. It’s very effective.) But as important as all of that is, “The Flash” never bogs down in multiverse mumbo jumbo.
The movie is terrifically directed by Andy Muschietti, working from a screenplay by Christina Hodson (“Birds of Prey,” “Bumblebee”), with the story by the tandem of John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (“Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) and Joby Harold (“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts”).
The tale draws from two comic book storylines, 1961’s “Flash of Two Worlds” and 2011’s “Flashpoint.” Culminating in a big battle also involving Supergirl (Sasha Calle, “The Young and the Restless”), the ordeal is meant to teach at least one of the Barrys a lesson about sacrifice.
Muschietti’s direction here is especially impressive given his background is in horror, the Argentine filmmaker having helmed 2013’s “Mama,” 2017’s “It” and 2019’s “It Chapter Two.” Unlike a scary movie concerned with slowly building tension, “The Flash” is a masterclass in perpetual motion, the affair going and going without ever running off the rails.
Warner Bros. has held the final few minutes out of earlier advanced screenings, so we won’t spoil any of the late-game fun. But rest assured there is some.
Know that James Gunn (“Guardians of the Galaxy”), the new co-CEO of DC Studios, has said “The Flash” “resets the entire DC Universe,” so changes certainly lie ahead. (As should be the standard operating procedure for a superhero movie by this point if you’re into this stuff, you’ll want to sit through the end credits.)
Universe reshaping aside, given just how enjoyable this first “Flash” flick is, we’d certainly welcome a second.
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‘THE FLASH’
3.5 stars (out of 4)
MPA rating: PG-13 (for sequences of violence and action, some strong language and partial nudity)
Running time: 2:24
How to watch: In theaters June 16
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