'The Flash' review: Superhero charmer crushed by its own bloat

First, the good: Ezra Miller turns in a career-best performance as the star of, and center of, "The Flash." Off-screen, the troubled actor is dealing with a litany of issues which we won't get into here, but on-screen Miller has a marvelous, daffy, self-effacing presence, combining the timing and reactions of a silent film star with the offbeat sensibility of an outsider who can't believe the world he's been thrust into. Miller outright carries the movie, and gives the star turn the actor has long promised to deliver.

Now, the bad: "The Flash" is overstuffed, a victim of trying to be way too many things to way too many people, and it crams so many unneeded outside distractions and huge stakes into its tiny frame that it is eventually crushed under its own weight. It's too bad, too, because for awhile, "The Flash" succeeds because its aim is narrow, its frame of reference small. But then it goes and tries to become everything everywhere all at once, and loses itself in the process.

Miller stars as Barry Allen, the speedy superhero known as the Flash, who is so fast he is able to slow down time, but needs a full stomach in order to do so. An opening scene makes his predicament clear: The Flash is called on to halt a bank robbery, save a hospital as it crumbles and literally catch babies as they rain down from the sky, but first he has to crash a vending machine and fuel up because superheroing is hard work and requires a lot of calories.

Miller — who has portrayed the Flash since 2016's "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" — plays the scenario perfectly, with a keen understanding of the comic nature of the scene and the world that director Andy Muschietti ("It" and its sequel) is building. And Miller has a physical relatability that's different from the superjacked Chris Hemsworths and Chris Evanses of the world, and seems more likely to be hanging out at an indie record store than saving the day. It's that unconventional approach which makes Miller so appealing in the role.

At home, Barry is haunted by the death of his mother Nora (Maribel Verdú), who was killed years ago by an intruder, and his father Henry (Ron Livingston) was wrongfully convicted of the murder. If only, somehow, that incident could be changed. Well it turns out that Barry is so lightning quick that he can travel through time — stay with me here — and if he could just alter the events of that day ever so slightly, he can fix his universe and everyone can live happily ever after. Easy, right?

Not easy. Barry's Justice League pal Batman (Ben Affleck) warns him against meddling with the past, and as any time traveling adventure from "Back to the Future" on forward will tell you, the slightest change in the past forever alters both the present and the future. He goes for it anyway, and Barry's small act to save his mother's life puts him back in a universe where everything — including even the casting of "Back to the Future" — is just a little bit... off.

He meets a doofy alternate version of himself, whom he has to teach the ropes of superherodom while keeping him from freaking out and losing his marbles. (Miller shines in the double role.) And he's introduced to multiverse politics through a visit to this new world's Batman, who is played by a blast from the past, former big screen Caped Crusader Michael Keaton.

The Keaton bit has long since been given away. 2021's "Spider-Man: No Way Home" broke the fourth wall by exploding the barriers between audience and the world characters inhabit on screen, and it brought together three generations of actors who portrayed Spider-Man and had them interact with one another, expressly for our pleasure as moviegoers. And it worked.

That opened up the floodgates and rewrote the rules of superhero storytelling — filmmakers and studios were suddenly free to acknowledge past actors who have played the same iconic characters over the years — and that paved the way for Keaton's return to the Bat role, since fanservice/ wish fulfillment is now the top priority of blockbuster filmmaking. Does it make sense, per se? Not necessarily to the characters or in the world on screen. But since it's pleasing to the audience, Keaton is back and he's helping out our hero. This is the multiverse we now occupy.

The film's timeline of events is explained quite handily using a bowl of spaghetti as an example, and that's when things start to get messy. Like studio notes dropping in from above, the film is utterly derailed by the arrival of General Zod (Michael Shannon), and in a flash, the fate of the world is now at stake. Cue the arrival of Supergirl (Sasha Calle) and a whole bunch of multiversal gobbledygook that ups the ante of the plot and shifts the film away from its sweet spot, which is its relatively small center of gravity. It quickly turns into such a blur of nonsense that its early charms are all but wiped away, and the film runs out of steam as it drags to the nearly two-and-a-half hour mark.

At its best, "The Flash" is a fizzy comic adventure, and it's fun so long as Barry and his quest to reunite his family is at its center. But as its priority becomes popping the Comic Con crowd, internal logic be damned, it blurs the line between audience and character until that line ceases to exist. "The Flash" wants big surprises and sacrifices story for the reactions those surprises will garner in the moment. Perhaps true to the character, the good time lasts only briefly and is gone before you know it, a trail of dust left in its path.

agraham@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @grahamorama

'The Flash'

GRADE: C+

Rated PG-13: for sequences of violence and action, some strong language and partial nudity

Running time: 144 minutes

In theaters