The Flash's Excellent Adventure, Movie Blog, New Digital Art and Photography

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prydefoltz7.8 K2 years agoPeakD4 min read

The Flash's Excellent Adventure

Minime and I have started making Tuesday movie day. The Cinplex theaters offer a discount and with our scene cards, we can both catch a flick for somewhere around sixteen Canadian dollars.

As homeschoolers, we set our own schedules. If minime had a focused and productive Monday and Tuesday morning and early afternoon, we head out to the theater when everyone else is in class or at work.

We are both colossal nerds and generally will catch a superhero movie or something about space, but in the very a least a blockbuster.

Last week was the Flash. I didn't have high hopes after reading some reviews that said some harsh things about Ezra Miller's performance, but I was super stoked to see Michael Keaton reprise the Batman role. I have always found Keaton's voice sublime and probably be happy enough to hear him read the directions on a shampoo bottle. I am getting giddy at the idea of him taking a another kick at the tombstone, as Beetlejuice, though the eponymous character sounds nothing like Keaton au natural.

I jokingly quipped to Minime that the Flash goes fast enough to enter the Marvel Multiverse. Yep ... time will be bent, past plot-lines twisted, and characters multiplied. So if you really don't like Ezra Miller, you are going to doubly dislike the Flash, because there art two performances to hate-on.

The Flash in our time line where his mother was murdered and his dad unfairly convicted for her murder is a morose, awkward misfit and Batman is Ben Affleck.

The Flash from the universe where his mother survived and family remained intact is a happy-go lucky Dude Flash, who suspiciously resembles Keanu Reeves' Ted, from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Batman is a dishevelled and aging Keaton. (The character and not the actor) Now that I think about it, Miller may well have made the choice to channel Keanu purposefully.

If you are waiting for me to hate on Miller and confirm the take of the critics, you will have to wait until we are transferred to yet another multiverse. I found Miller charming and compelling and myself commenting out-loud at the strength of the actor's performance. It was stylistic and not particularly realistic. Miller made large choices (Method speaking) and perhaps that is what has some underrating this turn at the Flash. But it was a stylistic movie and apropos IMHO.

I admired the way Miller took down the fourth wall and let the audience into the thought processes without actually offering asides. From where I was sitting ... at the very back of the theater ... Miller has the acting chops and loads of promise. There is a huge call to cancel the actor. Miller may indeed be a colossal clod, but he can definitely act. Hopefully recovery will be had and amends made, and we will get to see more of Miller on the screen.

If I have one complaint about the Flash, it is how little they gave Keaton to sink his substantial acting teeth into. He was definitely a secondary character and given very little backstory or motivation. Most of the time he was in the Batman costume, and the sprayed rubber muscles do tend to upstage.

Perhaps it is time to introduce minime to Batman ala Keaton, Basinger, and Nixon. Maybe this weekend, we will pop some corn and warm up with some Prince. Keaton is definitely my fave Batman? Who is yours?