Michael Keaton’s Batman in The Flash is what cameos should be

You can see pop culture eating itself if you go to the movie The FlashIt starts as a fun superhero movie, and then turns into an elegy to the DC Universe. It’s saturated with winking cameos for every DC movie character you ever loved, a few you’re probably ambivalent about, and one that famously never existed. DC seems to be celebrating its mistakes now.

Most of these cameos appear during an unnecessarily triumphant climactic display of digital waxworks. The FlashWhat is this bit? Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness with Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, John Krasinski’s Reed Richards, and the rest — only it’s the entire movie.

Irony, irony! The Flash’s biggest nostalgia ploy ends up being its saving grace. Michael Keaton’s return to the role of Batman, which he played in Tim Burton’s two iconic Batman films from 1989 and 1992, is pivotal to the movie (and clearly pivotal to its marketing). Andy Muschietti, Keaton’s director and team are desperate to please. They surround him with props that he used in films more than thirty years ago. Look, there’s the classic Batmobile!Keaton’s legacy is not enough to make him fall for this trick. He has too much wit and durability to do so. Instead, he gives us the best cinematic Batman we’ve had since Christian Bale.

DC Studios/Warner Bros.

The key to Keaton’s success is that he’s not really playing the Burton Batman at all. Sure, he’s got the gear, and he dutifully grunts the line: “I’m Batman.” But Keaton, acknowledging that he’s now in a very different kind of movie, adapts his performance to suit. He wittily retorts and broods more. He’s a little looser, a little livelier. Keaton, who is usually a funny movie, is playing his part in the present. He bats Ezra Miller’s antics back at them with his whipcrack comic backhand. Keaton’s livewire is still going strong at 71. Alerts — perhaps the quality that led Burton to counterintuitively cast this diminutive comedian as a looming, stoic embodiment of vengeance — is undimmed.

It’s the script that helps him. Like everyone else, from Ben Affleck to Gal Gadot, Keaton is ultimately required to walk up to the mark, make the face, say the line, and pause for the applause break — but not straight away. Keaton is first seen hiding behind an unruly beard and hair, with multiple scenes that include banter and explanation. Before he poses, he gets to play a role, create it.

Once Keaton’s finally in the suit, though, there’s a wonderful lack of fussiness to his Batman. He emphasizes the character’s cunning and resourcefulness, making efficient, decisive movements. He’s as often seen scrambling to keep up as staying one step ahead. (There’s a brilliant bit of business involving a calculator, an explosive, and a Bat-tape-measure whipped from his utility belt.) This Batman is a very convincing actor in practical fight scenes, regardless of whether Keaton plays him or not. He’s tough, visibly aging, smartly defensive, not excessively violent. He isn’t vengeance; he’s an old man in a hurry.

DC Studios/Warner Bros.

The Flash borrows two things from Burton that really do work: the unforgettable motif of Danny Elfman’s score, and the classic Batsuit design by Bob Ringwood. The latter, with its sharp, pitch-black outline and leathery musculature, hasn’t been bettered on film. Batfleck’s cumbersome armor plating and furrowed, melted-candle cowl look absurdly overdesigned by comparison. What the classic suit loses in mobility, it gains in iconic silhouettes — Muschietti gets great mileage out of flourishing the bulletproof cape in particular.

Keaton, however, is the main element that makes this fresh and surprisingly understated take on Batman come alive. The requisite speeches are given about his suffering, but it is Keaton who makes this fresh, surprisingly unassuming take on Batman sing. Batman In the movie, I’m trying to avoid throwing a bomb at a box full of kittens. I’ve missed this Batman, even though we’ve never really seen him in the cinema before, not even in the Burton films.

I don’t think Keaton will come back to the DCU — he was set to appear in BatgirlWarner Bros. Discovery ultimately shelved — but I’d love it if some parts of this Batman did. Muschietti is confirmed to be directing the next Batman film. Brave and BoldPerhaps they will.