Is anyone else getting superhero movie fatigue? I really do find it difficult to get interested in this genre now. One or two examples aside, these flicks are starting to become very samey. If, like me, you are suffering from superhero movie fatigue, I don’t think The Flash will do a great deal to reinvigorate your passion.

Don’t worry, I won’t be doing spoilers here, outside of a few minor things that are already known about or seen in the trailers. Anyway, The Flash sees the return of Ben Affleck’s Batman. Not a spoiler, he’s in the trailer. This instantly put a smile on my face because I genuinely liked Affleck as Batman. However, he’s not in the film for long and as soon as the opening action sequence is done, so is this Batman.

The main plot of this has Ezra Miller’s (not touching what’s going on in his personal life, that’s a very different article) Barry Allen/The Flash discovering that he can run so fast that he can time travel. So, he sets about going back and stopping his mother from being murdered. Oh, his father was also (wrongly) convicted of said murder and Barry hopes to set that right too, via a tin of tomato sauce.

However, his plan goes awry and Barry finds himself in an alternate timeline (one where the film Back to the Future did star Eric Stolz and other bigger changes). His mum is still alive, his father is not in prison…oh and Michael Shannon’s General Zod has arrived on Earth to cause all sorts of problems. Adding to the fact that there is no Superman in this timeline to help out (well, there was but that’s getting into spoilers), this means that The Flash needs to do a lot of clearing up. Then, when ‘our’ Barry meets his younger self from this alternate timeline, things begin to really unravel.

There may be no Superman in this timeline, but there is a Batman. Enter the best part of the film, Michael Keaton is back! Playing a much older version of Bruce Wayne, he’s now a recluse living alone in his Wayne Manor and Bruce hasn’t donned the Batsuit for a long time. Still, he has kept himself in shape and the first time we do meet older Bruce, he’s looking rough but can still kick some bum-cheeks when needed.

After some persuading, the two Barrys convince Bruce to help them out tracking down ‘someone’ to help out with the whole General Zod thing. Bruce finally gets back into  the Batsuit as he and the two Barrys find ‘someone’ in a very remote Russian installation. That ‘someone’ is Sasha Calle’s Kara Zor-El/Supergirl. They all team up, two The Flashes, one old Batman and a Supergirl, all go out and punch General Zod, and his minions, in the face in an orgy of very questionable CGI work. ‘Our’ Barry learns that messing around with the timeline is a bad thing and sets about putting everything back the way it was, to then return to his original timeline, where his mum is still dead. The end.

First, the good. Having both Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton back is an absolute joy. Affleck’s Batman may only be in the opening few minutes or so, but it is still one of the best bits of the whole film. The absolute best bit of the film? Yup, it’s Keaton. He does play a bigger role in the film too, bigger than I was expecting. We get to see a down-and-out Bruce Wayne, who really does not care anymore, become Batman… THE Batman. He gets involved in a load of action as that Danny Elfman score plays in the background. We see a selection of Batgadgets and Keaton gets involved in pretty much everything from his entrance until the end of the film. Honesty, when he’s on screen, Keaton steals the whole show.

Unfortunately, everything else is just a bit ‘meh’. The interactions between the two Barrys (both Ezra Miller) are terrible and it often feels like we are watching bickering school kids. Sasha Calle’s Supergirl is just about passable but woefully boring, she’s no Henry Cavill. I think that she could’ve done with more time to build her character, instead of just being thrown in here at the last minute.  The only other saving grace is Michael Shannon as General Zod, he’s still as awesome as he was in Man of Steel.

The story is pretty dull and very predictable. The handling of the multiverse is not as well done here as with other films and overall, you get a very mediocre film which is neither terrible, nor is it all that great. There is a bit too much fan service, particularly near the end with a scene that is cameo-central. Some of these cameos are getting a lot of backlash too. If you want to avoid spoilers, don’t go looking on the Internet because these cameos are being brought up by every single entertainment news outlet right now.

For me, I don’t really understand the backlash that they are getting, or that should read the kind of backlash that they are getting. My only issue with this particular scene was that it really served as nothing more than blatant fan service. You could cut the whole thing out and the plot would not alter in any way at all. It’s all just a bit too ‘memberberries’.

Overall, The Flash is a very strange film. Many times, it feels rushed and we don’t get much of a chance to get to know the characters. Unless you already know of the whole Michael Keaton Batman thing, you’d be lost here because he’s really not explained all that well. We really don’t get to know Supergirl much and even the awesome General Zod feels shoehorned in. The younger/alternate version of Barry Allen is fucking atrocious and really annoying. It got to a point where I wanted my superpower to be one where I could punch fictional characters in the face. ‘Our’ version of Barry is easier to watch, just about.

Yet, as rushed as The Flash feels with its characters, it really drags in places too. The story just plods along and all the talk about spaghetti and tomato sauce begins to get tiresome. This is a 2.4 hours film that really needed about 1 hour cut from it. There’s just too much fat, too much filler, too much blatant fan service and not enough editing. Worth watching for Michael Keaton? Yes. Worth sitting there for an hour until you do get to see Michael Keaton? No.