Michael Keaton’s Batman in The Flash transcends the usual crossover cameo

polygon.com:

If you want to watch pop culture eat itself, go see The Flash, a movie that starts out as a sprightly superhero adventure, then dissolves into a self-referential requiem for 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 is apparently celebrating its failures now.)

Many of these cameos occur during a staggeringly clunky climactic parade of digital waxworks, heavy with unearned triumphalism. The Flash is that bit in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madnesswith Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, John Krasinski’s Reed Richards, and the rest — only it’s the entire movie.

The irony is that 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). Desperate to please, director Andy Muschietti and his team surround Keaton with props from films he was in more than 30 years ago: Look, there’s the classic Batmobile! But Keaton is too wily and durable a movie star to fall into this trap, or to lean on his legacy. Instead, he gives us the best cinematic Batman we’ve had since Christian Bale.

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 broods less and quips more. He’s a little looser, a little livelier. Keaton is in the moment, playing the part as written in what is generally quite a comedic