Review: The Flash is not a terrible movie, but a forgettable movie

In the months leading up to the long-delayed theatrical release of The flash– the 13th and penultimate movie in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) – new DC co-head James Gunn said publicly that he thought it was one of the best superhero movies he’d ever seen. That and a series of fun, action-packed trailers helped counteract the negative press surrounding a series of controversies involving the film’s troubled star, Ezra Miller. Now the movie is out and our verdict is in. The flash is good. It’s basically your everyday entertaining superhero romp with plenty of action, humor and a solid emotional core, and Miller delivers a strong double performance,

But it’s not likely to crack many people’s top ten superhero movies. The movie is a bit too long and the quality of the special effects is uneven, especially in the rather messy climactic battle. The main problem is the lack of originality in a popular culture steeped in superhero movies – and all the accompanying tropes – to the point of saturation. Director Andy Muschetti has done a perfectly decent job at the helm, but there’s just nothing here that we haven’t seen many, many times before (and honestly done better to boot), and he never really puts his own stamp on that known tropics.

(Spoilers below, but no big reveals until the final part. We’ll let you know when we get there.)

The plot partially draws from the Flash point crossover storyline from the comic books, in which the Scarlet Speedster goes back in time to save his mother from being killed, altering the entire timeline. In that alternate world, a young Bruce Wayne is murdered instead of his parents. Thomas Wayne becomes Batman, Martha Wayne becomes The Joker, Wonder Woman and Aquaman are bitter enemies and Superman is a prisoner. Muschetti retained several of those elements while fleshing out his own take on the premise. The result is a cross between Back to the future and the multiverse antics of Spider-Man: No Way Home And About the Spider-Verse.

We open with Barry Allen (Miller) called in to help stop a robbery – or rather, to clean up the mess Batman made while chasing down those robbers, a mess that includes a collapsing high-rise hospital and the fate of several babies, a maternity home nurse and an emotional support dog. It’s an amusing sequence, punctuated by a cameo appearance from Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, but its sole purpose is to reveal Barry’s growing frustration at being the Justice League’s “janitor”.

His father’s final parole hearing is also coming up, and Barry has been unable to come up with new evidence to prove he is innocent of Barry’s mother’s murder. A visit to his childhood home evokes such strong emotions that Barry decides to run until they disappear – he runs so fast that he discovers he can go back in time. Although Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck) warns that going back in time to save his mother could destroy everything, Barry doesn’t listen. He travels to just before the murder and makes a small but significant change, ensuring her survival. But on his way back to the present, a black Speedster in the Speed ​​Force knocks him out and in an alternate timeline of 2013.

His mother is still alive in this timeline, and his younger teenage self is a college freshman with none of Barry’s emotional baggage from losing his mother. But it turns out he landed the day he was struck by lightning and gained his powers as The Flash – the same day General Zod (Michael Shannon, reprising his role from the 2013 film) Man of Steel) and his army invaded Earth to make it a new Krypton. There is also no Justice League in this timeline, though Barry makes sure Alt-Barry is in place to get his own accidental powers. They track down Bruce Wayne, except it’s not Affleck’s Wayne. It’s an older Wayne played by Michael Keaton (with several classic callbacks to the original Tim Burton Batman films starring Keaton). There is also no Superman; instead there is a Supergirl named Kara Zor-El (Sasha Calle). Of course, they team up to defeat Zod.

There’s a lot to like The flash, particularly the sly nerd humor. Case in point: There’s a scene in the alternate timeline where Barry discovers that Eric was playing Stoltz Back to the future, not Michael J. Fox. That’s a nice bit of Hollywood trivia, since Stoltz did indeed shoot several scenes for the film, but was ultimately deemed unsuitable for the part and was replaced by Fox. And it’s entertaining to watch Barry interact with his younger, more obnoxious alternate self and gain some perspective on how long-suffering the Justice League members have been toward him as he grew into his powers.

Keaton clearly enjoyed reinventing Bruce Wayne as an aging, long-haired hippie who long ago hung up his cape – and then returns to his superhero roots and busts out all of his old Bat gear in battle against Zod. And Sasha Calle is quite gripping as Kara/Supergirl, despite the limited screen time. But it’s Miller’s performance that anchors the movie, and they proved up to the task, especially in the more poignant moments when they needed to bring more emotional depth to the scenes.

I have mixed feelings about the many cameos, many of which were announced or leaked well before the movie’s release: Keaton, Gadot, Affleck, and Jeremy Irons briefly reprising his role as Alfred Pennyworth in Barry’s original timeline. On the one hand, fans are familiar with and love these characters, polarizing as the “Snyderverse” may be. There’s nothing wrong with a little fan service; to see Spider-Man: No Way Home for a masterclass on how to do it. But it doesn’t always work. In fact, the exchange with Wonder Woman, when her lasso of truth briefly causes Barry and Affleck’s Batman to blurt out embarrassing personal secrets, was cringe-worthy.

WARNING: Major spoilers past this point! Stop reading now if you haven’t seen the movie yet.

Speaking of blatant fan service, I also have mixed feelings (for much the same reasons) about the expanded Speed ​​Force sequence in the final act where various incarnations of Batman, Superman, and The Flash appear in their own universes – which begin to clash with each other. We see Christopher Reeve’s Superman (my personal favorite) as well as George Reeves’ 1950s version, thanks to archive footage, as well as Helen Slater’s incarnation of 1980s Supergirl, Adam West’s 1960s Batman, and Nicolas Cage as the emo Superman which could have been. It’s more of a gimmick than serving the story in any meaningful way.

As for Zod, he’s really just there as a plot point. I won’t spoil the real Big Bad because it’s honestly one of the more fun twists in the movie.

look, The flash is not a terrible movie, but a forgettable one. I have really enjoyed it. But there have been so many great time travel movies about the consequences of changing the past; The flash just can’t compare. Everything Everywhere Everything at once is deservedly the new gold standard for crazy multiverse movies, with About the Spider-Verse comes in a close second; The flash don’t get it at all either. But it’s still one of the stronger entries in the DCEU (with 2017’s Wonderwoman arguably at the top of that list), and perfectly good escapist fare.

The flash now playing in theaters. Warner Bros. hasn’t ruled out a sequel (with or without Miller), depending on box office reception. And the events of the movie have reset DCEU continuity, so I guess we’ll see what Gunn has in store for the rebooted DCU with 2025s Superman: Legacy.