The Flash
*Spoiler Alert: This is going to be heavy into spoilers, so tread carefully if you have not seen the movie yet.
**Pronoun Disclaimer: While Ezra Miller goes by they/them/their, it is implied that Barry Allen is he/him, so when you see me discussing the character, that is why he/him is being used.
At this point in time, I’m as disengaged by the idea of any of the Snyderverse actors continuing playing their characters as I have ever been. I do want to see the “Aquaman” sequel whenever that comes out, because that’s probably the movie from this era of DC that I enjoyed the most, but like a lot of people, I’m prepared to turn over a new leaf with DC’s biggest characters. Zack Snyder’s 2021 edit of “Justice League” felt like the bow on his take on these characters, so “The Flash” and “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” feel like encores at the end of a concert, fan service that will hopefully leave people satisfied as they walk to their vehicles. Taken as an individual film, I enjoyed moments in “The Flash,” but as a whole, Andy Muschietti’s film feels like a film trying to run in place, with ultimately no where to go.
It’s been jarring to see a lot of people almost ignore the horrible legal issues- strangling, various arrests in Hawaii, allegations of grooming minors- Ezra Miller has been involved with off-screen in their early reviews. Ultimately, that should not color a person’s feelings on the film, though, except if there are moments that feel tone-deaf when we start to think about it in the context of those issues. For me, there is one such moment near the very beginning, as we see how Barry Allen (Miller) is utilized as clean up by Batman (Ben Affleck) as he tries to apprehend criminals in Gotham. For the most part, the sequence gives a good showcase for Miller as Allen, showing us how his powers reflect how any of our bodies react when we find ourselves not taking in enough nourishment. But at the end of his big sequence, there’s an intended “joke” Barry delivers to someone he’s just saved that- given Miller’s real-world issues- just had me cringing. Since so much of Warner Bros. Discovery’s marketing strategy has been to limit our thinking of Miller’s issues by focusing on the return of Michael Keaton as Batman, having that at the start of the film seems like a real disconnect, and didn’t help me stop thinking about Miller’s legal troubles for the remaining two-plus hours.
“The Flash” is a film of peaks and valleys for me. When the film focuses on Barry and how he tries to help his father (Ron Livingston) get released after he was falsely convicted of killing Barry’s mother, and then, thinks he can use his powers to go back in time to change it, the film allows Miller some wonderful moments that remind us of the tremendous work they did in “We Need to Talk About Kevin” and “Perks of Being a Wallflower.” That being said, when Allen does go back in time, change things, and finds that he’s drastically altered his own timeline, there are a lot of lulls in the film’s momentum, sometimes too many, depending on how the prospect of multiple Barry Allens on-screen sounds to you. (And while there’s a joke regarding another time-travel movie that is golden, Barry 2.0’s friends are quite obnoxious.) When Zod (Michael Shannon) appears, original Barry hopes to enlist the Justice League. But those heroes don’t exist in the exact way they do in his timeline, so when he searches out Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent, he’s left wondering about Clark, and finds a reclusive, older Bruce (Keaton), who long ago left behind the cowl.
The return of Keaton to the cowl has been the main selling point of “The Flash.” For many in my generation, he was our first exposure to the Caped Crusader, and has long been probably our favorite Batman. Having Keaton back is definitely more a calculated move by WBD to get people in the theatres for “The Flash,” but I was pleasantly surprised by how well it fit into the narrative. This is DC’s introduction to their own multiverse, and having it described by Keaton’s Bruce Wayne was a definite treat. While I was less enamored with his time behind the cowl- because it’s easy to see it’s very much NOT Keaton during some of the set pieces- I love the moments Keaton is allowed to show us his aging Wayne, and the wisdom and intelligence he has built up over the decades, especially when it comes to the death of his parents, and how that came to define his choices. It’s something Barry 1.0, in the moment, needs to understand, as it was his inability to reconcile how that changed him that led him down this rabbit hole to begin with.
“The Flash” is also our big introduction to a modern cinematic version of Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl. Played by Sasha Calle, she was sent to watch over Clark Kent, and protect him, but in this reality, Clark never made it to Earth. (We find out why later.) It’s a smart choice, and Calle makes her an imposing character, and a welcome addition to this timeline’s not-quite Justice League. This feels like a collection of misfits whom- for various reasons- are out of step with what their purposes were supposed to be. Seeing them come together made for an entertaining start to Act 3, but given our understanding of this film’s universe, a lot of tension is drained because we know this is only a single reality that exists, and so, the stakes do not feel as elevated as they should be. The biggest stakes in the film are whether Barry is able to learn the why with regards to certain things happen, and not get stuck in a situation where he continues to try and change things forever. When he gets to that point, it allows for one of the best moments in the film, but it feels like the movie took the long way around to get there.
I’ve been mostly positive in my review of “The Flash,” but truth be told, I cannot get excited about the film as a whole. Like many of the Snyderverse-era DC films, “The Flash” has a flat visual palette that doesn’t really allow the colors to pop, and if I’m being honest, Benjamin Wallfisch’s score is unmemorable, save for when it ramps up Danny Elfman’s iconic Batman theme. The film uses Barry’s speed as a thematic device about how he should slow down in life, rather than always be moving, but for a movie about massive end-of-the-world concerns it doesn’t have a lot of urgency to solve them, at times. As for the cameos, some are very effective, but others fall flat, not only for the cynicism they are presented with but how obviously artificial they look. There are times when “The Flash” feels like a real story, and I really liked it then, but at its worst, it feels like the sort of fan service vehicle some people want out of these multiverse films from DC and Marvel. As we get set for the latest reboot of DC, I’ll simply say this- the best fan service is a story well-told, not calculated to indulge nostalgia. “The Flash” has flashes of that, but not enough to excite me for more.
