The Flash – Review
Once upon a time there was a vision for a connected DC Universe on film. It began with Man of Steel and Batman v Superman. Then came the Justice League, a group of heroes banding together, with the plan that they would each get their solo movies.
Wonder Woman and Aquaman got their movies but the disappointing Justice League put the future of this vision at risk.
One of the most anticipated of these solo movies was the Flash, played by Ezra Miller. This movie was significantly delayed, both because of Ezra’s legal issues and uncertainty about what the DC Universe would look like.
We had long known that the plot of the Flash movie would be about Flash messing around with the timeline. If there were plans to change the DC Universe, Flash would be an ideal place for those changes to take place.
How did it work out? I want to say upfront that my comments are not based on Ezra Miller’s legal issues. What I will share are only my thoughts on the movie itself.
Having said that, I was never a big fan of Ezra Miller’s Flash. This is not a critique of Ezra’s acting but an observation that the character is portrayed much differently in the movies than in the comics. I understand that there has to be some differences but in the comics, Barry Allen is one of the most mature (emotionally and mentally) characters in the Justice League and in the movies, he is one of the least mature.
Not liking this version of Barry Allen is a problem because the Flash movie includes two versions of Barry Allen with the extra one being even more immature.
The basic plot of the movie is that Barry’s mother had been murdered when he was young and his father had been wrongly charged with the murder. Barry, experimenting with running fast enough to travel through time, is tempted to go and change history by preventing the murder.
Barry confesses his idea to Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) who warns him of the consequences. Barry does it anyway, in a way he hopes is less disruptive to the timeline, and tries to go back to his own timeline.
Unfortunately, Barry misses his own time by a couple of years and bumps into his eighteen year old self. To make matters worse, it is also the time when General Zod and his fellow Kryptonians had landed on Earth, as seen in the Man of Steel movie.
Barry can find no trace of the other Justice League members as his tampering has changed the timeline. What they really need is Superman to fight Zod. While they cannot find any trace of Superman, Barry does discover that Batman is around in this timeline.
The two Barrys go off to find Batman/Bruce Wayne and expect to encounter the Ben Affleck version but instead find the Michael Keaton version instead. Michael Keaton played Batman in the 1989 Batman movie and its sequel.
I will admit that this is one of the highlights of this movie for me. It was a lot of fun to get to see the Michael Keaton Batman again and I liked how they used him. While I am generally an Affleck Batman fan, in this particular movie, I enjoyed Keaton more than Affleck.
They go on a quest to find Superman but instead find Supergirl. This was the other highlight for me. I really liked this version of Supergirl and I hope they will consider her for the upcoming Supergirl project.
The two Flashes, Batman, and Supergirl then go off to fight Zod and the other Kryptonians. I won’t spoil how it all goes but it is not an easy fight and Barry learns some difficult lessons.
In the midst of all that, there is a glimpse of the multiverse. We get to see some cameos of versions of Superman and Batman actors from the past, plus one cancelled version of Superman that could have been. I thought not including the Grant Gustin Flash was a missed opportunity, especially since Ezra made a cameo on the Flash TV show with Grant. While I was looking forward to this cameo scene, I found it disappointing.
In fact, I found the entire movie to be disappointing. I saw the animated Flashpoint Paradox, the story that this movie was supposed to be based on and that animated movie was far superior.
While I appreciated the part where Barry wants to go back and stop his mother’s murder to be moving, how it was handled was just a mess. The few high points in the movie could not make up for the meandering plot that seem to stagger all around.
There were some great ideas but in watching the movie, I was left wondering, “What was the point of all that?”
Perhaps the point was to reboot the DC Universe. Maybe, but if it was, it created more problems than it solved. For example, the Batman we have at the end of the Flash movie (I won’t tell which one we get), is not the Batman we will get in James Gunn‘s Brave and the Bold movie that is a part of the new DC Universe. I suspect we won’t be getting the Ezra Miller Flash either.
I feel bad about DC in the movies. They have had flop after flop. I am hoping that this is the necessary step to a new and well built DC Universe that will be telling compelling stories.
