The Flash Review!

 Alright! Today I'm reviewing The Flash, DC's latest film and the 13th film in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) that sees Barry Allen go back in time to save his mom, causing a butterfly effect that lands him in an alternate 2013 where he must now train a college freshman version of himself, regain his speedster abilities, and unite a Justice League consisting of Michael Keaton's Batman and Supergirl to stop General Zod before he can terraform the Earth. 

Now, let it be known that the pressure was building for The Flash long before anyone saw the movie - after five financial flops and a string of critical disappointments, the DCEU could really use a smash hit right now, a high note to end on before James Gunn and Peter Safran reboot in 2025 for Superman: Legacy. It stars DC's fourth most well-known superhero, has been in development hell since the 80s, and also adapts Flashpoint, one of DC's most famous comic runs. The lead actor has committed numerous crimes in the past three years. The whole project seemed doomed from the start and the trailers seemed to confirm the worst, but after early test screenings and Tom Cruise recommendations, a glimmer of hope was allowed. Was DC finally going to make up for years of lackluster movies and scattershot direction? 

Ha, no. The Flash is, and I am deeply saddened to say this, not the slam dunk we were hoping for. In fact, it's not even the best DC movie of the year. In fact, this is pretty much the worst-case scenario. It's a movie full of messy CGI, lackluster payoffs, choppy action, overreliance on fan service, and overall extremely unimpressive. It sidelines the main character for a Batman & Supergirl: World's Finest movie, sidelines Supergirl for a lame Flash movie, and runs for entirely too long at two hours and twenty-four minutes. The best that can be said about it is that it's a complex mess rather than a boring mess like Shazam! earlier this year. 

Even worse is that the movie's core idea is actually a pretty cool one - the Flashpoint, about an alternate timeline that Barry himself creates by trying to undo his superhero trauma and preventing his mother's murder - is an emotionally packed concept that should make for an easy hook and emotional core. Additionally, trapping Barry in the past with a younger version of himself who just got his powers is a fun twist on the origin story and mentor dynamic, making for a few legitimately fun moments where the movie felt like a Flash movie. The perils of friction, quick and silly hijinks, and fun Back to the Future-esque dialogues about how time travel works all felt very appropriate in a movie called "The Flash." 

The problems begin once it sidelines all those things to introduce Michael Keaton's Batman - wait, no, that's a lie. The problems begin right from the get-go. The movie starts with a big opening sequence where the Justice League (Absent Henry Cavill and Ray Fisher, because WB hates them) stop a robbery by Al Falcone's terrorist group, Falcone famously being a Batman villain, and all of the crooks being generic men with big trucks and guns. Would it be too much to ask for a big and bombastic opening with actual Flash villains like Mirror Master, Captain Cold, or Gorilla Grodd? Why must it be generic men and guns? The opening scene displays two key faults of the movie - one being the dodgy CGI and the other being that, even though the movie is called "The Flash," the true heart of the movie lies in the Caped Crusader of Gotham City. 

The problems are further escalated by Barry's dynamic with his family, where a rather lackluster flashback shows Barry's mom (A Hispanic woman, who, along with an Iowan father, created a Jewish child?) being murdered and his father framed for it... or maybe just falsely accused? The movie is never really clear on if it was a malicious force of evil or if it was just a home robbery gone wrong. and honestly, why should we expect the movie to answer this question? This obviously isn't a place to talk about Barry's character motivations or clearly define his fatal character flaws, this is just filler until Batman arrives. 

Oh ho ho, and Batman most surely does arrive. After realizing they need to stop Zod, Barry and his younger self set out to find the only person in the world smart enough to find Superman - the one and only Batman, But the catch! It's not Barry's Bruce Wayne - no no, this is an alternate Bruce Wayne. Michael Keaton's Batman, specifically, from 1989's Batman and 1992's Batman Returns, and, in typical "legacy character comes back" fashion, he is over it. His hair is long and grey, he gave up on his lifelong dream, and he's just done with the hero life until the plucky young upstarts pull him back into the game. 

Even more frustrating is that those traits stem from a genuinely interesting idea - Gotham is safe. It no longer needs a Batman. However, in the visual form known as film, do we ever see the fully realized Gotham City? No, just more exposition. "Gotham is safe" is said, and Batman is now retired. Luckily the movie doesn't care to even try to treat this as a mildly serious issue, he shaves and jumps into the Batsuit at the first opportunity. Off to find Superman!

However, like the Flashpoint comic, Superman never made it to Kansas. In a sick twist, Superman never even made it to Earth - his cousin, Kara Zor-El, was the one who landed here, and she was captured and put into a Siberian prison. Now, we see two very interesting departures from the comic here - one is that they were evidently very hesitant to make the badguys in this scene the proud boys of the U.S. Army as they were in the comic, and two is that Metropolis's destruction via Kryptonian baby pod never happened here (Why? If you're already dropping that much exposition, why not at least reference the comic your entire movie is being based on?)

But now that the gang is all here, it's time to stop General Zod, whose powerful and well acted character from Man of Steel is more or less reduced to a "CGI villain who is mean to heroes" - and that's coming from someone who doesn't particularly like Man of Steel. All the action figures are on the floor now, and it's time for pew pew and boom boom and lasers and explosions and the like, maybe a bit of running in there too, and all smothered in layer upon layer of the tan and orange CGI DC has been weirdly fond of lately.

Eventually, the fight with Zod ends, and Barry has to say goodbye to his younger self, fight an evil alternate version of himself, and, after coming to terms with his mother's death, one final run is able to reset the timeline. Throw in a minute's worth of odd cameos and the movie ultimately ends with Barry learning that the past can't be changed and that the future is what we make of it... that is, except that he altered the past once again. Disregarding the entire point of the original comic, the animated movie adaptation of the comic, and the TV show's adaptation of the comic, The Flash makes the bizarre decision to resolve his father's false imprisonment through the use of more time travel and past altering rather than Barry's own forensics skills (An aspect of the character wholly forgotten by the movie). 

Now, the movie had some bright spots - Sasha Calle's Supergirl was utterly fantastic and I really hope Gunn and co. keep her for the upcoming Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow movie. She's sensitive, tough, and just mean enough to give the character edge while also being vulnerable enough to be flawed. Unfortunately, she probably has about five minutes of screen time, and most of them are CGI nonsense in the finale. I also have to commend Michael Keaton's performance as Batman. Not really because I particularly loved him in the movie or because he's *the* Batman, but rather because it would have been really easy for him to completely upstage the movie if he wanted. A level of restraint was shown that I find extremely commendable. 

I also found the CGI and editing for the two Barrys absolutely fantastic. It's hard to believe they're not two completely different actors, the interactions between the two are perfectly timed and look great. When the movie focuses on that dynamic it shines brightest, even if Ezra Miller's actual take on Barry Allen is overall very grating and a far cry from the Barry Allen we know and love. No matter what they try, it's just an odd and awkward character that never feels like a superhero, especially one as buff as the obviously muscled and uncomfortable textured costume would have you believe. 

The music was overall very lackluster, the biggest highlights being the return of the Danny Elfman Batman theme, and everything else being a cheap replacement for the established character motifs (Except Wonder Woman, who, for the second time this year, got to enter like a hero with her theme blaring). The CGI was equally lackluster, looking at times disgustingly bad to overly orange (Why is his lightning orange now, anyways?). I'm honestly not sure how a movie that cost $220 million and was delayed specifically to improve the visual effects ended up looking like this. The suit looks weird, the flying looks weird, the running looks awful, the deepfakes look weird, the action never has character-driven motivation behind it, fight scenes feel oddly animated to avoid an R-Rating, and the entire finale felt like an awful fever dream. I do give all the praise for the transition from cutscene graphics to in-game graphics, however. 

I also have to make the natural comparison to the comics - Flashpoint is far from a perfect comic, but it has cool ideas in it, such as Bruce Wayne dying in the alley and his dad becoming Batman instead. The Flash takes out everything cool from the comic and replaces it with Batman Returns Forever. Shoot, they took one of DC's best and most charismatic villains, Reverse Flash, who is an actual Flash villain by the way, and replaced him with a Superman villain and an unbelievably predictable OC who goes down like a bag of rocks. They had all the pieces right there for an amazing Flashpoint movie! It doesn't have to be a 1:1 adaptation, but who wouldn't want to see Themyscira go to war with Atlantis? And with a budget of $220 million, you might as well go as big as you can! The only thing the comic has that the DCEU doesn't is Element Woman! 

Additionally, and especially with its conclusion last month, the CW's The Flash television show really set the bar high for how the character can be handled. Even if the show fell off after the third season, the first season remains some of the best comic book storytelling that everyone, not just comic book fans, was able to enjoy. Nora Allen's death in the television show feels genuinely terrifying, the impact it has on Barry is abundantly clear, and the overall payoff is CW-level tearjerking. In the movie, it just kind of... happens. There is not a single thing that The Flash movie did that was better than what the CW was able to pull off (aside from actually being able to use Batman). It's a testament to the writing and acting over the budget and big finales - especially when the budget isn't even making the movie look good. 

Overall, The Flash is just another in a long line of disappointing DC movies. And before the defenses come in, yes, I will admit - Unrealistic expectations much? I had wanted a Flash movie since I was four and watching Justice League Unlimited. He's one of my favorite characters and I'm well-versed in a ton of Flash media. But that doesn't mean the negativity is caused by unrealistic expectations or sharpened because of its failure to match said expectations. I'm happy to be proven wrong - I didn't think Across the Spider-Verse could surpass its predecessor, but it did. I didn't think Dungeons & Dragons would be good, but it was. If The Flash was better the review would be more positive. Unfortunately, the movie just can't hold it together, and all of its best aspects seem to happen by accident or are squashed by the ever-looming presence of Batman. It's a slap in the face to anyone who has ever liked The Flash, full of non-Flash-related characters and weird running, and a script that can't even beat the bar set by a CW show. 

Sasha Calle aside, The Flash is an absolute mess. The Flash barely feels like the Flash, the movie gets hijacked by Batman, the visual effects are all unimpressive or downright bad, it doesn't do anything new with the genre or the character, the character arcs are all nonexistent, it's unbelievably long, and it seems so disinterested in being a Flash movie I wonder why they bothered making it at all. If you want Flash content, my suggestion is that you rewatch the first season of the television show or the "Flash and Substance" episode of Justice League Unlimited. This isn't the movie you're looking for. 

Across the Spider-Verse is still playing in theaters. That's all I'm gonna say. 

Overall, I give The Flash a 5/10. "Flashpointless."

This is DC's Morbius

-Spoiler Warning - 

Alright, you've been warned. While there's not anything absolutely shocking plot-wise in the movie, there are a few cameos in the film that I felt like I had to discuss in greater detail (eg rant), and thus here we are. For a bit of context, towards the end of the movie we have about a minute of cameos as the multiverse begins to break apart - those who are seen include Christopher Reeve as Superman, Helen Slater as Supergirl, Adam West as Batman, George Reeves as Superman, Nicolas Cage as Superman, George Clooney as Batman, and a CGI Jay Garrick Flash. It's... an interesting mix, to say the least, but I think it speaks volumes to the overall thought process behind the movie: Superman? Cool. Batman? Really cool. The Flash? Who's that? 

The director, Andy Muschietti, confirmed that he had free reign over the cameos and that nothing was off the table. With that knowledge, and the confirmation that cut cameos included Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman, Marlon Brando's Jor-El, Burgess Meredith's Penguin, and Cesar Romero's Joker, everything more or less is perfectly placed for one of the most frustrating moments in movie history. Given the nature of the scene, literally anyone could have shown up in the film. They're not related to the plot, last less than a minute, and they exist solely as fun easter eggs. So why take offense? 

Well, it's just weird. While Hollywood's CGI necromancy has always been a weird line, at least in the past it made canonical sense. Tarkin and Leia showing up in Rogue One? Checks out. Egon Spengler showing up as a ghost in Ghostbusters? Yeah, that makes sense. But deepfaking and A.I.-ing Christopher Reeve into a Flash movie? And not even doing it well? (I saw the leak on Twitter and assumed it was the phone quality. No, it just looks that bad). It's weird in every single way, but it's downright insulting considering that Brandon Routh, who is very much alive and happy to play Superman, is canonically the same Superman. Like, the recast is literally right there and they went with an unholy CGI slog of Superman and Batman cameos. If I wanted to see Christopher Reeve in a boring time travel movie, I would have watched Somewhere In Time, and if WB wanted Reeve so badly, they should have gone the extra mile and found his ashes. 

All of DC's vast and expansive history, spanning hundreds of movies, comics, television shows, and animations, and they went with dead actors from the 60s and 70s. It's even worse when you consider that Grant Gustin and John Wesley Shipp weren't in the movie at all! They didn't even have to be their Flashes, it could have just been a hot dog-eating cameo! At that rate, Ant-Man did a better job respecting the history of the hero by having Garrett Morris show up (Garrett Morris was the first guy to play Ant-Man, and it was during an SNL sketch)!

The only cameo that was remotely well done was Nicolas Cage as Superman, which worked since it was 1) likely the only time we'll ever see him as that character, and 2) is a deep-cut reference and not just easy nostalgia bait. Back in the 90s, Kevin Smith and Tim Burton worked on a movie called Superman Lives, and Cage was cast as the title character. However, Superman Lives was eventually canceled in favor of Superman Returns, so we never really got to see the Cageman take on the man of steel. It was a well-done cameo, aside from the odd CGI backgrounds. 

It gets to a point where, once again, the Arrowverse absolutely mopped the floor with the competition. During their Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline, they not only got Brandon Routh back as Superman, but they actually acknowledged DC products released after '84. We had Tom Welling's Superman, Tom Ellis's Lucifer, Kevin Conroy as Batman, and, in a fun twist, Ezra Miller's own Barry Allen... who LITERALLY gets the name "The Flash" from this cameo. It's almost insane that they tried to pull off a celebration of DC while simultaneously ignoring most of DC to the point where Titans did it better. And that's Titans for crying out loud. Shoot, they couldn't even be bothered to reference Krypto like the Flashpoint comic did. Just the banalest possible references... if Multiverse of Madness did cameos better, you have a problem.

Also, about Clooney showing up as the new DCEU Batman... what was that about? This movie retcons Batman Forever and Batman & Robin out of existence anyways, and I really doubt he sticks around to train Damian in The Brave and the Bold. And apparently, there were three alternate endings, two of which gave us more Supergirl footage and Keaton in the purple Batman Beyond suit, and one of which gave us more of Henry Cavill's Superman. Just missed opportunities all around. For a movie that was supposed to clear up DC's messy continuity, it just made things so, so, so much worse.