“THE FLASH”
The Flash is the latest movie in the DC cinematic universe. It has been directed by horror director, Andy Muschietti, who has previously directed Stephen King’s IT and will be directing the upcoming Attack on Titan movie for Warner Brothers. Andy comes into this movie with two significant problems: 1. Its star has acted in an awful way during shooting leading to the major controversy surrounding the film prior to release, and 2. He also has to somehow wrap up the DC cinematic universe that Zack Snyder started.
In the last few years, it feels like Warner Brothers were just throwing anything at the wall and seeing what stuck, and even then they aren’t succeeding. Anything that was succeeding can’t keep hold of its stars or it didn’t really manage to keep the momentum going- a prime example of this was Wonder Woman 1984 which completely ruined any goodwill that the first film gave us.
As a result, the Flash movie was clearly rewritten halfway through to be an adaptation of the storyline ‘Flashpoint’, which has become rather annoyingly, one of the biggest and most well-known Flash-centred storylines (it turned into a big DC universe event comic but then ended up causing a massive reboot to the entire universe that wasn’t enjoyable for most and caused a massive downturn for the comic company and forced them to work on another reboot 5 years later… Those five years weren’t a good time to be a fan of DC comics). I say annoyingly because Flashpoint wasn’t a comic that I enjoyed, even the animated movie ‘The Flashpoint Paradox’ I don’t really like that much, mainly because it tried to tie in way too much of the event comic into one short animated movie and it did not manage to deliver in any way.
I will make some comparisons to the comic but you really don’t need to know that much. They changed quite a few events from the comics. However, it does share a similar plot with the comics.
Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) after learning that his father won’t be receiving parole, decides to travel back in time to stop his mother’s murder. Unfortunately, by doing so, he has wiped out all meta-humans from the earth- there are no more superheroes. Aqua-man doesn’t exist, there’s no sign of Wonder Woman or Superman, and we have a much older Batman this time, played by Michael Keaton (and yes he has the exact same suit and Batmobile as the 1989 movie). Barry reunites with another version of himself since he was forced out of the timeline before he could get back to his own present. There’s now a world-ending crisis. In the comic, this is a war between Atlantians and the Amazons after Wonder Woman kills Mira following an affair she has with Aquaman (can you tell why I didn’t like Flashpoint all that much?)… But in the movie’s case, the event of Man of Steel is happening and there are no superheroes to protect the planet.
The only character who is newly introduced in this film is Supergirl, played by Sasha Calle, and I think that she’s here because Henry Cavill isn’t available and/or is being recast soon, or he didn’t want to lose a bunch of weight to look like the Superman from Flashpoint. I’ll be honest, though, I think that this Supergirl is a good replacement.
As for Michael Keaton coming back as Batman, I kind of like it, especially because this sort of implies that both of the Tim Burton Batman films are canon in this timeline, but it’s also very clear that this is major nostalgia bait. It feels like the writers were mostly chuffed that they got Michael Keaton back, if that didn’t work out I think that they would have cast an older actor to play Thomas Wayne. I totally fell for the nostalgia bait. Maybe it’s some of the effects and lighting used, but Keaton really doesn’t look like he’s aged at all when he wears the suit. And yes, it is great to hear some more of Danny Elfman’s excellent score.
As for The Flash, I’d be lying if I said that Ezra Miller’s presence doesn’t make me feel squeamish about the fact that I paid money to go and see this film- but I’ll be honest, I don’t hate his version of Barry Allen, but I don’t like it that much either, I’m sort of in the middle. I think only he knows what he’s going for with the performance. They did give him a decent arc at the end, and the climactic battles are great, if there’s one thing that this film gets right it’s that the fight scenes are really good.
But as a whole, I don’t think that the movie hits the emotional core that it needs to hit. If there’s one thing that the film gets right, though, is that Zodd is way more toned down compared to Man of Steel. I was not a fan of Michael Shannon’s performance as Zodd in that movie at all, and I think he has improved since then.
This film has no reason to be two hours and forty-five minutes. It doesn’t even really set up the James Gunn cinematic universe very well, and apparently, that will be the vision going forwards with the upcoming Blue Beetle movie, especially considering that Aquaman 2 is in development hell right now, and we don’t have a Superman for this cast yet either.
The Flash does go on a little too long and it doesn’t quite hit what it needs to hit, but that’s not to say that there are no good points about it at all. The nostalgia bait is actually pretty well done, the fight scenes are pretty good and do a great job of showing Flash’s speed, and the performances I haven’t talked about were pretty good for the most part, though I will say that Keaton is the biggest standout of the bunch, and that’s despite the fact that I can kind of tell he’s getting bored of being associated with Batman.
The best way to describe The Flash as a movie is it’s okay. As an adaptation of Flashpoint, it does a pretty decent job though I think both of the stories are quite flawed in different ways. I do hope that Ezra Miller is recast in future movies considering what he’s been accused of, and this would be a good way to recast the old Flash.
It’s okay, but I don’t think that it’s an amazing movie, and it also does quite a bit of resurrecting of dead actors that I think is really uncomfortable. I won’t say who it is to avoid spoilers, but I’m, really not a fan of it. In some ways, it was worth it, because we got to see something that was amazing and the best part of the whole movie because of it.
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