“What did you do?!’ –Kara Zor-El
Well, the time has finally come: the long-awaited arrival of The Flash. While it’s a movie that some have been waiting for since 2016 (back when Rick Famuyiwa was attached as the director with a different script), I can’t say for sure that this is the version of The Flash that turns the tide for Warner Bros. and their recently released DC projects.
Directed by Andy Muschietti, The Flash follows Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) as he attempts to balance his work life, personal life and superhero persona with his father’s (Ron Livingston) appeal looming. Of course, none of these things are going to plan. At work, Barry’s consistently in trouble with his boss for always being late–saving the day takes time–and constantly dealing with workplace bullies in the form of Patty (Saoirse-Monica Jackson) and Albert (Rudy Mancuso). Then when it comes to superhero happenings, Barry feels very much like he is the “janitor” of the Justice League, cleaning up the mess that others, mostly Batman (Ben Affleck), leave behind. He also has a bone to pick with Alfred (Jeremy Irons) for always being last on the call sheet whenever a catastrophic incident occurs. As if all of that isn’t bad enough, the trial of his father for his mother’s murder weighs heavily on Barry’s shoulders. He’s done everything possible to prove his father’s innocence, including enlisting the help of the world’s greatest detective.
If only he could change the past to create a future he wants to see–one where his mother (Maribel Verdú) is alive, and his father hasn’t been implicated in her murder. Despite being warned, Barry does what Barry always does, runs head-first into trouble. Barry’s attempt at going back in time is disrupted by a nefarious entity, and he finds himself in a timeline with a younger version of himself. While his mom is alive and his father is safe from prison, Barry quickly realizes that his change has greater implications as, in this current timeline, General Zod (Michael Shannon) is trying to terraform Earth into a new Krypton. Wanting to fix what he’s set in motion, Barry tries to seek help, and he finds it in the form of Batman. However, it’s not the Bruce (Michael Keaton) he’s familiar with, and the Kryptonian is not Kal-El, but Kara Zor-El (Sasha Calle). It’s not the Justice League he’s used to, but he certainly hopes the quartet will still be able to save the day.
Please note: mild spoilers about the story will be found ahead.
The Flash is similar to the “Flashpoint” event in the comic books in that the audience experiences Barry going back in time to save his mother and, in doing so, creates a rift in the timeline that has dire consequences. However, the similarities pretty much end there. In the director’s chair, Muschietti does the best he can with an uneven screenplay by Christina Hodson and a story by John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein and Joby Harold. After what was a surprisingly enjoyable time with Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves by Daley and Goldstein, I hoped that The Flash would have similar consistency in terms of story, but that was unfortunately not the case. Of course, as Daley and Goldstein exited the project in 2019, citing creative differences, it’s difficult to discern which parts of The Flash remain their work (if any at all). Basically, The Flash suffers from the “too many cooks in the kitchen” syndrome.
A “Flashpoint”-esque story would have worked better after having an origin-like story for Barry Allen (something that Daley and Goldstein said was part of their vision for the film before leaving it). While the character was previously introduced in a cameo in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and formally a new recruit in Justice League, the events following the latter would have been an interesting place to begin Allen’s story. Helping to stop a world-ending event in Justice League would have likely been trying for Allen, and it’s in that movie that we see him get his first job at the crime lab.
Instead of relying on all the cameos, we could have had a better character study focused solely on the titular character. For example, you have the work bullies that are shoe-horned in with no context behind why they find Barry to be an easy target or if he interacts with any of his other colleagues. We don’t know how many times he’s been late to make his boss so angry; we just have to assume it’s been many. And with Iris West (Kiersey Clemons) hardly in the movie, it’s another relatively pointless interaction that Barry has to have to appease Flash fans. Iris lacks purpose here; she is only a reminder of the Flash canon and is just present for a brief conversation in which Iris triggers his thoughts about going back in time. Essentially, Barry Allen’s life outside the Flash suit is without a solid foundation.
The movie’s reliance on fan service and cameos make it seem as though they were trying to distract audiences from the uneven script. It is not too dissimilar to Marvel’s Multiverse of Madness in that it plays with the idea of multiple worlds only to provide fans the briefest of excitement over them recognizing someone or something from the larger MCU canon and even something produced by the fandom themselves. While there isn’t anything wrong with the fan service, it serves no purpose other than just being there, and things like this need to be outweighed by intentional storytelling. At least with the Batmen in the film, both Affleck’s and Keaton’s characters serve a greater purpose to the story or help Barry in some way. All the other cameos feel as though they were inserted just to say, ‘Hey, look at what we did!’ and WB patting their back for 100 years in the film industry. It’s made glaringly more obvious when other movies have done similar things and did them better. It was also disappointing to see that with the cameos from the Batmen and Supermen, we do not get different iterations of other Justice League favourites, which seemed like a largely missed opportunity.
In addition, the visual effects weren’t great for a superhero movie of this scale and budget. You can see where the money was spent, and those moments looked good. However, it makes the scenes that had less budget even more noticeable. The uneven visual effects also hurt the film’s cinematography. Having worked on past films like The Golden Compass, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Henry Braham is no stranger to big-budget, effects-heavy films, but in The Flash, through no fault of Braham’s, the cinematography isn’t quite there, particularly in the action-heavy or poor VFX-riddled scenes. Thankfully, in the scenes that were shot with little to no green screen, the film looked much better, but unfortunately, Braham is not given much substance to work with. Truly, no one was going to be able to make a scene with a CGI baby in a microwave look good (it was just as bad as the fake baby in American Sniper).
Of course, it’s not all bad. The performances in the film are particularly great and hold the film together in parts where it’s clunky and otherwise shouldn’t particularly work. Newcomers to the DC world Calle and Verdú are excellent. Both of them bring humanity to their roles, which are befitting of comic book movies. Whether Verdú was dancing with a young Barry (Ian Loh) or trying to cheer up a forlorn stranger in the grocery store, Verdú is exceptional. Calle tows a similar line, reflecting a different part of humanity in that her Kara is jaded by what humans have done to her. But eventually, she recalls what the ‘S’ on her chest stands for. Calle is brilliant, capturing Kara’s duality effectively, and glowing from within. My only wish was that we would have been able to see more of her, the movie could have benefitted from treating Kara more as a character and less as a gimmick.
Keaton and Affleck return to the cape and cowl and prove to be just as effective as when they first wore the Batman suit. While the latter is not in the film for as long, his action sequence featuring the Batcycle was extremely cool in its entirety. And, of course, he is the voice of reason when Barry tries to tell him about travelling through time. Keaton’s Batman is similar to Calle’s Supergirl in that he’s weary, having witnessed the worst of people. It was nice seeing Keaton in the cowl again, and he delivered a great performance (as per usual). If the rumour about Muschietti’s involvement in directing The Brave and the Bold is true, based on what we saw from the Batmen in The Flash, I’d say the character is in good hands.
As much as I would like to avoid speaking about Miller’s performance in The Flash due to what they are accused of and have been arrested for off-screen, Miller’s portrayal of the younger, care-free Barry and the current version of Barry is one of the better things the film has going for it.
As for the villains, Shannon brings back Zod with pomp and circumstance, and while he never seems as menacing as he was in Man of Steel, mostly because we don’t spend as much time with him, he brings his acting A-game as always. With this return of the Kryptonians, the main disappointment is Antje Traue’s return as Faora. Hardly given anything to do, they easily could add her into the film in post and it wouldn’t have made a difference. For a character who had such an impactful performance when we saw her last, the film would have benefitted from giving Faora more screen time and add to the sense of danger that Flash, Batman and Supergirl were facing in this segment of the film.
Okay, let’s be honest; the bar has been in hell, or at least very close to it, for the last few DC releases with films like Black Adam and Shazam! Fury of the Gods. And while The Flash is better than the aforementioned, it doesn’t exactly speed to any unknown territory. It keeps up with the trend of the multiverse that’s been the focal point of recent comic book films (Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, etc.), and while some of it works, most of it doesn’t.
Ultimately, The Flash is entertaining enough. It’s not terrible, but it’s not as great as the initial reactions claimed either, and it’s certainly not the best superhero movie in [insert number of years here]–again, as previously said, Plastic Man levels of reaching. Overall, it sits somewhere in the middle as simply average. Although newcomers to the DC film world like Calle and Verdú and those revisiting their roles like Keaton knock things out of the park, their performances alone do not make up for the missteps in the story that make the movie a mixed bag.
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