Here’s something I wrote when I first saw The Flash trailer back in February – So, I don’t think these nostalgia-crammed whizzes are as exciting as they used to be. They probably peaked with Spider-Man: No Way Home, and since we all now know how they can be done, it’s just obviously icon-bait now, unless done really well, unlike Jurassic World: Dominion 😖 I worry Ezra Miller hasn’t materialized into an exciting pick for the Flash either. I love Miller in The Perks of Being a Wallflower and We Need to Talk About Kevin, and I thought he was an inspired choice out of left field originally, but compounded by how scantily the DCEU have used the Flash, he’s not what I imagined the Flash to be. And I’m not here for some generic wisecracks on how Christian Bale’s Batman voice is too gravelly, or how the late 90s Batmen suits had prominent Bat-nipples either – who hasn’t already made those jokes? So, what will The Flash offer? It seems too soon, in what has already been confirmed as a failed franchise, to care about timelines or harken back with familiarity to a time of General Zodd (Michael Shannon) – but oh well, prove me wrong, ‘Flash. I was one of the few who thought Black Adam was really enjoyable, so it seems I’m highly impressionable. Over to you.
The movie begins with the Flash called into some Justice League duties following a crisis in Gotham. From there, Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) worries that a last-ditch effort to free this father from prison won’t be strong enough, and through running really fast, the Flash stumbles upon a method whereby he believes he can travel back in time, perhaps preventing his mother’s murder, and therefore saving his father from being falsely accused as well. At the attempt, of course things don’t go to plan, and the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff brings unforeseeable consequences, like how there are now two Barry Allens, a different Bruce Wayne, and no Superman 😮 Good luck putting everything back together, even if that is the right call, in this right fine mess.
This movie marketed itself hard with Batman of 1989, and now I know why. I couldn’t get into this movie, for I didn’t care about the Flash or most of the movie’s events. I don’t know much about the Flash outside the DCEU, but I know there’s a chorus of people out there who say that Ezra Miller is miscast, and even if he’s not, I still imagine a snappy-mouthed speedster who’s more exciting than this. I was crying out for context, or at least something about Barry Allen that I could latch onto to truly invest in this character. The movie might’ve fumbled its first opportunity, in an action scene, by making Flash’s driving motivation that he’s low on power and needs to eat, and jokes about feeling like the butt of the Justice League – stuff that really isn’t relevant information for later on. Sure, we might know that the Flash gets excited when he’s on a mission, but when he’s alone or with his co-workers, he seems unrelatably withdrawn, and almost unstable. How old is Barry Allen? Why is he working at a crime lab? What’s motivating his normal life? Maybe these questions come as a result of my fault for not completely re-covering either Justice Leagues (Zac Snyder’s or Joss Whedon’s), but I don’t remember the DCEU ever really doing the groundwork in establishing Barry Allen in a meaningful way – other than the fact that he doesn’t understand brunch, and that his Dad’s in prison. In Black Adam, one of Atom Smasher’s defining factors is that he needs to eat too, and the fact that I was more impressed by him in one limited appearance, is a problem for Flash. Moreover, I thought the movie did Kiersey Clemons’s character, Iris West, really dirty – she’s in about four scenes, and her main motivation for being there is that she’s got the horn for Barry. Why? I couldn’t figure it out. The scene where she makes the effort to visit his apartment, and all Barry can do is ramble about what actions he’d take if he could go back in time to the day of his mother’s death, would be a clear red flag for me, and he barely acknowledges that she’s there – as a hot keen journalist, I wouldn’t play that shit.
But was it cool hanging out with the original Gothic Batman again? I mean, of course it was – Michael Keaton is only around for about half the movie, but as one of the most charismatic actors of a generation, he is more than welcome. I felt he recaptured the aloof nature of his Bruce Wayne, and even the crazy eyes of his old caped crusader. I love the neckerchief, and the scene where Bruce bonds with Barry over the loss of his parents is great, because I don’t think Keaton’s Bruce Wayne ever got to explain his life before. No doubt the action sequences don’t contain Keaton inside that rubber, but Batman still appeared menacing in his fight scenes, and was just basically awesome. Seeing the Batwing fly, accompanied by Danny Elfman’s original score, would be harder to screw up than to make entertaining 😍 Keaton’s Batman never got a third installment, so even though this is a Flash movie, it also sort’ve completes his trilogy. After facing the Joker, Penguin, and Catwoman, nobody in their right mind would’ve imagined that his next appearance would be alongside a couple of Flash’s, Supergirl, and General Zodd, but here we are. The Flash also goes for a few more surprise cameos, mostly computer generated, but the only one other than Keaton that truly brought me joy came right at the end… I also thought Supergirl (Sasha Celle) was pretty cool for the few scenes she’s in.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a fast-paced, highly dense, ambitious comic book movie. It definitely picked up once the second Barry Allen hit the scene, and became more engaging. It’s just, during the General Zodd battle scenes, I found myself thinking that I would probably end up rather rewatching Man of Steel again over The Flash, because at least the shaky Superman adventure was trying to be about something. Without believably considered character foundations holding The Flash together, it just felt like one clanging scene after another – a real slog at times. I think I cared more about the stakes in Godzilla vs. Kong, and that was just voiceless CGI blobs attacking each other. I wonder if this movie could’ve done more to make Dark Flash a more visible threat, because he was an interesting concept and eventual reveal to me, but with so much else going on, he was shunted and dealt with rather quickly. But even if you really enjoyed this movie, you must admit that some of the VFX are incredibly poor – Flash’s Chrono Bowl felt like The Polar Express, and the suspended CGI babies not only looked bad, but the idea of them in the first place, seemed like something more befitting the tone of a Deadpool movie to me 😬 Storywise, again, Marvel beats DC to the punch – we already had a time-travelling hero go back for a touching moment with a fallen parent (Tony Stark), and I’m not saying this had to be better, but I think it could’ve done more to stand out. The way the Batman and Superman legacies were handled here also made me further appreciate how well Spider-Man: No Way Home handled it’s returning characters. For a movie trying so hard to be funny, I think I laughed twice, where there were many more moments that I remember thinking that I think I should be laughing here.
A friend of mine said he liked The Flash because it was fun, and I can see how someone could make that assessment – not me though, and like other great movie enthusiasts, this just might be my turn where a superhero movie designed to be nothing but fun, hits the mark with most punters, but doesn’t slot my groove. It’s been said that Marvel treats its heroes like soldiers, and Zac Snyder went all-out to perceive the Justice League as Gods, but when that isn’t so, the DCEU treats its heroes like rockstars, and it’s rather grating without enough rhyme or reason for that revelry; for evidence of this claim, look no further than this movie’s final post credit scene with Aquaman – what the hell was that? This movie is not terrible, but the worst part of The Flash for me was realising that most audiences will like this more than some of my more colourful and fantabulously designed DCEU favourites, Wonder Woman 1984 and Birds of Prey ☹
2.5
P.S. I haven’t mentioned any of Ezra Miller’s real-life alleged discretions because I tried to put that out of my mind, in fairness to the movie and the character. Although, doing so was a struggle for at least the first third of the movie, and could’ve contributed to me and The Flash getting started on the wrong foot too.
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