The Flash (Warner Brothers)

 "A person would have to be an idiot to mess with the space/time continuum."

Originally posted 6/16/23

The Flash is a meh-to-middling comic book movie that, as now has become the custom, takes a very long, published storyline and truncates it before contorting what’s left to conform to certain pre-determined plot moments that then become devoid of context on screen. With inconsistent visuals that fail to impress, extraneous characters shoehorned into the runtime, a plot that doesn't allow the main character to learn anything and a cringe-inducing double-role performance by Ezra Miller as time- displaced Barry Allens, The Flash is a film that runs on a hope that nostalgia will blind the viewer to its many flaws. 

The Flash is a 2023 DC Studios WB Pictures feature directed by Andy Muschietti and based on a screenplay written by Christina Hodson. It is one of the final chapters in the DCEU or, the (live-action) DC Extended Universe as conceived of by Zack Znyder who directed 2013’s Man of Steel as well as other entries in the series. The Flash stars Ben Affleck, Sasha Calle, and Ezra Miller. They are joined by Michael Keaton, Antje Traue, Ron Livingston, Michael Shannon, Kiersey Clemons, and Maribel Verdú with cameo appearances by Jeremy Irons, Gal Gadot, Temuera Morrison, Nicolas Cage, George Clooney, and Jason Momoa. Images of Christopher Reeve, Adam West, Helen Slater, Burt Ward, and George Reeves are inserted by deep fake AI technology.

The Flash is based on a long-running DC Comics character with the ability to move at incredible speeds. First published in the 1940s by All-American which was one of the companies that would later merge to become DC Comics, the Flash was part of the initial wave of comic book costumed vigilantes and heroes. After the early fascination in that subject had waned, an attempt was made in the 1950s to renew interest in the genre, and the Flash was re-introduced to a new generation with Showcase #4 in 1956. He, along with Green Lantern (Showcase #22, in ’59), Hawkman (The Brave and the Bold #34 in 1961), the Atom (Showcase #34 also in ’61) and others would get more explicit, hard Sci-Fi origins.

Barry Allen is an often-late forensic scientist who is bathed in chemicals when his lab is struck by lightning in a freak accident. Instead of giving him half a dozen cancers, dissolving his flesh, or killing him on the spot, the accident instead has some strange ramifications; Barry discovers he can move at stupendous speeds without suffering any damage from the friction caused by his incredible velocities. Remembering reading comic books about a super-fast character called the Flash from the forties when he was a child, Allen is inspired to follow in the fictional speedster’s footsteps in the pursuit of justice. Creating a nifty red uniform with yellow highlights he decides to assist the Central City police as a superhero. As is typical of the medium, the Flash’s powers grow as the series goes on and he learns all manner of tricks and clever uses of his abilities.

 Published in 1961, Flash# 123, written by Gardner Fox, contains the story, Flash of Two Worlds, which is one of the most important comic book stories ever printed and the inspiration for the entire mass-media-multiversal meta-movement we’re in the middle of. Barry moves so fast he vibrates into a world where the fictional character he read about as a child is real. Allen meets Jay Garrick, the Flash from the All-American title. Which is to say, in a comic book story, a comic book character meets another character that the first character used to read about in a comic book.

Fox’s inspired concept allows DC to integrate their older characters with their newer titles. It allows them publish stories with the Justice Society meeting the Justice League in one Crisis after another culminating with the temporary collapse of DC’s multiverse during the twelve-issue maxi-series, Crisis on Infinite Earths published during 1985.

Any stories featuring any of DC characters can exist anywhere in their continuity; those stories just take place on an alternate Earth. This led to the competing DC and Marvel Multiverses, the periodic destruction and rebirth of that multiversal concept in both publishing houses as well as the mega media titans that are the MCU and the DCEU, which would not exist in the same form if not for Flash of Two Worlds.

2023’s The Flash is (very) loosely based on the 2011 DC crossover event, Flashpoint, by Geoff Johns and Andy Kubert: Barry wakes in a universe where he finds his mother alive, his father dead and many other crucial details he’s familiar with horribly altered or entirely absent; this world has no Superman and Barry has no superpowers.

“For the record, I think this is insane.”

While assisting the Justice League, the Flash (Miller) pushes his powers and moves faster than he’s ever done before. He discovers he can create temporal bubbles, which allows him to travel through time. He immediately reports this to Batman (Affleck). Barry’s mother, Nora (Verdú) is murdered when he is a child. His father Henry (Livingston) is pinched and ultimately convicted for the crime, leaving Barry to grow up without parents. Now he has the means to prevent that tragedy from happening. Barry knows Bruce Wayne’s story; everyone knows Bruce Wayne’s story and Batman knows exactly what Allen is going through. Still, he cautions Barry against going forward, telling him that scars are there for a reason.

Of course, Barry doesn’t listen, determined to rescue his mother and save his father from years of hard time. Allen recreates the previous day’s events, pushing himself in the same manner, but now he knows what to expect. He carefully hones in on the exact moment he needs to adjust, makes sure no one forgets the sauce, and after breathing a sigh of relief, prepares to return to the prior point in which he penetrates the timestream. Something slams into him, knocking him for a loop, knocking him out of his bubble and knocking him out cold.

When he wakes, he learns everything seems like it’s worked out: His mom’s alive, his father’s not in the clink and he can relax for a second. There’s only one problem. He recognizes the date. That part is all wrong. He’s ten years too early, on the very day he gains his powers. He sees his younger counterpart and realizes he’s got to get himself up to speed so he can get him/self up to speed.

Easily sneaking into the Forensics lab, Allen recreates the conditions that led to his initial chemical accident for his doppelganger. When the lightning lances down and spears through both Barrys, the younger version gains his powers. The problem is, older Barry is drained of his speed. Even worse, it’s the day, that horrible day in 2013 when the Horde led by General Zod (Shannon) came to Earth looking for the Kryptonian.

Events aren’t unfolding in the way Allen remembers them, Kal-El doesn’t appear when he’s supposed to. Barry has no way to contact Wonder Woman (Gadot) and Cyborg is still in school. Allen tries to reach Aquaman (Momoa), but his dad Tom (Morrison) doesn’t seem to have a kid named Arthur so Barry looks up the address for stately Wayne Manor in Gotham City, and the pair travel to the outskirts of Gotham City in hopes of recruiting Batman to find Superman, fight an invasion from outer space and save the world.

Barry is dismayed when he discovers it’s not his Batman. This Wayne is an old, bearded weirdo, his mansion empty of people but populated by pools of dust. Bruce (Keaton) patiently explains to a disbelieving Allen using a plate of pasta, that the multiverse is a jumbled mess that more resembles a bowl of spaghetti than the clean parallel lines of a transit map. He doesn’t want to help them but Barry locates Kal-El’s pod using Bruce’s equipment and Wayne is moved to don the cowl and motivated to take up the fight again.

Batman determines that the pod is at a Black Site in Russia. Using a bigger, badder intercontinental Batwing, the trio jet to Siberia and sneak their way into the facility. In a sub-basement, they find a massive spherical containment device on the scale needed to hold a Superman, but when they crack it open, Kal-El isn’t there. Instead, inside they find an emaciated woman in her twenties (Calle) when all hell breaks loose.

Alarms ring out. Sirens blare. Lights pulse. Security has them cold. Gunfire clatters. Batman gets them out of the immediate predicament and they head for the roof and the hovering Batwing. Bruce is old. Barry 2 has been shot. Barry 1 has no powers, and Kal-El isn’t there. They bring the prisoner along.

She’s the only weapon they have against Zod and his alien army, their only hope of going toe-to-toe with the Kryptonian foe and she can barely stand.

Can Barry and his team of reluctant heroes along with the superwoman from space escape the Black Site? Can Barry get his powers back? Can they beat back Zod’s army and save the world? Can he fix everything? Should he try to fix everything?  What will be the cost to get Barry home, and is that price too high to pay already?

“I know I’m just a random person in a store, but would you like a hug?”
 
At the heart of The Flash is a really poignant story about loss. If this movie works, it’s because of the restrained yet emotional and moving performances of Ron Livingston and Maribel Verdú. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you can’t fix things. Not all problems have solutions.

It's very enjoyable to watch Michael Shannon reprise his role as General Zod, with his barely contained indignation and wrath that was on display in Man of Steel subsumed in a smug satisfaction. He knows he’s won. He thinks there’s nothing that can match him on this world, and the planet is his for the taking.

Speaking of wrath, Sasha Calle is formidable as Kara Zor-El. She is so full of rage and just humbles Zod in one scene in particular. She kicks ass. It’s nice to watch.

Michael Keaton has moments of mirth but it occasionally appears as if he’s phoning in his performance. His toupée is William Shatner levels of silly and neither his stuntman nor his CG stuntman looks anything like him.

Ezra Miller's Barry Allen is the uncanny valley made flesh. There is something very creepy and disconcerting about him. He is super awkward, jerky, and weird. What’s funny is, the Barry without powers is twitchier than the more “mature” version. Though their interactions were often played for laughs, it was hard to enjoy the silly slapstick humor that seemed out of place for the picture. 

There is a lot of exposition and quite a bit of foot-dragging in The Flash. For a movie about a guy with super-speed, The Flash sure spins its wheels and grinds to a halt over and over again to explain this or that. That being said, when things get going, they do move. The penultimate scene is rife with cameos that are a pleasant visual surprise but then that joy breaks down after a moment of consideration: Why aren’t any of those people helping? As an aside, it would’ve been nice to see Lynda Carter. Also, unless scheduling was a concern or footage was cut, Grant Gustin and Melissa Benoist should have been referenced even if for a second as they played the Flash and Supergirl respectively, on the WB shows of the same name for several years.

The bulk of the Flashpoint base of the story is excised to make room for the Keaton/ Snyderverse nostalgia stuffing that makes up the core of the movie, leading up to the climactic conflict of men, armies, and armies of supermen. What follows leaves the thinnest trappings of Flashpoint to veil a cribbed version of the crux of Jim Starlin’s classic Warlock/Magus saga from the seventies. So many Flash stories to mine and WB goes grave robbing from Marvel.

Flashpoint serves as a system-wide reboot of all of DC's published titles, setting the stage for the New 52 phase that started in 2011. That experiment concluded in 2016 with another Crisis-style, cross-title-retcon called simply, Rebirth. It appears as if The Flash will act as the harbinger of the end of the DCEU, as things close up shop and we await the dawn of the James Gunn era of DC Studios.

Essentially, the problem with The Flash can be summed up by the famous Simpsons Already Did It episode of Family Guy from 2002. There is really nothing to be seen here that hasn’t been seen in other movies and in many instances done better. The Flash, the fastest man alive, is late to the multiverse party. The basics were repeatedly done in the WB television show starring Grant Gustin, the timelines unraveling plot, in the WB’s own version of Crisis on Infinite Earths in 2019 (In which Miller had his own cameo as the DCEU's Flash). Marvel’s The Multiverse of Madness, 2022’s Everything Everywhere All at Once and 2004’s The Butterfly Effect, which they reference during the picture, all tells a similar story. The “I can fix the future if I get this ONE thing just right” method of spinning time forward then winding it back, rinse, repeat was handled better in 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past. Releasing The Flash on the heels of the sublime, dimension-spanning, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse might have been a mistake. If you really think about it, The Flash is a longer, less funny, more expensive version of the Simpson’s 1994 short, Time and Punishment. That’s probably not a good thing.
The Flash is in theatres now.

The Flash was created by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert.
Barry Allen, the “modern” Flash was created by Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino.
Batman and Robin were by Bill Finger and Bob Kane.
Wonder Woman was created by William Moulton Marston.
Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
Supergirl was created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino.
General Zod was created by Robert Bernstein and George Papp.
Faora was created by Cary Bates and Curt Swan.
Aquaman was created by Mort Weisinger and Paul Norris.

https://fanboyfactor.com/2023/06/movie-review-the-flash-warner-bros-pictures/