“The Flash” had multiple things going against it. Being part of the beleaguered DCEU, multiple script changes, countless director swaps, and endless delays. To top it all off, Ezra Miller’s countless infractions. But WB and David Zaslav saw something in the movie to not drop it and cut their losses. Now, it’s the movie to reboot the DCEU and bring about James Gunn’s DCU. Tom Cruise praised it. While early reactions should always be taken with fistfuls of salt, most of them were pretty positive. The hype was pretty decent.
So, is “The Flash” worth the hype?
Kind of. Not really.
It’s still a pretty good movie though.
Considering the director changes, reshoots, script changes, and all the crap that Ezra Miller pulled off, the fact that “The Flash” ended up being a good movie at all is a big deal.
After discovering he can travel back in time, Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) changes the past to save his dead mother (Maribel Verdu) and his incarcerated father (Ron Livingston). This brings about the end of the world and now he has to save it with his alternate self, a Batman he doesn’t know (Micheal Keaton) and a Kryptonian he doesn’t recognize (Sasha Calle).
From the trailers, I was expecting this movie to be one big nostalgia fest. You can’t fault me for thinking that when Michael Keaton’s Batman was front and center in all the promotional material. There are nostalgic elements for certain, some wouldn’t even make sense unless you’re a hardcore DC fan or if you follow movies, but the movie doesn’t use that as a crutch in favor of a good narrative.
Amidst all the multiverse shenanigans and the Batman fanboyism is a story of moving on. It’s something that’s hammered by the Batmen when Barry provides his motivation for changing the past. The human element works in the movie’s favor and helps to ground the whole multiverse craziness in a palatable way. It also provides the cast with humanity that a story like this otherwise lacks.
Now putting aside all the stuff that Miller did, I never really liked his version of Barry Allen. He was insufferable in the Whedon version of Justice League and he became slightly tolerable towards the end in the Snyder Cut. (It does not help that Grant Gustin has done a great job as Barry Allen in CW’s The Flash). So I was expecting him to be annoying in this movie. Imagine my surprise when he turned out to be pretty good.
I’d say that works because of his pairing with the alternate timeline Barry who’s even more obnoxious and cringeworthy. This allows Miller to play one Barry Allen as the straight man in this Odd Couple dynamic. The parts that had me chuckling were when Barry has moments of self-realization about how annoying he can be when interacting with his alternate self. Miller’s a decent actor otherwise and since this movie has a pretty good emotional narrative, he gets to flex his dramatic muscles a little.
Of course, the movie’s biggest selling point was the return of Micheal Keaton as Batman. I confess I have never seen the Tim Burton movies. So I can’t tell if Keaton feels like the Batman of old. But he did a good job as the alternate Batman, offering some dry wit and contrasting nicely with the Barry Allens. (I do like his explanation of the multiverse being one giant mess of spaghetti.) If you grew up with the Keaton Batman movies, then his presence, elevated by Danny Elfman’s masterful Batman theme, is sure to make your inner child squeal in delight. Even Ben Affleck’s small role as the original timeline Batman had me pining for his presence in James Gunn’s upcoming DCU. Alas.
Then there’s Sasha Calle as Kara Zor-El/Supergirl. She doesn’t have too much to do in the movie, but she did a decent job as the angry Kryptonian cousin of Clark Kent. You won’t get much out of the movie if you were expecting more of her and General Zod (Michael Shannon). It’s the Barry Allen show ft. Batman and other guest stars.
I’ll get the biggest fault of the movie: The CGI looks bad. While some sequences have decent graphics, a good deal of them looks like PS2-era video game cutscenes. At times, it even detracts from the experience. Now, the director has defended it as a stylistic choice, but I don’t buy it. You can feel the damage of countless reshoots in some scenes of the movie and it feels like the CGI suffered along with it. I feel like this movie would be much better if the CGI were polished to a sheen. Stylistic choice or not, there is no excuse for a movie in 2023 to have such abysmal CGI.
Other than that, I couldn’t find anything to complain about this movie.
Benjamin Wallfisch’s background score was fine. The multiverse explanations were pretty good. The performances were pretty good, even if you don’t care for Ezra Miller. The humor was good. It wasn’t overbearing like in most MCU movies nor was it sparse like in previous DCEU movies. It was peppered perfectly in the narrative and most of the jokes landed. The direction was good as well.
Andy Muschetti does a good job of directing the movie and he’s made neat set pieces that make good use of the power sets of Batman and the Flash. I’m guessing that’s why he landed the gig for the new Batman movie. Christina Hodson deserves a lot of credit as well. The fact that she’s made a decent screenplay out of this giant mess of a production that’s passed through multiple directors, writers, rewrites, plan changes and countless other annoyances is a big victory for her.
On the whole, “The Flash” is a neat little cap to end the journey of the DC Extended Universe. Whether the DCU that comes after this will be consistent or not, who knows? At least the Scarlet Speedster has done a good job of establishing a favorable presence among the general audience.