After several delays caused by everything from the COVID pandemic to directorial changes, the troubled DCEU has released another superhero movie, this one with Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen / The Flash character in the leading role.
New director Andy Muschietti (It, It Chapter Two) and team have certainly injected a more colorful palette and brighter humor into a comic universe that had been bogged down by Zack Snyder’s dark, muted tones. In the process, they’ve succeeded at creating what should be another fairly successful stand-alone DCEU effort (ala the first Wonder Woman movie, and Aquaman), but that’s not to say The Flash is without issues or will appeal to everyone.
Here are three things you should know before sprinting at the speed of light to the cineplex:
1 The Flash Is Based on a Well-Known Comic Storyline Called Flashpoint
In the Flashpoint story and in this film, Barry Allen, who lost his mother (Maribel Verdú) at a young age, and whose father (Ron Livingston, replacing Billy Crudup from Justice League) was wrongfully imprisoned for her murder, goes back in time by tapping into the Speed Force to prevent those tragedies. Barry does this despite receiving extremely sound advice from his friend, mentor and fellow Justice League-r Bruce Wayne / Batman (Ben Affleck, who says his five minutes of screen time in this movie were the first time he “really understood” how to play the character). Bruce, an orphan himself, tells Barry two things that make too much sense: first, that messing with Space-Time is just wildly irresponsible, because unintended consequences loom in literally any action you take or don’t take. Second, the scars we carry as a result of having gone through even the most horrific experiences have made us who we are. Immediately we ask ourselves: what does a Barry Allen look like who has always had the unconditional love of his parents? Does he understand loss, sacrifice, and the value of life the way The Flash does? Does he accept heroism stoically, or will his powers be like toys to him? We’re going to find out, and the answers to those questions are predictable.
These concepts of appreciating the time we have, taking nothing for granted, and accepting even the bad times that have made us stronger are where moviegoers are going to find the best talking points, but I’m not sure that most people require nearly two-and-a-half hours of screen time and some really wonky depictions of a collapsing Multiverse to understand such lessons.
There’s another problem with using Flashpoint as the touchpoint for a major tentpole movie, and that's the Bad Guy issue. The Flash has a rogue's gallery almost as well-known as Batman's. But in his own stand-alone movie there's no mention of Captain Cold, Gorilla Grodd, Mirror Master… even Barry's own love interest Iris West (Kiersey Clemons) is pretty much superfluous here. If her scenes were cut, I’m not sure the film would be any different. Without any proper villains around (yes, Michael Shannon’s General Zod from Man of Steel shows back up in an alternate timeline, but only because of Barry), The Flash becomes both the villain and hero of his own movie, and that’s a huge risk. We don’t usually like to see our favorite heroes being stupid, or selfish, or spending two hours saving the world from… themselves. It’s a major weakness here.
2 The Best Reasons to See the Movie Don't Involve Miller or even The Flash
A little bit of Ezra Miller goes a very long way for me. Here, we spend most of our time with two of them (main timeline Barry Allen and 2013-timeline Barry Allen who never lost his parents), which grows tiresome. But at least these speedsters give us a few laughs along the way (younger Barry doesn’t realize, of course, that his regular clothes are going to burn up if he runs above a certain speed, resulting in a couple scenes involving Miller’s bare backside with their front covered by strategically placed tambourines or cooking pots), and their actions result in the greatest part of this movie, the thing that got me into the theater on opening night to begin with: an encounter with Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne / Batman.
I won’t spoil anything for you, but Keaton’s is not the only cool cameo in this movie – it’s full of them. Some look and work better than others, of course. But as someone who was 19 and 22 when Keaton’s Batman and Batman Returns were released in theaters, his taking back up the cape-and-cowl is the selling point for me and many of my generation. I wonder whether The Flash will carry that same gravity for younger generations or those who haven’t seen those old Batman films, and therefore whether it will matter less for them. As for Keaton, he is 71 now, but he clearly has so much fun here saying some of his old lines, and he’s completely believable as an older, wiser Bruce Wayne, even narrating yet another varying explanation of multiversal time travel from those recently done in other (mostly Marvel) projects, even saying the words, “You probably saw a movie at some point that described time travel as…”
In the end, even with two Barry Allens, there’s not enough of what’s good about The Flash in his own movie. For example, the filmmakers play (humorously in a couple scenes) with the idea that Barry burns so many calories flashing that he needs to eat often and always. Barry even wears a watch that tells him when his energy levels are getting critically low. But by the film’s climax, which involves a mysterious speedster character who seems to live within the Speed Force itself, that issue is forgotten or curiously abandoned.
Another curiosity involves how much of the film is devoted to finding and saving a Kryptonian who once crashed on Earth but has been kept in a sun-less containment facility in Siberia. This turns out not to be Superman, but his cousin Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl. I really enjoyed Sasha Calle’s portrayal of Supergirl, but her minimal usage, rushed character development and ultimate fate all seem to happen so quickly and confusingly. I find I am left with many questions.
3 Skip the IMAX and Consider Leaving Little Ones at Home
There are a few s-words and, as previously mentioned, some brief backside nudity, but overall, The Flash stays fairly family-friendly. But again, unless your youngsters have knowledge and appreciation of Michael Keaton’s Batman movies, as well as a whole lot of patience for a long film without a clear villain where the hero causes his own problems, it might not be worth the cost. I can say that much more confidently regarding the IMAX option, for which I spent $21.95. Don’t be like me. The CGI multiverse and Speed Force scenes in The Flash are reminiscent of someone’s outer-space screen saver and probably far less annoying and eyeball-assaulting on a standard screen. And as often happens to me in IMAX movies, I missed a few lines of dialog because of the high volume of ambient sounds.
Overall The Flash is a welcome, long-awaited thumbs-up, but not without troubles, especially in the CGI realm (I had similar problems to the look of the Quantum Realm in the recent Ant-Man movie; I wish studios would stop giving us micro-worlds and multiverses until they figure out how to make them look less like living inside a lava lamp).
If you do visit as a family, there are some fine takeaways, especially for the Christian who is learning the wisdom that can only come from the bad times in life, the things we would tend to wish had never happened to us, but which serve eventually to make us more Christ-like, less self-serving, more empathetic, more giving and forgiving. These are never bad themes, they are indeed the stuff of true super heroism.
Rated PG-13 for partial nudity, action sequences of violence, some strong language.
Entertainment rating: 3 out of 5 stars.
Family-friendly rating: 3 out of 5 stars.
Image credit: ©Warner Bros. / DC Studios
Shawn McEvoy is the Director of Editorial for Salem Web Network, where he has served to produce Kingdom-blessing content since 2005. He is also the former co-host of Crosswalk's Video Movie Reviews and the Inside the Editors' Room podcast.