Movie Review: THE FLASH

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: June 16th, 2023 / 04:46 PM

THE FLASH movie poster | ©2023 Warner Bros./DC

Rating: PG-13
Stars: Ezra Miller, Michael Keaton, Sasha Calle, Ben Affleck, Michael Shannon, Ron Livingston, Antje Traue, Kiersey Clemons, Meribel Verdú
Writer: Christina Hodson, screen story by Joby Harold, based on the DC Comics by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert
Director: Andy Muschietti
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Release Date: June 16, 2023

Just when we kind-of-maybe got our heads around the multiverse and time travel (thank you, SPIDER-FILMS), here’s the feature film THE FLASH to make us contemplate the paradoxes all over again.

Yes, the SPIDER-MAN movies belong to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, while THE FLASH is part of the DC pantheon. The mythologies share some similarities, but are not technically related.

THE FLASH is the current DC movie-verse’s first foray into time travel (the DC TV-verse is a different entity). However, since a good chunk of the audience for THE FLASH has likely seen the recent animated SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE and a lot of the live-action Marvel features where somebody attempts to alter the past, it’s hard not to recall one while watching the other.

THE FLASH is set in the DC Cinematic Universe, with Ezra Miller reprising their JUSTICE LEAGUE role as Barry Allen. Barry is still a young man, working as a crime scene analyst, but he has a secret identity as superhero speedster The Flash.

The Justice League at the point is headed by Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck, who previously played the character in both BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE and JUSTICE LEAGUE). Other members of the team are Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Cyborg.

Barry has more or less accepted his role as the figurative “janitor” of the group, designated to deal with matters that Batman believes aren’t urgent enough to require him or Superman. But in the aftermath of one particularly harrowing (yet funny) crisis, Barry discovers that he can run faster than the speed of light. In other words, he can go back in time.

Barry’s mother Nora (Meribel Verdú) was murdered when he was a little boy, and his father Henry (Ron Livingston) was wrongly convicted of the crime and has been locked up ever since. Barry thinks if he changes one small detail, the murder will never happen, Mom will live, and Dad will remain a free man.

Barry succeeds in this, but he gets trapped in 2016. Since this is in the trailers, it’s not a spoiler to say he meets his college-aged self (also played by Miller). A world-threatening disaster looms – one that will be familiar to those who saw a certain DC-verse film in 2016 – but for some reason, the person who ought to be saving our planet is missing in action. Why is that, and what can the Barrys do to fix things?

The explanation for what’s gone wrong is illustrated with strands of spaghetti. On the one hand, most of us can’t argue with it (those who have personal experience with time travel that definitively contradicts this, please raise your hands). It also adds something new to the discussion. On the other hand, it allows for a degree of arbitrary plotting that sparks some questions THE FLASH probably didn’t mean to ask.

The script by Christina Hodson, based on the screen story by Joby Harold, from the DC comics created by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert, uses its idiosyncratic theory of time travel to keep what they want and jettison what they don’t. This means that we get, among other things (again, it’s in the trailers), an older Batman (Michael Keaton) with a different history, even though we’re in an earlier year. Don’t worry, we don’t have to agree with it to comprehend it.

Director Andy Muschietti and Hodson and lead actor Miller all do well with what’s most important, which is character. Miller is great at differentiating our Barry from the younger, different-timeline Barry, and gives them both heart and humor. There’s also a lot of enjoyment to be had with Keaton’s hero, and the retro but satisfying-looking Bat tech that comes with him.

More of THE FLASH’s pleasure comes from a number of good-sport cameos, and one that may make viewers tear up.

But the time mechanics are so entirely geared to serving the scenes the filmmakers want to do that our suspension of disbelief starts to sag. While nobody wants long-winded exposition, some discussion of how multiple timelines do or do not reconcile with the notion of a multiverse would have been helpful.

As it is, Barry, Barry, and their friends are fine company, but THE FLASH would have been better if its rules were more solid.

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