07 Jun The Flash Review

THE FLASH

dir. Andy Muschietti, starring Ezra Miller, Michael Keaton, Sasha Calle, Ben Affleck, Ron Livingston, et al

Due to the events of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, superhero and JL member Barry Allen is convinced he may have the ability to manipulate his Speed Force to travel back in time and prevent his mother’s death and father’s frame for it. When his attempt to save his family go awry and inadvertently changes the future, Barry becomes trapped in a timeline where Man of Steel‘s General Zod is on the precipice of conquering Earth. Utilizing the help of the Barry Allen from this dimension, as well that universe’s Batman and Kryptonian, Barry is determined to set straight the tears in the fabric of reality that he himself has created.

As far as superhero adaptations go, The Flash is a decent addition. After years of delays with the filming of the movie, saddled with the further baggage of the ill advised actions of its main actor, its end result is a great story hidden within a messy product. After the back-to-back box office failures of Black Adam and Shazam: Fury of the Gods, Warner Brothers looked to The Flash to be the big win that help end the Zack Snyder era while beginning to pave the way for a new regime in storytelling for DC Comics. Sadly, due to a bloated runtime and cripplingly bad visual effects, what could’ve been a resounding victory for the company ends up being a mid tier movie that fails to cash in on its potential. An interesting premise, a meditation on the fact that even with the greatest power people can’t control everything in their lives, is often undercut by late 90s/early 2000s era GCI and oddly placed jokes. With cavalcade of cameos ranging from instantly recognizable to morsels for the fans, The Flash is a serviceable feather in the cap of franchise in the midst of a reorganization but nowhere near the successful product they’d hoped for.

The Flash co-stars Michael Keaton and Sasha Calle as Batman and Supergirl, respectively. While seeing Keaton on screen suited up as The Bat again initially thrills, Keaton himself seems to be rarely present in the scene, delivering his lines without any real conviction or sense of purpose. The thrills mostly come from the recreation of the world Tim Burton and his crew directed (along with composer Benjamin Wallfisch’s nods to Danny Elfman’s score), with Wayne Manor’s exterior shots draped in fog and its interior immediately reminiscent of the mansion’s expansive room inside viewers came to love from the set design of the first two live action movies. Keaton’s presence, while welcoming, is lethargic and lackluster, getting through his lines in order to collect his paycheck.

Sasha Calle is the breakout star of the film. As Kara Zor-El, cousin of Superman’s Kal-El, her entrance into the film gives the audience a much different look at her arrival on Earth. Harkening back to a well received comic book story of the early 2000s, once Superwoman is able to break out and let loose she dominates the screen with her quiet brooding nature that changes as the story unfolds. A delight to watch, Calle would be a worthy addition to James Gunn and Peter Safrin’s upcoming DC reboot.

Directed by Andy Muschietti, The Flash was a tall order from the beginning. After a veritably endless carousel of directors walking in and out of the chair, the It and It Chapter 2 helmsman was tasked with picking up the pieces of a number of different ideas and forging them into one unified vision. The end result is a flawed, yet entertaining movie that does a good job at balancing the action with the the character work. While the character work takes a bit of a back seat in the second act, the first and especially the third shows the viewer exactly who Barry Allen is, and the impact of his family on him. Pacing wise, the film wastes little time establishing his whereabouts since last seen in Zack Snyder’s Justice League and the titular character attempting to justify to Bruce Wayne his intent to time travel. The story’s second act, easily the weakest in the narrative, as well as being interminably long, loses the momentum gathered in the first before having to ramp back up to a fairly strong narrative conclusion. With General Zod being more of a side story than an actual plot device used to propel Barry’s story forward, the confrontation between Flash, Zod, and Zod’s troops serves as nothing more than a desperate clinging to what came before with Man of Steel.

Overall, The Flash is a decent enough superhero film. While there’s justifiable frustration at the fact that inside the over convoluted kitchen sink of a story lies a possibly great film waiting to be unearthed, the result the audience is left with is a passable one. It’s main star, while being overshadowed by Michael Keaton and Sasha Calle, takes the best of what worked with the character in previous movies and finds ways to continue fleshing him out. A fun enough adventure that pales greatly in comparison to the other multiverse film released a mere two weeks ago, The Flash will likely be remembered more for its controversial lead actor than for the movie itself. The Flash is currently in theaters.

Review by Darryl Mansel