A Film directed by Andy Mushietti

I can’t think of many more movies that went though as much trouble as 2023’s The Flash without being outright cancelled, but somehow the film finally hit the silver screen. The question now is, was it worth it? The Flash has the odd significance of being the bridge between the old-guard of the DCEU (The DC Extended Universe) and The DC Universe (DCU) media initiative headed by James Gunn that will soon “reset” everything. It’s a movie that has been alluded to ever since the “cameo” in Batman VS Superman: Dawn of Justice, and assuming it follows the comic continuity even a bit, is the reason why everything changes. I still think it should have come after Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and Blue Beetle, but hopefully Warner Brothers knows what it’s doing. 

“Worlds collide when the Flash uses his superpowers to travel back in time to change the events of the past. However, when his attempt to save his family inadvertently alters the future, he becomes trapped in a reality in which General Zod has returned, threatening annihilation. With no other superheroes to turn to, the Flash looks to coax a very different Batman out of retirement and rescue an imprisoned Kryptonian — albeit not the one he’s looking for.”

The film finally released on June 12, 2023, following multiple delays caused by director changes, the COVID-19 Global Pandemic, post-production setbacks, and controversies surrounding Ezra Miller. And by controversies, I mean what seemingly amounted to a year-long crime spree committed by the actor involving drunken and disorderly conduct, evading arrest, assault, and even kidnapping and cult-like activity. Many were trying to get The Flash cancelled or boycotted for the majority of 2022-20223, and this mindset may have led to the box office outcome of the film – it earned just $55.7 million at the box office in its opening weekend, making it the ninth ranked DCEU opening weekend box office out of 14 DCEU movies. While the film currently sits at nearly $300 Million globally, greedy movie executives always want that billion dollar threshold to be crossed and The Flash definitely DID NOT do that.

While the industry rags such as Variety hyped up the doom and gloom for the franchise based on seemingly refusing to accept that Ezra Miller had anything to do with the film’s under-performance, I personally know of plenty of people that did not see it because of the troubled actor. It’s a real shame, because when the dust all clears, it was a halfway decent film.

The big draw here was obviously the fact that Michael Keaton was to not only star in a DC film for the first time in thirty years, but in a weird way this film would be a continuation of the prior Tim Burton-helmed Batman features. The plot of The Flash revolves around the fact that Barry Allen discovers that he can effectively time travel, leading to him concocting a plan to save his own mother – a character whose death ultimately lead him onto his path in policework and becoming The Flash. Barry is able to save his mother in a “Butterfly-effect”-sque manner, only to find himself all but powerless and saddled with a tag-along that is a slightly younger version of himself not matured past being an obnoxious teenager largely due to living a life without any sort of hardship. Barry needs to see if he can fix the issue, especially considering he has unfortunately shown up in this world at the same time General Zod (as played by Michael Shannon) invaded Earth in 2013’s Man of Steel. Demi-humans are not apparently anywhere to be seen, and there are only murmurs of a long-retired Batman that haunt the internet. In order to save this world, he has to try to form some version of The Justice League and fight back.

Michael Keaton coming back as Batman is definitely the best part of this film. I was pretty happy that the script allowed his Batman to do things we never saw him capable of in the 90’s movies. There are crazy action scenes, battles with actual super-villains, and all sorts of cool gadgets straight out of the 90’s. There were people in the showing I attended that cheered at more-or-less anything Batman did, so I’d imagine my thoughts are somewhat widespread. Being somewhat of a team-up movie, this film feels the most like a comic book of any of the DCEU films save perhaps the James Gunn Suicide Squad movie. It doesn’t waste time over-explaining origins of characters or holding the audiences hand in any way. It assumes you are at least familiar with the plot of the 90’s Batman Movies, The Man of Steel, and even some older films from DC to get all of the references.

Speaking of Batmen, there are multiples of him in the film, a fact that actually amazed me slightly. Not only did moviegoers get Michael Keaton, but a pretty awesome sequence starring Ben Affleck in what I assume is his last time donning the cape. If that’s not already enough, fans will be floored by some surprises I won’t outright spoil. All I will say is that Kevin Smith is going to lose his mind watching this. Aside from our Caped Crusaders, The Flash features a really well-done iteration of Supergirl as portrayed by Sasha Calle and the aforementioned second Barry Allen who also gets the ability to try to stop General Zod. While not a prime Justice League team, it was different and I like when things are different.

Despite all the good in this film, there is also some bad. The plot is just as muddled as many time travel films end up being, with no clear rules established and a “final villain” that, despite being a cool idea, never really gets fleshed out much. I personally don’t like Ezra Miller’s portrayal of Barry Allen, to me they are playing some version of Wally West, another superhero to take the Flash name, as Barry Allen does not share any of the comedic wise-cracking hijinks we see from Miller. It’s like Warner Brothers wanted to copy the dynamic between Spider-Man and Iron Man from the recent Marvel films and just slapped two characters into those roles. It works, but I’d prefer something different and I know Ezra Miller could have pulled it off. I also thought the computer effects within the Time Force sequences in the film looked bad, even if intentionally so, and should have been re-conceptualized. Considering how long it took to make this movie, I expected more. The rest of the visual effects are awesome, and scenes involving The Flash running are cool. Yeah, The X-Men films did it before with Quicksilver, but that doesn’t make it less cool.

Overall, I preferred an animated film that shares some of this plot, 2013’s Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, in pretty much every way, but this live action movie stands on its own as a flawed, but very fun film to watch. Ezra Miller shows great acting ability, being able to portray two different characters throughout the movie, and has some great emotional scenes I was not expecting. There are cool action scenes, great fights, and the fan-service through cameos was very well done. It’s truly going to be a shame if no sequel comes out of this either from Ezra Miller being this generation’s Shia Lebouf, or if the money coming in is not to the new WB Discovery overlord’s tastes. I’d like to see what they do with this character, and I’d really like to see an introduction of some major Flash Villains into the franchise rather than Superman villains as seen here. It will be interesting to see what James Gunn does from here, but as with most comic movies, I’ll be along for the ride either way.