The Flash - Sherin's Review -

I probably have DC Comics in my DNA, after all, I get it from my mother. She’s the one who handed me my first comic book. She’s the one who watched the Justice League-based animated series with me. The nearly genetic love of this universe might be why so many of the movies have disappointed me. If you’ve been around, you’ve heard me say, “We don’t need scene-for-scene adaptations, but you must capture the essence of the characters and their stories.” Warner Bros—a studio I also grew up loving—has too often picked a hot director and allowed them to create their own pocket universe (or Elseworld), rather than match the character to the director. This has made many of the films wildly incongruent and the characters unrecognizable. We have a Batman who makes jokes about money and a Superman who snaps necks—when everybody knows neck-cracking is Wonder Woman’s job. But I guess she’s too busy ignoring consent and Pining away (catch that pun).

Okay, yeah, I hear you: That was before. Now we have James Gunn and Peter Safran at the helm of DC Studios and I’m feeling a light sprinkling of optimism. After The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker, and the announcement revealing the upcoming slate, I trust James Gunn with my DC Comics characters. So when he said The Flash is a great movie, I believed him.

The team picked an impactful arc to adapt. Flashpoint, a story by Geoff Johns and Andy Kubert, follows Barry Allen when he goes back in time to stop Reverse-Flash from killing his mother. Still, there are consequences to changing the past and Barry breaks the space-time continuum and creates the multiverse. So you see what they did there: The DCEU needed a reboot and Flashpoint is canonical and already known to work. Plus, the fans love it.

That, lovelies, is all the setup you need for The Flash. Don’t worry, I haven’t spoiled anything. This new movie, written by Christina Hodson from a story by Joby Harold and directed by Andy Muschietti, is Flashpoint-ish, Flashpoint-adjacent, Flashpoint the Remix. So you’re getting ‘the point’ but with a different cast of characters in a world based more on the DC movies.

If you’re here, I know you’re going to see The Flash. As comic books fans, that’s what we do. We’re magnetized to this stuff. So I’ll keep my review brief.

The Ezra Miller Barry Allen is different from the one we met in the Snyderverse. He always had difficulty engaging socially, but now he may be on the spectrum. This gives him new depths to explore, especially when he meets his alternate reality self, who is outgoing and free. After a conversation with the Ben Affleck Batman, Barry decides the past may be worth saving. As Iris West (Kiersey Clemmons) points out, he lost both his parents on the same day, one to murder and the other to false imprisonment as a result. Barry wonders if the same superpowers he uses to save others might be used to save his parents and in that way himself. But Batman, as someone who knows Barry’s pain, warns him off. It is the content of our paths that make us who we are. Barry listens but he immediately seeks a workaround. And, as I mentioned before, he breaks the universe.

Listen, even with its bombastic but exciting set pieces and goofy jokes, the first third of The Flash is idiotic. I mean that. There was a question mark boomeranging around my brain so hard you could call me The Riddler. Just silly for no reason. That starts to change when they use the Speedforce to hop timelines and we meet Nora and Henry Allen (Maribel Verdú, Ron Livingston), back when they were happy (and breathing). Sidebar: Nora is now Spanish from Spain, so that’s cool. But the real changeup happens when The Barrys go to Wayne Manor and we meet Old Man Bruce AKA Batman 1989 AKA The G.O.A.T, MICHAEL KEATON, who reprises his role with all the flourishes from his era of The Dark Knight. You could patent Keaton’s goodness. He is the recipe restaurants guard with their lives, he is the ice cream and the sprinkles, he makes this movie better. Period. Without him and a change in the writing that leads to comparing the multiverse to a bowl of spaghetti (well done), alongside a full-on elevation in fight choreography, I might have walked away mad. But the switch happens and the rest of the movie is enjoyable even if it’s “what & why” inducing.

Someone we could use more of is Kara Zor-El AKA Supergirl, played by Sasha Calle*. You get the feeling Calle can do a lot and I hope DC/Warner Bros Discovery gives her the chance.

The smartest thing The Flash does is deliver an ending so full of surprises and fan appreciation you forget the nonsense and become enchanted by the possibilities of the multiverse. And it has a heart—sometimes it’s in tachycardia and in danger of sputtering out, but it’s there.

This is not a good movie but it isn’t a terrible one either. A lot of fans will be into it. For me: Now that’s over, let the real DC games begin. I’m betting on you, James Gunn. Make me a winner.