THE FLASH (2023)

THE FLASH (2023)

Tagline: Worlds Collide.

(Action, Adventure, Let’s Get Nuts) [PG-13]

You could also destroy everything.

In this one, Barry Allen is upset by events that are going on with his father and just trying to blow off steam discovers he can run fast enough to travel back in time. In a selfish effort to save his family by going back in time, he puts the fate of the world and the multiverse at risk after ending up in a world almost without superheroes. 

First off there is just a ton to celebrate about this movie. If you have seen the previews you know that Michael Keaton (THE PROTÉGÉ) is reprising his role as BAT-MAN in this and the dude just flat-out crushes it. I think most of the principal photography was done a while back, but Keaton still looks pretty good for a dude that is now 71. There are also some other cameos I didn’t expect in this thing which is awesome. I really don’t know much about Sasha Calle outside of the fact that she is most famous for a soap opera I don’t watch. However, her portrayal of Supergirl is impressive in the screen time she gets. Ben Affleck (ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE) is solid in this, but to be honest I felt he got outclassed by Keaton at least in this movie. I loved some of the other stuff in this thing that I am not going to mention to avoid spoilers, but just know that if you have been following DC for a while there are some real treats in this. I also really liked the score and the soundtrack. The action sequences are also pretty outstanding regarding choreography etc. 

Where this thing just really let me down is in the pacing. There is a huge boring chunk of this movie where I just really felt myself wanting it to get good again. I can say that because the beginning of this movie is an absolute blast, so when you start to really take time to flesh things out that are not interesting, it feels tedious. Ezra Miller unfortunately just didn’t carry this film as Flash as I had hoped. I found myself wanting to see anyone but him on screen. It has nothing to do with not liking him as an actor, I actually gave him props for ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE which was a much better film for him. I don’t even blame Ezra on this one, the script had something going on with him that I am not going to give away, but it just kind of took me out of the movie instead of bringing me to it. There are also a lot of CGI issues which has been well documented. It’s kind of embarrassing when some of the effects in the CW TV show “THE FLASH” outshine a $200-million-dollar production. 

When it comes to the balance of seriousness and humor, I actually thought most of that worked. I was actually bursting out laughing at some parts. There is some crap I really would rather not have seen, but whatever. None of that was enough to ruin the entire movie. What I can say is that I disagree with reviews saying this was a fitting ending to the DCEU, or DCU however you want to abbreviate it. Watch GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL.3 and tell me this movie did as good a job of wrapping things up as that movie did. It didn’t. 

A lot of this did its job though and when you start wading through some of the issues, it still hit me right in the nostalgia bone. This movie also has one of the greatest explanations of time travel and the multiverse that I have ever seen for people like me who already understood it, but just love to see visuals. 

THE FLASH gets a 5 out of 7. I think this movie will be talked about less in 5 years than ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE, but it’s still a really fun movie overall that doesn’t come with a lot of the extra circular messaging that bogs films down.

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