Movie Breakdown: The Flash
Pre-Screening Stance:
Oh boy. This movie. Given Ezra Miller’s issues and the production problems and just everything else about it, I’m not sure it’s something that anyone can be excited about. With that being said, early reviews have been pretty positive, so I am at least curious to see what director Andy Muschietti was able to cobble together.
Post-Screening Ramble:
As it turns out, The Flash is pretty solid. It does have some issues, like nonsensical time travel and really shoddy CG, but it is for sure an entertaining comic book movie. The basic plot is that Barry Allen/The Flash (Ezra Miller) has never gotten over the murder of his mother and the wrongful imprisonment of his father, so he decides to tap into the Speed Force and go back in time to fix it. As you’d expect (or there would be no movie), this doesn’t pan out the way he planned – i.e. his parents are fine but his tinkering has resulted in a world where there are no superheroes. When General Zod (Michael Shannon) and his cronies suddenly appear, this forces Barry and an alternate version of himself to get into the mix with a long-retired Batman (Michael Keaton) and Kara Zor-El (Sasha Calle).
There’s no point in getting into Ezra Miller’s legal problems, so I’ll keep things objective here – they’re good in The Flash. Miller essentially has two roles – one as a seasoned Barry and another as a silly, very young Barry – and they pull them both off effortlessly. Michael Keaton looks like he had a lot of fun being Batman again, and Sasha Calle’s anti-hero version of Supergirl is noteworthy. Unfortunately, these performances do exist inside of a story that doesn’t always add up. The time travel pieces don’t have any real consistency to them, so certain things just happen because that’s how the movie needs to get to the next plot point. You can also tell that this film had to be pulled apart and re-glued together by director Andy Muschietti. So, weird story pieces aside, there’s also a lot of bad dubbing and woeful CG shots. Honesty, it’s impressive that he was able to get out of it what he did – the action and humor are generally on point and the film has heart – but it definitely comes off as rather rough around the edges.
Sure, sometimes The Flash looks like a PS4 game and the plot occasionally goes full head-scratcher, but I found it to be a good time. Your mileage my vary when it hits theaters this Friday, June 16.
One Last Thought:
If there’s never another reference to (or use of the footage from) General Zod’s arrival in Man of Steel (2013), I’ll die happy. My goodness. Do anything else.
