‘Flash,’ A-Ah! Savior of the multiverse!
The DCEU’s swan song (?) tries to be everything, succeeds at some things.
Halfway through The Flash, a character tries to explain the multiversal mess the characters have found themselves in by tossing down a pot of pasta. The new universe that Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) has created, he points out, is basically a tangled, sometimes overlapping bunch of squiggly lines, in danger of causing every imaginable plane of existence to collide.
It’s a handy metaphor for The Flash, which is so intent on being so many movies at once that the disparate plot threads, characters and tones overlap, intersect and collide, threatening to turn the entire endeavor into the cinematic equivalent of an overcooked plate of noodles. And yet, a welcome dose of humor for the usually grim Snyderverse, coupled with charismatic performances and energetic direction from It helmer Andy Muschietti, keep it entertaining and watchable, even if it’s a bit of a stretch to call it good.
When multiverses collide (again)
To stretch the above metaphor a bit thinner, The Flash is a sauce with too many ingredients. It’s at once a stand-alone adventure and sort-of origin story for the Scarlet Speedster. It’s both a continuation of the universe Zack Snyder started with 2012’s Man of Steel as well as an opportunity to reset the entire DC movie universe, which will now be helmed by Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn. At its best, it’s an enjoyable, character-focused comedic adventure; at its worst, it’s a soup of cameos and Easter eggs designed to distract audiences from its narrative mess.
Taking place sometime after the events of Justice League (although not in the same universe as the apocalyptic scenario that ended Snyder’s director’s cut), Barry is trying to balance superhero duties and regular life. When needed, he helps Batman (Ben Affleck) and other cameoing heroes keep Gotham City and its surrounding areas safe. When not suited up, Barry is trying to arrive on time to his internship at a research lab, where he helps pursue leads that will free innocent people convicted of crimes. Barry has a personal interest in this: he’s also trying to clear the name of his father (Ron Livingston), who has been falsely imprisoned for the murder of Barry’s mother.
Blowing off some of his high emotions with a super-charged run, Barry discovers that if he moves fast enough, he can create a “chronobowl,” which opens a door into the past. Barry goes back in time to try and stop his mother’s murder and accidentally causes a ripple effect that creates a world with no superheroes – just as Zod (Michael Shannon), the main villain from Man of Steel, heads to Earth and demands a mysterious Kryptonian be sent to him. So Barry – along with a past version of himself from this alternate universe – gets help from the only person who might have some heroic abilities: Bruce Wayne. Only this version is played by Michael Keaton, who might have grown long hair and turned into a recluse, but still has access to his Tim Burton-stylized Batcave, Batmobile and Batwing (in one of the film’s rare shows of restraints, no one asks where he got those wonderful toys).
The marketing for The Flash – definitely hoping to exploit Gen X nostalgia and probably also seeking to minimize its main star’s real-life legal woes – has leaned heavily into the return of Keaton. And yes, the actor puts in a performance, not just a cameo. And he’s a lot of fun. If Keaton doesn’t quite feel like he’s playing the same Bruce Wayne as he did in 1989 and 1992, that might be because it’s easy to forget that Burton treated Bruce Wayne and Batman mostly as an afterthought in his movies, which were more interested in their villains. But there’s a quirky energy Keaton can still summon, and The Flash is one of the rare films to give audiences the father figure side of Batman that the movies often jettison (it’s also worth noting that Affleck’s Bruce Wayne plays much the same role, and gives his best performance in these movies).
But other than giving audiences a reason to point at the screen and shout “he was in the other movies,” Keaton’s Batman really doesn’t have much of a thematic reason for existing. There’s no struggle he’s fighting – he’s hung up the cowl mainly because there’s no more crime in Gotham City – and there’s barely an internal wrestling with whether to help Barry; he refuses initially, but only because the plot dictates he eventually have a triumphant change of heart. Keaton’s a fun presence, but he’s there less as a way to contrast he and Affleck’s versions of the character so much as for fans to say “hey, I remember that!”
And that’s about as deep as the film’s multiversal musings get. It seems unthinkable now, but there was a time – as recent as five to ten years ago – when the idea of a multiverse seemed to be a creative danger zone, too out there and dorky for mainstream audiences. Now, The Flash is the latest in a long line of movies to use the multiverse as a plot device. Hell, within the last year or so, we’ve had Marvel’s Loki , Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and the Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once. The Flash is simply the last to arrive at the parallel universe party.
Of course, not all multiverse movies are created equal. The Spider-Verse movies use the concept to turn the character over and examine every possible facet and permutation of what makes a person (or a horse, a pig or T-Rex) Spider-Man. Everything Everywhere’s multiverse created opportunities to explore the regret, meaning and family. Marvel uses theirs to raise the stakes and scope of their ever-expanding cinematic universe – and also toss in a buttload of fan service.
The Flash’s multiverse really seems to be only about the fan service. It’s a way to bring back Keaton and ingratiate a fan base on the verge of rebelling against the struggling franchise. It resurrects Shannon’s Zod as a way to tell the Snyder Bros that yes, those films still count as some sort of canon – even if Shannon seems incredibly disengaged and the film ultimately shrugs off dour shackles of the Snyderverse. Now that Henry Cavill is no longer Superman, it allows the studio to introduce a new Kryptonian (Sasha Calle’s Supergirl, who is fine but underutilized) that could be conceivable brought back in other movies – except that Gunn’s blank slate approach seems to have her off the table. And it allows the film to indulge in an interminable sequence in its final act that uses some of the most unsettling and unconvincing CGI to showcase a bevy of characters that exist solely as needy fan service and seem sad and hollow just a few weeks after Across the Spider-Verse made a similar concept work so well.
The marketing has hinged so heavily on the return of Keaton and the promise of multiverse Easter eggs that I’m curious what audiences will think. Because the multiverse stuff is not only the worst stuff in the movie, it’s possibly the most cringeworthy and craven use of the concept out of all the recent similar films.
Which is a shame. Because buried in all that soggy pasta is a pretty fun movie about The Flash.
Fast and funny
Before Keaton arrives on the screen, The Flash feels like the ideal approach to this version of the DC Universe, combining the giant scope and bombast of Snyder’s films with the humor of Shazam and some of the proud weirdness and campiness of Birds of Prey. It’s big, silly and refreshing in a way that DC doesn’t often allow its tentpoles to be.
Its opening sequence, in particular, is a blast. Barry is called away from his morning calorie load to help Batman prevent a catastrophe at a Gotham City hospital. Muschietti has a lot of fun depicting Barry running at full speed across cities and slowing down time as he attempts to save a nurse, several babies and a therapy dog from a collapsing building. The giant stakes and teamwork between Barry, Batman, Alfred and [cameo redacted] feel less like fan baiting and more like they were ripped from the pages of a weekly comic. It’s a goofy but visually inventive sequence – never has a movie gained so much from slow motion shots of infants in peril – and it kicks the movie off with energy and its own quirky tone, a refreshing change of pace from the last movies Miller appeared in alongside Batman.
It’s worth calling out that Miller has had a troubled last few years, embroiled by arrests and allegations of abuse which should not be taken likely and will need to be seriously considered if the franchise continues. Personally, if the allegations are true, Warner Brothers should probably rethink continuing this series with its lead actor. But I also want to be fair and put it on the record that Miller, who’s given strong performances before (I named their work in The Perks of Being A Wallflower among my favorite performances of 2012), is quite good as Barry/Flash. They differentiate themselves well in the sequences where two Barrys share the screen, and there’s a nice mix of humor and heart that Miller brings.
Barry is a smart and snarky new hero just excited to play in the big leagues, and it could very easily feel derivative following two Shazam movies and umpteen Spider-Man adventures, movies fronted with similarly wide-eyed, quip-ready young heroes. But rather than make Barry lovable and fun, Miller understands how the character’s racing brain and earnestness can come off abrasive and off-putting. It’s the gravity of Barry’s life and the heartache he’s experienced that create empathy and depth to the character, and Miller does a good job conveying that emotion as well as how annoying it can be to be saddled with a Barry who’s never had to endure hardship and can’t stop tossing out quips.
The movie is strongest when it’s just a Flash story. Barry’s work to free his father and grapple with the hand life has dealt him is compelling, and I’d happily watch an entire film that let Barry deal with this while occasionally fighting crime, forgetting the multiversal shenanigans. The idea of whether Barry’s tragedy is essential to his character is a compelling one. Again, it’s another point that feels a bit repetitive just a few weeks after Across the Spider-Verse – which had a much more interesting take on this – but the movie still mostly makes it work.
Muschietti proved in the It films that he knew his way around set pieces (and his use of humor is much more successful here than it was in It: Chapter Two), and he has fun depicting Barry’s super speed as he runs across country and time slows around him, throwing off electric charges. It’s a depiction that feels similar to the Quicksilver sequences in the X-Men movies, but with a bit more abstract visualization. A fight sequence featuring the two Barrys taking on Zod’s army at the end is a lot of fun and puts the Raconteurs' “Salute Your Solution” to good use, although it should be noted that a mid-film fight in snowy Russia featuring Supergirl, Batman and the Flash is hampered again by poor CGI that makes the entire sequence feel pulled from an mid-00s PlayStation game.
Among fans of comic book movies, there’s been a lot of hand-wringing about The Flash. It’s been seen as the last potential savior for the DCEU. James Gunn has called it one of the greatest superhero movies ever made (I like Gunn, but it’s hard to trust the studio head telling you one of his movies is really good). Others have worried it will be a disaster and embarrassment due to its delays and the behavior of its lead.
In the end, it’s just another mid-tier superhero movie. It’s not going to change the genre or reignite the passions of those with superhero fatigue. But it’s also not a disaster. It’s funny and entertaining; it’s a good time, even if it’s not exactly a good movie. You’ve seen better, you’ve seen worse. Of all the superhero movies released in recent years, The Flash is one of them.