the flash

To quote Miles Morales - “All right, let’s do this one last time.” 

We are living in particularly unsubtle times. Cultural discourse is amplified by social media and terminally online fandom to the point that virtually every release is either hailed as a breathless masterpiece or furiously denounced as both a catastrophe and a personal affront. There’s rarely a middle ground - measured critical discussion has been largely drowned out by the screeching din.

The above paragraph was originally written in regards to Across the Spider-Verse all of two weeks ago, but turns out it’s even more applicable to The Flash, which - more than any comic book movie in recent memory - has divided its audience like the Red Sea… driving them towards fanatically opposite extremes (it would seem one man’s joyous superhero valentine is another man’s cinematic abortion). No exceptions. Social media has well and truly become the graveyard of nuance.

It should come as absolutely no surprise that The Flash, in truth, is neither amazing nor atrocious, astounding nor abominable. It’s admittedly a wonky mess of a movie, filled with half-baked comic book logic and sludgy CGI… but also moments of great visual wit and fan service that - while pandering (and at times borderline ghoulish) - manages a solid nostalgic kick. However, the DCEU has become so fractured and tonally at odds with itself (it’s like the complete inverse of Marvel’s well-oiled machine, which results in occasional bursts of creative daring - such as Zack Snyder’s self-indulgent but opulently Wagnerian four-hour version of Justice League - but more often feels like the shared-universe equivalent of careening across an ice slick), it’s hard to tell how much of anything fits together at this point; it’s probably just as well that James Gunn and Peter Safaran are clearing the decks and starting fresh.

The Flash would appear to be DC’s introductory foray into the wonderful (and definitely not exhaustingly oversaturated) world of multiverses, but its vibe is arguably more akin to Back to the Future. Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) discovers that if he runs fast enough, he can actually access the slipstream of time… and although Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck, who’s never quite felt interesting enough in the role to shoulder his own Batman franchise, but remains a sturdy supporting player) warns him not to meddle, Barry can’t help stepping into the past and making one minor tweak that’ll hopefully prevent his Mom’s murder (and, by extension, his Dad taking the fall for the crime). Unfortunately, he gets knocked into an alternate timeline - one in which his parents are indeed still happily married, but where he also finds a slightly younger and considerably more callow Barry to contend with.

To make matters worse, General Zod (Michael Shannon, gamely accepting his paycheck) also arrives, leading Barry to seek out Batman and Superman… but instead discovering a much older and more grizzled Bruce Wayne (played by - yes - Michael Keaton) and Kal-El’s cousin Kara (Sasha Calle), who’s imprisoned in a Russian black-ops facility. Keaton, not surprisingly, is the best thing about the movie - the effortless ease with which he steps back into the cape-and-cowl thirty years later, and the credibility he musters as an action hero at age 71, are astonishing (as an added bonus, Danny Elfman’s Batman theme still slays). Calle isn’t really given a whole lot to work with, character-wise… but she looks mighty striking on-screen in Superman’s iconic colors. Her potential is considerable; it would be a shame if her performance ends up as just a one-off in the role.​

Ezra Miller isn’t a particularly easy person to root for, frankly, given their litany of (largely repugnant) personal issues… but objective credit where credit is due - they’re quite good in the title role (Miller was blessed with a spark of comedic quicksilver; unlike someone such as Dane DeHaan, they’ve proven well-equipped to evolve beyond the brooding emo persona of their early roles). Miller’s dual (and dueling) Barrys pay comedic dividends in what is frequently a very funny movie (The Flash dramatically assumes his runner’s pose as the main title starts to materialize on-screen - only to be interrupted by a gaggle of teen fangirls)… but too much of the comic-book spectacle sputters into an artificial CGI maelstrom (an early sequence in which Barry must rescue a dozen falling babies from a collapsing hospital wing (and refuel mid-rescue) is solid conceptually - even if X-Men technically did it first - but the execution is visually off-putting - borderline grotesque even). The film's thematic carpeting, dedicated to the complex pitfalls of time travel, has already been worn to the fibers for anyone remotely “Flash fluent” as far as the comics or the long-running CW series are concerned. The Flash ends with an admittedly inspired gag, but one that leaves the DCEU in even greater disarray… it’s kind of a relief that we don’t have to worry about the process of disentangling this spaghetti-like mess of plot threads, to be perfectly honest. Life's too short to stew over this many multiverses.