Writers: Christina Hodson. Joby Harold / Story by: Harold, John Francis Daly, Johnathan Goldstein Director: Andy Muschetti / Stars: Ezra Miller, Michael Keaton, Sasha Calle, Kiersey Clemons, Ron Livingston, Michael Shannon / Runtime: 2 Hrs, 24 Mins / Released by: Warner Bros. / Released: 16th June 2023
Review by: Paul Dunne
WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE FILM!
The Pitch: Worlds collide when the Flash uses his superpowers to travel back in time to change the events of the past. However, when his attempt to save his family inadvertently alters the future, he becomes trapped in a reality in which General Zod has returned, threatening annihilation. With no other superheroes to turn to, the Flash looks to coax a very different Batman out of retirement and rescue an imprisoned Kryptonian -- albeit not the one he's looking for.
The DC films slate has been something of a pot-luck, hit-and-miss affair for a while now. Christopher Nolan led the charge back in 2005 when the MCU was just a nascent dream barely beginning to coalesce. He along with David Goyer and Johnathan Nolan, created a realism-based, grounded, emotionally complex, and narratively gripping series of films in The Dark Knight Trilogy, then got out whilst the going was good. Since Nolan's departure, we've had Zack Snyder's tenure, which led to Man of Steel, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, The Justice League (x2), Shazam (x2), Black Adam, and now this. The movies have suffered from adopting the Snyder look, if not the tone. Shazam stood out because a sense of humour was inherent in a film about children, and there is much comedy to be had here.
However, because that comedy and any potential it offers is placed in the hands of Muschetti, one of the least subtle directors working today, it is all soon squandered and falls into the trap of making its central character as irritating as possible in order to generate laughs. When faced with his multiversal counterpart, Miller's Barry Allen even realises how annoying he is, and is forced to balance it out by suppressing some of his own traits. Too late, though. The damage is done. Part of the problem is that this film comes hot on the heels of Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, a film that handles the multiverse concepts far better. And that it fails to break free of the feel of Snyder's films, even going so far as to incorporate General Zod's attack on Metropolis and Planet Earth from Man of Steel as a central plot point. This seems to be something of an obsession for the DC films as it's featured in nearly every one of them since MOS. It's time for new threats.
Still, the film does attempt to offer something new (albeit that we've seen in quite a few other films in the last eighteen months). Barry becomes the architect of the world's destruction when he realises he can travel back in time and makes the fateful decision to use that ability to head back to the day his mother was killed, thus negating his father's wrongful incarceration for the crime and more importantly, his mother's death. He achieves this, but in doing so lands himself in an alternate timeline, one a few years short of his adventures with the Justice League. In an attempt to return the narrative to his own, Barry enlists the help of Batman. But the Bruce Wayne of this timeline is not the grizzled, muscled, suave hero that Barry has come to know. Instead, he and his doppelganger are greeted by an aging, resentful, somewhat more lithe Batman as seen in Tim Burton's films.
When General Zod launches his attack on the Earth, Barry, Brucey and Barry must travel to Russia in search of a being they believe to be the captured Kal-El, Superman. But before you can say 'let me teach you the Superman', we discover that it is in fact Supergirl that has been captured and tortured by the Russians. In a way, this becomes the film's most entertaining and interesting sequence, riffing as it does on Superman: Red Son. But this too adds to the film's problems. There are two much better movies unexplored in this, one with a Russian Supergirl, the other being a potentially great comedy as the two Barry's attempt to conceal the arrival of one of them from the other's doting parents, and leaving the bombastic superhero hijinks to the last quarter, Sadly, neither of these fails to materialise and we're left with a loud, surface level work that fails to explore all the ideas it generates.
There are some elements that really work: Barry's relationship with Ben Affleck’s Bruce Wayne is nicely played. Their reaction to being in the presence of a literal goddess in Wonder Woman offers a nice moment of humanity. Bruce fulfills the father role as Barry awaits the release of his actual dad. The idea that Barry Allen is always late for work is a nice touch. But overall, I was left with a feeling of emptiness, like Barry, needing calories to keep going, but not finding any. Keaton plays his Bruce Wayne gamely and after Miller's real-life shenanigans, will prove the main draw for many. Likewise, Sasha Calle plays well with what she is given, but I do feel for talented writers like Hodson, who seems forced to stuff so many characters and beats in to satisfy potential audience demands, that focus on the real heart is lost. Michael Shannon in particular reeks of contractual obligation and has expressed his dissatisfaction and being in the role of Zod once more. By the end, when the film goes for full cameo glory, you get the sense that once again, you're stuck not watching an original film based on popular characters, but instead a film about other films. The biggest cheers came towards the film's end and they were for an actor whose film was hated, another whose been dead for twenty years, and another actor in a role he never played, in a film that never was, battling a giant spider, a concept that was universally loathed. And remember, this is the stuff people were cheering. I find myself wishing, once again, that DC would shake off the Snyderverse and hope that James Gunn's DCEU will prove more emotionally substantive and technically competent. Better worlds await us where the fastest man alive isn't an also-ran.
The Flash is at cinemas now.
