'The Flash' film review: Poignant, muddled but enjoyable sprint across the DC universe
The action adventure 'The Flash' (in theaters June 16) is a celebration of all things DC that will delight fanboys.
In short: Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) travels back in time to prevent his mother's death - which leads to unintended consequences for the entire world. Sasha Calle, Ron Livingston, Maribel Verdú, Michael Shannon and Michael Keaton also star.
As usual, this will be a spoiler-free review and will not discuss any of the numerous fun moments or cameos. Suffice it to say, 'The Flash' is merely the latest multiverse-based flick that dabbles into the many alternate versions of beloved characters. While all these little moments are a lot of fun, they inflate the runtime and distract from the film's actual premise: a character given the opportunity to change the past, without carefully considering all the implications or risks.
The thematic core of grief and trauma form the movie's strongest moments. Barry Allen essentially grew up in the world as an orphan after his father was imprisoned for the murder of his mother years ago. But when the young and impulsive superhero realizes he can travel through time, Barry cannot resist the temptation of possibly saving both his mother and his father. 'The Flash' is at its best when Barry is forced to grapple with what he can do and what he should do.
'The Flash' has three gears: Barry's attempts to save his parents, Barry trying to save the world and Barry being overwhelmed by the multiverse. While the first act and last scenes of 'The Flash' are firmly rooted in Barry struggling to make everything right, all that gets thrown out the window in the second and third acts - which basically just reduce 'The Flash' to yet another 'save the world and beat up some bad guy' comic book flick. Virtually the only thing that keeps this chunk of the flick afloat is the inclusion of an iconic, alternate version of Bruce Wayne.
Despite the movie's almost two-and-a-half hour runtime, Sasha Calle's Kara Zor-El doesn't get the screentime her character needs to flesh out this tragic take on Supergirl. Although the classic story of Kal-El arriving on Earth and being raised by two loving parents created Superman, 'The Flash' finds Kara Zor-El living a completely differently fate when she arrived on Earth. But aside from a couple of intriguing lines in the script, indicating that she is much more skeptical of humanity, Kara Zor-El is denied much character growth or arch - she simply becomes Supergirl and does what everyone expects Supergirl to do. This script's casual disregard for her potential character depth just reduces Kara Zor-El ... to essentially a Kryptonian McGuffin powered by Earth's yellow Sun.
As mentioned earlier, one of the few gears 'The Flash' has is "whoa multiverse" - and the best encapsulation of this is Michael Shannon reprising his role as General Zod from 'Man of Steel.' It's patently obvious Zod was just thrown into 'The Flash' because his character is a known threat and it's fun to revisit familiar faces - however, Zod has literally no character arch here. He's simply an angry Kryptonian who will destroy Earth - at least in 'Man of Steel' Zod had some personality. This is almost the perfect summation of how 'The Flash' treats the multiverse: nearly empty fan service to entertain fanboys that adds virtually no depth or significance to the plot.
Final verdict: 'The Flash' is too tickled by its own self-reverence that its compelling, dramatic core is overshadowed by a pile of references to nearly 100 years of DC characters in film and television.
Score: 3/5
'The Flash' opens in theaters nationwide on June 16. This comic book adventure has a runtime of 144 minutes and is rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, some strong language and partial nudity.
