Movie recap and review: The Flash (2023)
Long-awaited film is a mixed bag, but has some bright spots
The much-delayed and much-discussed “The Flash” film finally made its way to theaters, and for fans who can put aside the offscreen issues, there’s quite a bit to like. But the film never quite gels into a complete success.
Ezra Miller plays Barry Allen, aka the Flash, who in the DC Universe films has been fighting crime and interdimensional bad guys with Batman (Ben Affleck), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), and the like. As “The Flash” starts, he’s called into action to help save the occupants of a collapsing hospital.
What works, at least early on: Miller’s quirky, neurodiverse portrayal of Barry Allen as a man who is habitually late despite being the fastest human on the planet. What doesn’t work, at least for me, is the CGI, which appears rubbery and distracting even before the Flash begins traveling back in time and into multiple dimensions.
As far as that goes – Barry discovers he can travel back in time. Since his mother was murdered and his father jailed for the crime, Barry does have a reason he’d like his past to be different. Despite warnings from Batman that it’s probably a bad idea, Barry zips into the past to save his mother’s life and prevent his father’s incarceration.
(If you’re an older comic-book reader that doesn’t remember this tragic turn to Barry’s backstory, you’re correct – it was added to the comics mythos in 2009, and was used as a central point in the recently concluded television series. But for readers in the 1960s and up, Barry’s parents were alive, and free of criminal charges.)
Pretty significant spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen the film as yet.
Barry uses his powers to try to go back in time, and seems to succeed in saving his mother. But afterward, he is pushed out of the “Chronobowl” he uses to interact with various times and timelines into a world after he’s made the change. There he meets an 18-year-old Barry Allen who has a living mother but as yet no superpowers.
Things seem to be going well – but it turns out the evil Kryptonian General Zod (Michael Shannon) is about to attack Earth, and Superman is nowhere to be found. Barry helps Barry 2 get superpowers, by taking him to the scene of his origin, but in so doing, Barry 1 loses his superpowers. Now, the non-powered and newly powered Flash must seek out help to stop Zod, leading them to Bruce Wayne. While this world doesn’t seem to have the other Justice League members around, there was at one time a Batman. Since Barry 1 knows his Bruce was Batman, he goes looking for this one and finds an older, retired Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton) who can still throw down with the best of them, despite having retired from crime fighting.
The Barrys explain their problem, and wonder how Bruce could be older – how could something have changed before the point in time Barry changed? Bruce explains that time travel is like spaghetti – you don’t just change the point in time forward, but everything mixes and interacts like a bowlful of spaghetti. (How he came to this knowledge, we don’t exactly know.)
Bruce isn’t particularly down with suiting up again and stopping Zod. Still, the Flashes use the Batcave anyway, to try to find Superman, and Bruce is eventually convinced to suit up again, in one of the film’s cooler moments.
Superman and the two Barrys track a Kryptonian signal to Siberia, where they attempt a rescue of who they think will be Kal-El, but who instead is a young woman. Turns out she’s Kara Zor-El (Sasha Calle), sent in a separate craft to keep an eye on baby Superman, but whose ship was derailed somehow. When she arrived on Earth, she was captured and has been held captive since. She’s Supergirl, and she’s now this Earth’s best chance at survival.
Supergirl helps Barry 1 regain his powers in a Frankenstein-ish scene, Barry 2 crafts a costume from an old Bat-suit, and the “new” Justice League is off to face Zod.
Still, no matter how the attack is varied, Batman and Supergirl die. The Flashes attempt multiple time-travel excursions to change the course of the battle, and they never do. Flash 1 eventually realizes this is a fixed point that can’t change. All the change is destroying pieces of the multiverse, which turns out to be all the filmed and not-quite-filmed entertainment of the past 75 years or so featuring DC characters.
Barry 1 then comes face to face with the dark speedster who pushed him out of the Chronobowl in the first place – and it’s an older Barry 2, driven mad by trying over and over again to change something that can’t be altered. As Dark Barry attempts to kill Barry 1, younger Barry 2 returns to block the lightning blast, giving his life to save himself – and at the same time destroying his future self.
The now only remaining Barry realizes that he can’t change a fixed point in time either, and goes back in time to change the shopping trip that accidentally resulted in his mother’s death. He gets to share a tearful goodbye, and, when leaving, realizes a change he can make that might make a difference to his father.
The much-discussed ending, which doesn’t make a ton of sense even in the context of the film, does have a hey-wow type cameo, but it leaves more questions than it answers – and given the new heads at DC, it’s unlikely they ever will be answered.
Overall, “The Flash” is a fun popcorn flick that has charming performances from Keaton and Calle, and I think a good performance from Miller at the center, though two quirky Flashes may be one or two too many for some. The fun of seeing Keaton on screen makes me sad that we won’t see what he brought to the role in “Batgirl,” and I assume, we are unlikely to see him in future DC projects, though I guess there’s no sure way of knowing.
I have mixed feelings about what this movie means going backward in the timeline and forward, not unlike the plate of spaghetti. But, if you can put that aside and enjoy the meal, there are some favorable bites to be had, even if in places it’s heavy on the cheese.