The Flash (2023)

The Flash (2023)

7/10

Starring

Ezra Miller

Sasha Calle

Michael Shannon

Michael Keaton

 

Directed by Andy Muschietti

 

This is the thirteenth movie in the DCEU, and it’s one of my favorites. I’ll admit, though, the way they wrote eighteen-year-old Barry Allen was awful. I was eighteen once, and I know I didn’t act like a five-year-old. That aside, with the cameos, Supergirl, and my favorite Batman, Michael Keaton, the movie was a joyride that felt too good to end.

I like how they’ve used this movie as a soft reboot for the DCEU, setting up the new DCU now overseen by James Gunn.

From the first few minutes, you can tell many hands worked on this script, with the way the movie moves up and down. But once Michael Keaton’s Batman entered the mix, everything stabilized, and the fun began.

The plot centers on Barry’s desire to save his mother. In the comics, this created the Flashpoint storyline, and the movie takes a similar approach. Barry discovers he can go back in time if he runs fast enough, so he decides to make a small change to prevent his father from going to the shops and returning to find his mother murdered. After he makes the change, someone in the Speed Force pushes him out on the day he got his powers.

Now in the past, Barry decides to visit his parents and runs into his eighteen-year-old self. After much effort convincing his younger self of what happened, he persuades him to get struck by lightning to gain his powers. The consequence, however, is that Barry loses his own powers.

Trapped in the past, he learns that Zod has arrived on Earth to destroy it. Barry’s actions seem to have caused significant changes to the world. He seeks help from Bruce Wayne (Batman), but this Batman (Keaton) isn’t the same as his original Batman (Ben Affleck). To make things worse, this Batman hasn’t even heard of Superman—the one person Barry knows can stop Zod.

Now they need to find Superman and hope they can come together to save Earth, while Barry works to understand and fix the damage he’s caused.

You will like a world where there is no Superman and Batman himself seems lost to the fact that he is supposed to be connected to someone like that.

I really enjoyed this movie once the story started to fall into place. I hope the new DCU that emerges from this is more coherent and fun than the earlier films.