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 is one of my favourites. I will admit that the written character of eighteen-year-old Barry Allen was just awful. I was eighteen once, and I know I was not acting like a five-year-old. Remove that aspect of the movie, then add the cameos and the Super Girl and my favourite Batman, Michael Keaton, I was in a joyride which just seemed too good to end.

I like the idea of how they plan to make this movie a form of soft reboot to the DCEU movie world and stand as the reason for the now DCU movie world that is being run by James Gunn.

You can feel it in the first minutes that many hands worked on this script from the way the movie moved up and down, but the moment they introduced a third wheel into the mix, Michael Keaton’s Batman, the movie stabilized, and it was all fun from there on.

The plot is about Barry wanting to save his mother. In the comics, this created the flashpoint, and this movie plans to do the same. Barry saw that he could go back in time if he ran fast enough and decided to make a little change in what led to his father going to the shops and coming home to see his mother murdered. After he made that change, someone in the speed force pushed him out of the speed force on the day he got his powers.

He was now in the past and decides to go see his mother and father and ran into his eighteen-year-old self. After a long time convincing his eighteen-year-old self of what has happened, he was also able to convince him to get struck by lightning so that he can get his powers. The repercussion was he now losing his powers.

Now he is trapped in the past, and then the news hit with the presence of Zod coming to earth to destroy it. Now Barry and Barry went to look for Bruce Wayne (Batman) to help solve this huge problem, Barry seems to have caused a lot of changes to the world by changing the past. His Batman (Ben Affleck) was not the same as the Batman he is now seeing (Keaton). Also, it seems that this Batman has not heard of Superman, the one-person Barry knows can stop Zod.

Now they need to find Superman and hope that they all can come together to save earth and Barry can get back to trying to understand the damage he has caused and how he can fix it.

I really enjoyed this movie the moment things started to line up straight, and I do hope the new DCU, which springs from this, makes more sense and is more fun than the other movies before this one.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

 

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

 

 5/10

 

Starring the voices of

Shameik Moore

Hailee Steinfeld

Brian Tyree Henry

Luna Lauren Vélez

Jake Johnson

 

Directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson

 

The rating for this movie is high, up there with many thinking it is the best thing since sliced bread. I do not think so. I got tired halfway with the idea of I have seen all these before, maybe not in the spider-man form, but another form of time-traveling movies and multiverse situations. The, I want everything to remain the way it always has mindset, and I am ready to switch side from being a good guy to one who is ready to do anything to stop another good guy from doing what feels right, just felt like a reused idea. It was like I was watching all form of superhero or good guys against his own kind movies at once. There is always the one who believes their own path will be different, so they will go up against the norm. Then there are always the others, some picking sides with the one who wants everything to be as it is and the others who just want to see the other guy try. Heroes against heroes is not something new, neither is heroes against the bad guys, but if that was the case using the same plots we are used to, I will dislike it too. I love when movies do some spin to what we know, not just playing the same game we all know how it ends.

This multiverse thing can be annoying, but that is the age we are in now. Both DC and Marvel are in the multiverse craze, and I, for one, feel like I have seen it all before. So, when people go crazy about the idea of someone thinking they can travel to another dimension and be the father replacement of himself when the he in that dimension dies, I sighed.

That said, the animation in this movie is just amazing, as you would expect. The way they interwove all the spider-men from many universes together is something I always look forward to seeing.

The animation story starts with how Gwen Stacy, from the first movie, joined the whole multiverse team. Then we delve into the new villain, which is hunting Miles Monroe. I call him spots, and he can move about by creating portholes. He wants to be stronger and has in mind to make Mile’s life a living hell in retaliation for his situation, which he believes is all Mile’s fault.

Gwen comes back to Miles, but we soon see that she was on a mission to make sure that the things set in line do not fail and everything concerning the Spider-Men of the many spider-verse remain intact.

The moment Miles hears the plan of all these Spider-verse variants for his future, he revolts and tries to break free to save himself and family from a future of hurt.

Elemental (2023)

 

Elemental (2023)

 

6/10

 

Starring the voices of

Leah Lewis

Mamoudou Athie

Ronnie del Carmen

Shila Ommi

 

Directed by Peter Sohn

 

It is easy to see why this movie will not break the bank in comparison to other Pixar movies. Watching it myself, and I was feeling a huge disconnect between me and the characters. The animation is the same top-notch you will expect from Pixar, but the story is so boring at the start. I was twenty minutes in, and the whole inability to control her temper (Ember) and the chasing of the official had me yawning.

The animation is Pixar’s twenty-seventh, and it is about a world which inhabits anthropomorphic elements of nature. This romantic comedy is about two crossed elements, water and fire, falling in love. They meet in a convenience store owned by Mr Lumen, a fire element. He runs the store with his daughter Ember, while his wife reads the future for lovers in their apartment. The family has one issue, Ember struggles to keep her emotions in check, and very early on we see her flare up when people become increasingly annoying.

How did the two meets?

Well, Wade a water element city inspector gets mistakenly sucked into their plumbing and notes many infractions which can lead to the store being shut down.

It was the chase and the trying to save their store that led to the connection with the two characters, one who has issues keeping his tears from falling all the time and the other who has issues keeping her anger from flaming up. The Lumen’s store is getting flooded, and the source of this flood is unknown, Wade and Ember go above the city looking for the source, so they can save the Lumen’s shop from being shut down. The movie then flipped into a full-blown romance thing where we see these two fall in love and try to make it work, while hiding from the Papa and Mama Lumen.

The switch to romance is where I start to wonder how this movie will be very appealing to children that they will want to see this again. There is a part of knowing your audience that this movie fails to nail down. Is this movie for children to enjoy the animations, or for adults to see how two people not meant to have any form of attraction to one another fall in love.

I think since the time the idea of this movie was conceived, a lot has changed and studios need to cut the expense of movies or go with the time. The amount of blockbuster movies coming out week in, week out is too much. So, movies like this will not make it if there is nothing extremely catchy that will pull the right audience to go see it again and again. The time of making money because the movie is a Pixar animation has come and gone.