DC’s The Flash: trippy tearjerker of a spectacle. Now what?
Spoiler alert. Be warned.
Comic book aficionados and followers of the Arrowverse shows already know the story: CSI Barry Allen gets hit by lightning, develops speed powers, discovers time travel, and decides to alter his past and save his mom from dying; shit happens. We’ve seen scenarios like this play out in various TV shows and films, and time travel shenanigans are always cool, but does it mean anything for the viewer?
DC’s The Flash added heart to this premise, and a lot of it is due to the performance of the controversial Ezra Miller, who got embroiled in a series of scandals in the past year, threatening his status in the DCEU. While his interpretation of Barry as quirky, introverted, and neurotic was far from the comics (Barry Allen is nerdy, yes, but in classic portrayals is much closer to CSI’s Gil Grissom than The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper), he worked as a youthful foil for the Justice League characters in their team-up film. But wouldn’t he be grating on his own?
Thankfully…no. Miller’s Post-JL Barry is more seasoned, more knowledgeable, still neurotic but definitely joyful to watch. When he travels through time to fix his past, it’s when he meets his younger self that the movie addresses the question: he is! Or was. Barry himself comments on it in a self-aware line (one of many self-aware fan winks in the movie). Miller also does a good job of differentiating 2013 Barry (an idiot, basically) from 2023 Barry.
But how the movie sets up his mommy (played by Y Tu Mama Tambien actor Maribel Verdú!) issues was very intimate and real that for a brief flash (ha!) you forget this was a superhero movie. The sci-fi hijinks interwoven in the family drama can remind you of how Back to the Future–something constantly referenced in the movie–was approached: a family drama wrapped in fantastical dressing.
But this is still a superhero movie, so of course the stakes have to be elevated. Enter the Batman, but not the earlier one (Ben Affleck) seen in the movie. It’s the Michael Keaton one from 1989. Hear the fans scream, but wouldn’t they have been louder if no one knew it was happening? Look at what Marvel did with Spider-Man: No Way Home. But of course no one would have seen the movie, given the lead actor’s real-world issues.
Wait: if Barry Allen changed time from a certain point onwards, why is the point beyond that affected as well? Why is there a different Bruce Wayne? The movie answers this with a brilliant metaphor involving spaghetti, which Keaton’s Bruce Wayne explains in detail. Timelines, intersections, parallels, and all that. Multiverse!
But hardcore DC fans know that Keaton was actually explaining Hypertime, and not the Multiverse. Similar, but very, very different.
The third act is unfortunately very typical of recent superhero fare: escalation, insanity, everything but the kitchen sink. Will our hero survive? And unfortunately that has been a big sore point in recent DC and Marvel releases. ‘The Flash’ throws a bone to the fans by the ultimate comic-book fanservice: cameos! CG Christopher Reeve! Helen Slater! George Reeves! Even Nicholas Cage’s aborted Superman appears (battling a giant spider! Hello Kevin Smith!). Oh look, a helmeted speedster! And…wait…is that The Flash villain from the TV show played Teddy Sears, and not Grant Gustin’s Flash? An odd choice of a cameo. Considering they CG-ed most of the actors there, how hard would a CG Grant Gustin be?
Oh, the CG
Speaking of the CG, in the preview screenings Andy Muschietti issued a disclaimer: the CG isn’t finished. In the final screenings, the CG looked…the same. The Chronobowl sequence generally had clever interpretations of timelines-inside-multiple-worlds, but the CG renderings of the actors in them looked unfinished. The argument that “it’s Barry’s point of view” does not fly and feels like after-the-fact justification on behalf of the filmmaker (why make them almost realistic, only not quite?).
Having said that, the film does good in showing time-dilation effects from the point of view of someone breaking the laws of physics.
Landing the ending
The third act tries to resolve its insurmountable problems by leaning hard into the time travel concept: do it over and over again (a la Edge of Tomorrow). Thankfully the film shows the limits of repeating an already-disastrous act. By the time everything settles and Barry Allen knows what he has to do, it goes back to the intimate moments of the first act. The viewer is tired of the spectacle, after all. And this is where the film becomes most touching. The idea itself has been explored in its counterpart TV show, and the resolution here is as sad.
But wait, there’s more. Turns out Barry caused another small change that rippled through time, changing his Batman once again, but this time it’s…George Clooney.
What now, DC?
The film officially signals the end of the SnyderVerse, or even its variant Whedon timeline (the current canon). The new James Gunn-led DC Studios is using the movie’s inherent premise to clean house in preparation for the new canon. According to James Gunn, the upcoming Blue Beetle is set in the new timeline. It’s still up in the air which timeline the upcoming Aquaman 2 happens.
Let’s just hope viewers are still receptive by the time Superman: Legacy rolls around. The Man of Steel deserves it.
