The Flash has the capacity to make you embarrassed to like superheroes or superhero comics.
Capping off a long development process, the film arrives in theaters nine years after Ezra Miller was first announced as the big screen Barry Allen. Taking its cues from the Flashpoint event miniseries, a now-seasoned Flash discovers he can travel through time and uses this ability to save his parents (Maribel Verdú and Ron Livingston) from their tragedies. But his dash into time also leads him smack into the middle of the DC Multiverse, a place both wondrous and exhausting. While it is one of the great literary conventions DC Comics popularized in the 1960s, it also leaves us wishing — sometimes, anyway — that “The Flash of Two Worlds” had never never published.
While Miller’s headline-grabbing misadventures do the film no favors, the actor’s performance and the take on Barry Allen decided back in 2014 prove to undo any goodwill the presence of actors like Michael Keaton, Sasha Calle, or any number of special cameos bring to the proceedings. As a weird manchild who we’re constantly told has no friends (except, potentially, Ben Affleck‘s Batman), Miller is wholly wrong for the part and the vision of the character betrays a deep misunderstanding of The Flash seemingly no one involved in the film’s long development ever sought to correct.
Now, we realize Barry, as a character, is a tough thing to pull off as his original comic book counterpart was, essentially, lacking in truly defining characteristics. He could be funny, he loved his wife, and he was willing to give his all to save creation itself. But, for nearly as long as he lived and breathed in the pages of Flash and Justice League of America comics, he was a more valuable as a dead character his successor, Wally West, both looked up to and was afraid to surpass.
No character stays dead in comics, so Barry’s return in 2008’s Final Crisis required something to make him a more distinct persona as his compatriots, like Hal Jordan and Aquaman, all received major character development in the 20+ years since his demise in Crisis on Infinite Earths. In 2009’s The Flash: Rebirth, writer Geoff Johns added something the film now tells us is a fixed point in time: the death of his mother Nora. It’s backstory that made Barry less jovial than he was in the Silver and Bronze Ages, and it was also the beginning of a modern and more complex Barry. It’s success depends entirely on how much you enjoy Johns’ writing or his take on the Silver Age DC heroes or whether you appreciate how that plot thread led directly to Flashpoint.
The producers of The Flash television series solved the problem of their title character’s personality by grafting a lot of Wally’s 1990’s personality on to their Barry (Grant Gustin). The result is a character a lot of fans have grown to love even if he leaned a little too hard into a guilt complex.
But Miller’s Barry, debuting in the theatrical version of Justice League, stemmed from the notion that the character should be the most junior member of the team and composed of equal amounts Peter Parker pastiche and pure obnoxiousness.
Despite The Flash setting up its title hero as an established superhero in the opening moments, Miller’s Barry continues to act as though he just learned how to use his powers. That disconnect permeates the entire film — even in the face of dialogue and action indicating he is at least somewhat competent — and gets amplified when Barry encounters another version of himself (also played by Miller), who is a few years younger and, somehow, exponentially more immature.
At one point, the older Flash almost has the realization that he is really that annoying, but the film runs by this potentially positive bit of character growth to keep Miller’s take on the character in stasis. The Barry who exits the film is not appreciably changed by his adventure bar a willingness to except the advances of Iris West (Kiersey Clemons), a character who appears only because, well, Iris was in the comics. She also makes it clear the film takes place in the same reality as Zack Snyder’s Justice League, so Syndercut fans can at least take some solace in knowing the canonicity of that film now supersedes the one released to theaters.
The core problem for this reviewer: there is just no getting around the fact that the star was woefully miscast and the vision for the character is criminally ill-conceived. If these two primary elements are not as much of a problem for you, The Flash may be a more enjoyable experience.
Things that do work in the film include the other cast members, several of the surprise cameos (not counting the ghoulish ones), and the visual flair of director Andy Muschietti. Even in its darkest moments, The Flash is a brighter film than Miller’s previous DC outings. The colorfulness and lighting is appreciated even in moments when the characters are in a wide, nearly featureless desert. The Flash suit is also a vast improvement over its predecessors. Additionally, Muschietti and his team try to make the tricks the Flashes can do with their speed unique and compelling. Unfortunately, a number of rough visual effects hamper the look of the film and compound the unpleasantness surrounding Barry. Also, the narrative is suffused with a laundry list of corporate needs and mandates that made the theatrical Justice League feel like a film no one really wanted to make.
Sadly, that overriding sensation continues to give the impression that Warner Bros. Pictures is embarrassed to make DC movies other than those featuring Batman — and that’s considering there are two Batmen in The Flash!
We’ll admit Affleck does a pretty decent job here in a role we’re not sure he ever felt comfortable taking. That discomfort actually helps his scenes as he both realizes Barry counts him as his only friend and tries to discourage the younger man from trying to undo his past. While the actor always looked good in the Batsuit, he finally felt more natural in it and as fashionable Bruce Wayne than he did when taking direction from Snyder or Joss Whedon.
The real Batman of the piece, though, is Keaton. He is just exceptional in and out of the cowl with the dry wit that made sense for his Dark Knight Crusader in the two Tim Burton Batman films. He brings a lot of that back for The Flash with one moment, in which he smiles into a mirror, as a particular highlight. While his return is the film’s most prominent trade on the goodwill and nostalgia for DC movies, Keaton never feels compromised, even when he quote lines from that film.
We also want to praise Calle for her all-to-brief time as Kara Zor-El. Clearly using the Kal-El of Flashpoint as a starting marker, her Kara is fierce, haunted, and looking for something to believe in. While not the classic Supergirl, it feels right for the universe Barry slips into and, frankly, we would’ve liked to see more of her in the part. But as DC and Warner Bros. shift at the same pace as the Multiverse, we doubt Calle will ever fly again.
And that’s the overall feeling one is left with when walking away from The Flash, a sense of defeat so palpable, it’s enough to make us seriously reconsider watching Blue Beetle or Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom in the next sixth months. Despite constant promises that the DC film universe is finally headed in the right direction, The Flash only conveys that no one involved even knows how to read a compass, let alone find a positive trajectory. While not the worst film in the current DC cycle, it is a low-light that creates little confidence for the studio’s future endeavors.
The Flash is now in theaters.
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