The Flash Doesn’t Match The Hype, But Parts Get Close

Is The Flash as good as the hype posted by Warner Bros. Discovery and DC executives on their various social media platforms? No. Is it much better than I assumed it would be, disregarding all of that hype? Yes. Is every second of it colored by the awareness of Ezra Miller’s many very public problems that are as of yet are unresolved? Not every second, but enough of them that it never fully leaves you, even in the most exciting, fanfiction fulfilling moments (and boy are there a lot of them).

One thing there won’t be a lot of (or any, actually) are spoilers in the review, which starts in earnest below. Assuming you’ve seen the trailers and know who is in the movie. (Ed. Note: I’m leaving the initial review up, but at the end I change my overall score and explain why, after ruminating on the movie for a day.)

Let’s address that elephant in the room right away. Miller, who plays two versions of Barry Allen, is really good in this. His emotional range harkens back to his breakout role as the very troubled Credence in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. There were moments in The Flash when I teared up for Barry as played by Miller. But as soon as those moments passed, I would harken back to the few times early on in the movie when the writers and director made it clear they knew about Miller’s legal problems too and told us with very metatextual lines that they were acknowledging it.

I can’t review the movie without noting that, while Miller has allegedly been serious about getting help and being in therapy, they have said nothing about any of their alleged transgressions — in particular, no apologies. (Edit: In response to valid criticisms online about referencing the problems without detailing them, I am including this recent link to a Vulture article. Even listing them as bullet points would double the size of this review.) I get that the studio likely didn’t want Miller to make any statement of any kind prior to the movie’s release, but that means viewers like me are forced to watch what could be one of the best DC movies made under the previous WB regime while wondering if the people the movie’s star has hurt have received any kind of an apology or other closure.

That said, I think I can divorce my opinion of The Flash from the news about Miller. To that end, it’s surprisingly good.

The plot is a creative melding of the Flashpoint comic books and the previous movies in the Snyderverse. The story, from writers Joby Harold and Christina Hodson, is solid, engaging and mostly makes sense. Sure there are a couple of moments in the gigantic final battle scene (not a spoiler – it’s a superhero action movie so of course there is a gigantic final battle scene) where I wondered why someone did something that seemed to make no sense, but eventually I assumed they were editing goofs, because they would have made sense a few minutes further into the action.

Harold is having a stellar 2023, being a writer of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (see our review here). Hodson continues her excellent work shown in Bumblebee and Birds of Prey. And probably Batgirl, not that we will ever know. The dialogue in The Flash is mostly hits with a few misses. I was often surprised at the lack of the MCU (I know, different studio) trademark of undercutting an emotional moment with a quip, particularly because that is how Barry was written in his biggest role to date, in Justice League. Nor does the movie take those serious moments and force us to wallow in them, a la Zack Snyder. In the hands of director Andy Muschietti, the action, the pathos, even the humor, are allowed to breathe for (mostly) just the right amount of time.

Boston’s own Sasha Calle as Kara Zor-El is the surprise standout in the cast. She eschews every girly element we’ve come to associate with Supergirl in favor of someone who is tough as nails, serious as cancer, and sexy as all get out, while not resorting to a miniskirt or boob window (not that I object to either of those things, but man, this new costume rocks). Calle makes you feel the pain of the loss of Krypton in a couple of silent looks, more than every line of dialogue Henry Cavill’s Superman ever delivered on the subject, combined.

Both Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck make subtle but worthwhile changes to how they approach playing Bruce Wayne/Batman, and it pays off. I’ve always been a fan of Batffleck, but I wish we were going to get a solo Batman movie with this latest version of him. They are in too much of the movie to be called Easter eggs, but boy is The Flash loaded with a bunch of Easter eggs, and cameos. If the movie was terrible, I would recommend people wait until it comes out on digital rental and watch it just for those Easter eggs. Luckily, The Flash is quite good.

Aside from the already mentioned editing (I assume) issues, the only other thing I had a problem with is the spotty CG, particularly in the opening large action set piece. For a movie that has been delayed by the pandemic, delayed by corporate takeovers, rewritten, re-shot, and who knows what else slowed it down, to not have enough time to make the CG look perfect doesn’t make any sense.

I really hope that now that The Flash is in theaters, Miller makes some public statements and private apologies about and for his actions. And sooner rather than later.

That aside, I give The Flash (DC Entertainment; PG-13; 2 hrs, 24 mins) an 8 a 6 out of 10.

(Edit: After thinking about the movie for a day, and having the nostalgia bait Easter eggs fade, I’ve dropped my score by two whole points, for mainly two reasons. First, some action in the denouement contradicts the most fundamental aspect of how the ill-defined time travel, alternate universe, multiverse stuff works. I’m fine with that definition being looser than Doctor Who’s “wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff” hand-waving, but throwing the one consistent element out at the end for feel-good points is poor writing. Second, the basic message of the film is something done by at least half of the MCU shows or movies from the past three years. But how The Flash gets that message across is just objectively terrible. Not from a quality standpoint, but from a human one.)

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