The Flash

Grade: B-

I held out hope that The Flash would be the best action superhero movie of at least the last decade. It almost happened. It’s ultimately a weird mixed bag. After a thoroughly enjoyable first half, it gets a few unnecessary subplots piled on, followed by an extended overblown showdown, then circles back to its promising opening premise at the end. That middle part, though.

Director Andy Muschietti (the 2017 and 2019 It movies) begins the film very well, with a wonderful first act. Ezra Miller as Barry Allen/The Flash plays two roles, and convincingly spends a large chunk of the movie having dialogue with himself, but more on that in a minute. His father – wrongfully convicted for the murder of Barry’s mother, which happened while he wasn’t home – is about to have yet another court date. Barry has just lucked into a way to go back in time. In the timeline we begin the movie in, Bruce Wayne/Batman is played by Ben Affleck, who cautions Barry about the perils of time travel, even if you think you’re doing good, or trying to undo something bad.

Barry goes back in time to when he was a child, and does what he has to do so his dad never had to leave the house that day. On his way back to his home time, he doesn’t quite make it, and unwittingly drops in on a timeline where he is 18, and his mom is alive and well. It’s very easy to forget that it’s Ezra Miller playing both teenage Barry and “our” Barry. His chemistry with himself is one of The Flash’s delights.

Science fiction stories have warned us about the changes that can occur even if we make just the smallest adjustment in our time-traveling. There are amusing differences in this new timeline. Looney Tunes is spelled “Toons,” Eric Stoltz played Marty McFly in Back to the Future, Michael J. Fox is “that guy from Footloose,” and Kevin Bacon played Maverick “with the volleyball and the gay guys in the planes.” They find Bruce Wayne, here played by Michael Keaton. It doesn’t exactly take Sherlock Holmes to deduce what other former Batmans/Supermans will turn up for a cameo, whether it be real or digital.

This is all well and good, until the Superman/General Zod subplot drops in, and the screenplay factory goes on autopilot. The climax is boring whenever it’s not confusing, and business as usual for the genre – the kind of thing that usually keeps me away from these films. It almost feels like a different movie entirely, until thankfully, we come back around to the beginning, where there’s notes of effective dramatic poignancy. At its best, The Flash has wit, imagination, and looks great. It’s too bad all that pesky action gets in the way.

Grade: B-