The Flash

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Let me open this one with the fact that when it comes to DC Comics, I am generally clueless about things. I am, and always have been a Marvel guy, who enjoyed his Spider-Man and X-Men. The only real exception for DC I made was for Batman, who I've enjoyed since the Adam West show was on in syndication in the 80s. And as for the 1989 movie? Well, let's just say I remember the hype. I was there for it, and it was huge. Ever since then, Keaton always has been my favourite as far as someone who can fill both Batman and Bruce Wayne's shoes, equally.

Of course, "Who is the best Batman?" is an argument as old as the 80s themselves, and the correct answer is, of course, Kevin Conroy... But as far as the live-action movies go, let's face it, it's a very split audience. So, I should admit that I have a total bias toward Michael Keaton playing Bruce/Batman going into this, and may be guilty of eating up the fan service he delivered here. I wish the trailers didn't show so much of him, but how else were they gonna get butts in seats?... Which they still actually failed to do, probably thanks to Ezra Miller being kinda frowned upon these days. This actually makes this review a tad awkward, as I try to be one who separates the art from the artist. More on this in a bit.

Getting to the plot of this whole thing, we hit the ground running with a quick action sequence involving several members of the now-established Justice League; namely, Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck), Barry Allen/The Flash (Ezra Miller) and Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), with assistance from Alfred (Jeremy Irons) back at Wayne Manor. IF I'm being honest, this has very little to do with anything else, but I can't deny that the sequence is pretty exhilarating. It's meant to show us that this is not just a 'Flash' movie, but indeed, a 'Justice League' movie. I might suggest it's DC's answer to 'Captain America: Civil War'.

Anyway, in the aftermath, Barry revisits his childhood home, with memories of his parents and a happy life before his Mother, Norah (Maribel Verdú) passed away, and Father, Henry (Ron Livingston) got accused of murdering her. In his frustration, he goes full Sonic the Hedgehog and runs super fast. Unlike Sonic, however, he realizes that he can potentially time travel, and wants to use it as a reason to save his mother's life. Bruce is there to warn us all about what we already know - it's a terrible idea. But of course, we wouldn't have a movie if Barry didn't decide to do it anyway. He succeeds, but on his way back to what could be a happy present, he gets knocked out of the "Speed Force" by someone else with speed abilities.

Landing in an alternate 2013, he finds his mother is alive, but he also runs into himself right before he obtained his powers. The pair work to recreate the accident to ensure Present-Barry will still have his powers, but during the process, Present-Barry has his powers zapped from him while Past-Barry gains them. Meanwhile, they happen to be in the time when General Zod (Michael Shannon) comes to invade Earth. The two Barry's then work on assembling the rest of the Justice League, first successfully starting with this universe's Batman (Michael Keaton) and this universe's Supergirl (Sasha Calle).

The general story does turn into "Stop Zod" with a side of "Get My Powers Back", and I do have to admit that, as expected, Michael Keaton kind of stole the show. But that brings me back to what I mentioned before about Ezra Miller as well. The truth is, he's really good in this! There's a younger Barry who's the smart-ass, fun and careless one we sort of remember from 'Justice League', while the older Barry has been through some stuff, and realizes that there's a more serious side to this superhero business. I'm not big on Ezra Miller the person, but I can't deny that Ezra Miller the actor can hold his own, either.

When it's all over, one does realize that the "Batman Returns Again" and "Zod Invading" plots take things over. However, speaking for myself, I was able to manage to push the importance of these more fan-driven plot points to the background. Batman was there for fan service, Supergirl was there to show more differences in universes. But the depth of the movie is in Barry's story (as it should be), and I'm not ashamed to say that by the end, it did manage to tug on my heartstrings quite a bit. If one can push one's feelings to the side, I might just say that this is one of the better DC movies of the DCEU.

4/5

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