Genre: Superhero
Premise: Barry Allen, The Flash, goes back in time to save his murdered mother but inadvertently unleashes one of the most ruthless villains ever.
About: The Flash is the fifth-to-last entry from the former DC slate of films (we still have Blue Beetle, Aquaman 2, Batman 2, and Joker 2). When David Zavslav came in and took over Warner Brothers, he kicked Zack Snyder to the curb and brought in James Gunn. Despite WB wanting to move on from the past, there were whispers everywhere that The Flash was a verified gem, a superb movie that rivaled Spider-Man: No Way Home. The film was originally projected to do huge business. But those hopes were crushed this weekend when the film took in a measly 55 million dollars. The Flash was written by Christina Hodson, who wrote Bumblebee and Birds of Prey. It was co-written by Joby Harold, who wrote on the Disney Plus Obi-Wan show. Flash Star, Ezra Miller, is also said to have contributed a lot to the script.
Writers: Christina Hodson (story by Joby Harold)
Details: 2 and a half hours long
There are a lot of opinions being thrown around in regards to why The Flash did so poorly this weekend. This movie was supposed to be DC’s answer to Spider-Man: No Way Home. It turns out it was playing more in the sandbox of The Smurfs 2 and 80 For Brady.
A popular theory is that Ezra Miller’s image is keeping people out of theaters. But I think it’s more complicated than that. Hollywood tends to think that what they notice, everybody notices. But trust me when I say Ned Wollumbach of Porsthaven, Iowa isn’t aware Ezra Miller has had any run-ins with the law. Ned is more concerned about the price of Mountain Dew Blast at Walmart.
However, the average moviegoer *does* notice when the typical marketing machine is out of whack. When a big superhero movie comes out, they’re used to Tom Holland or Chris Hemsworth doing Jimmy Kimmel, Hot Ones and Saturday Night Live. When the star of a big movie doesn’t appear in any marketing push, it subconsciously says to the average moviegoer that this movie isn’t important enough to go out and see.
I have this little conspiracy theory that Warners Brother purposefully tanked the promotion for this movie cause they’ve moved on. There are all these rumors that WB doesn’t have any money in the bank so they’re not marketing their films as much as they normally would. I just find it hard to believe that everyone thought this movie was great three months ago and now it’s not. Let’s find out the truth.
Barry Allen is a geeky anxiety-ridden scientist with no friends. Much of Barry’s quirky existence can be tied back to the mysterious murder of his mother when he was ten. After a chat with Batman, Barry realizes he can use his super-speed to go back in time and change the circumstances that led to his mother’s murder, saving her.
While Barry succeeds with his plan, he also creates a rift in the space-time continuum, creating a multi-verse. He must now team up with the version of himself who exists in this new universe, a version without all the anxiety and trauma baggage, since this Barry, Barry 2, never lost his mother. In fact, Barry 2 is the chillest happiest cat around.
The time-space rift that Barry created brings back Superman villain, Zod, who’s determined to destroy the planet. Barry 1 & 2 can’t possibly kill Zod, especially since Barry 1 loses his powers! This means they must recruit superheroes from the very thin draft that this universe has available. One is ancient Michael Keaton Batman. And two is Supergirl.
But while Batman and Supergirl are helpful, it’s all going to come down to whether the two Barrys can become the ultimate super-friend team and take out Zod… one last time, or two last times, or three last times, or four last times…
THIS.
MOVIE.
WAS.
FREAKING.
AWWWWWWWEEEEEESSSSOMMMMMMEEE!!!
This may be the only overly CGI superhero movie I’ve seen that I’ve liked. The CGI in this movie is pretty bad – I suspect because they stopped pouring money into it once WB ran out of money. But it didn’t matter. The movie was still great. There’s a very prominent reason for that, which I’ll get into in a second.
There’s just so much good here, I don’t know where to start.
Let’s take set-pieces. The set-pieces were way better than the set pieces we’ve been getting in all these bunk superhero movies recently. There’s a set piece early on that has a high-rise hospital collapsing where a bunch of babies fall out the window and are hurtling towards their death – that then has Barry using his super-speed to save them – that is so clever and well-done, my jaw was literally on the theater floor afterwards. I know this because the bottom of my jaw is still sticky.
I already knew the movie was going to work before that. But that sequence cemented it. It was just such a fun scene. I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun during a superhero action set piece. They’re usually so rote, like they’re going through the motions. This one had some real imagination thrown into it.
Speaking of, this was the best use of comedy in a superhero movie since Deadpool. It’s a really funny movie! There’s this moment where Barry 1 hasn’t yet realized that he’s lost his powers. So he goes into his prep Flash running pose and starts running like the Flash. But he’s running just like you or me would run. Slow. Clumsy. Sad. There’s a lot of funny jokes like that that work so well because they’re authentic to the premise.
There’s another running joke (see what I did there) about how good Erik Stoltz is in Back to the Future. And Barry keeps saying, “What are you talking about?? Michael J. Fox was the star of Back to the Future!” But, in this universe, Erik Stoltz never got fired from Back to the Future.
It’s a fun joke but it also shows just how much thought was put into this script. We’ve seen so many Back to the Future references in movies about time travel. The Avengers make fun of it in Avengers Endgame. So it’s not an original joke. But The Flash figures out how to make it an original joke. They reference Back to the Future just like any other time travel movie, but they incorporate their specific situation – the multiverse – to make it feel fresh.
But there’s one aspect of this movie above all else that is responsible for how great it is. And, ironically, I JUST WROTE ABOUT IT IN THE PREVIOUS ARTICLE!
The Power of Two.
The Power of Two here, is Barry and Barry.
But it’s more than that. Barry 1 is a lonely guy who’s barely able to make it through the day. So we like him immediately. We feel sympathy towards him. At one point, he just wants to hang out with Batman to have a drink and Batman rebuffs him. We feel so bad for the guy. We want him to have a friend!
Then, Barry 2 shows up. And Barry 2 is the complete opposite of Barry 1. He’s easy-going. He’s relaxed. He’s got friends. He just wants to have fun. So we really root for these two. But, on a larger scale, we’re rooting for Barry 1 to finally get that friend that he’s never had.
This movie is so good, guys. I’m not going to lie. I’m shocked. I didn’t know superhero movies could be this good anymore. I thought maybe I was getting too old for them or I’d seen too many of them, so they didn’t have an effect on me anymore. No. This is reinforcement of the things I always teach on this site. Which is GET US TO LOVE YOUR FREAKING CHARACTERS AND WE WILL GO ANYWHERE WITH YOU.
We fell in love with Barry 1. We fell love with Barry 2. We fell in love with them as a team. After that, you don’t need to do much to write a winning movie. You’ve already got us. But what’s so great about The Flash is that they still get all the plotting stuff right too.
The choice to have the original Flash lose his powers for the second act was such an amazing creative choice when you think about it. Now Barry has to teach someone who’s never used the Flash powers before to do all the power stuff while he can only look on and coach from the sidelines.
Not to mention, it’s a complete reinvention of Save The Cat’s “Fun and Games Section.” This is the first time we’ve ever seen a superhero learn all their fun superpowers who ISN’T OUR PROTAGONIST. Our protagonist, Barry 1, already learned these powers years ago. There are so many well thought out moments like that throughout this movie.
Literally my only critique besides the gooey special effects is that Supergirl was kinda lame. But she’s a small part of the movie so it doesn’t matter. What’s crazy is that this film is going to go down in history as this big fat failure when it’s one of the best superhero movies ever made.
How good is it? This is my favorite movie of the year so far. That’s how good it is.
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the price of admission
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: There’s got to be a tax to any good things your hero is given. If there’s not a tax, the plot’s going to suffer. Barry is given his mother back. But there’s a huge tax. Zod is back to destroy the planet.
