Every second-to-last Friday of the month, I will post the best five loglines submitted to me. You, the readers of the site, will vote for your favorite in the comments section. I then review the script of the logline that received the most votes the following Friday.
If you didn’t enter this month’s showdown, don’t worry! We do this every month. And next month, we’re having a special showdown JUST FOR PILOTS. I’ve gotten a ton of e-mails asking me why I don’t give pilot writers their time in the sun. Well, now their time has come. The deadline for Pilot Logline Showdown is Thursday, July 20th, 10pm Pacific Time. All I need is your title, genre, and logline. Send all submissions to carsonreeves3@gmail.com.
If you’re one of the many writers who feel helpless when it comes to loglines, I offer logline consultations. They’re cheap – just $25. E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com if you’re interested.
I’m adding a little surprise this showdown since there are a full two months before the next feature logline competition. We’ve got SEVEN loglines to choose from. Oh yeah, baby!
Voting ends Sunday night, 11:59pm Pacific Time!
Title: Bubblehead Saves the Day
Genre: Teen Comedy
Logline: When two high school seniors discover a robot from outer space, they ignore its warning of an imminent alien invasion and reprogram it to help them score with chicks!
Title: Fragments
Genre: Mystery & Suspense / Thriller
Logline: A blacklisted nurse is approached by a detective with a unique job offer: become the caretaker for an acquitted murderer who may be faking his Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
Title: DEADLY FORCE
Genre: True-life crime drama/thriller
Logline: The true story of Jim Simone, one of the most decorated and reviled cops in the nation, a real-life Dirty Harry and Serpico, touted as a hero and a serial killer, he waged a deadly one-man war against criminals, corrupt cops, and the press, meting out his own brand of justice no matter what it cost him or his family.
Title: The Man Who Came From The River
Genre: Sci-fi / Period / Thriller
Logline: When his time machine malfunctions, a black man from a post apocalyptic future must team up with a young Confederate soldier to find his son in Civil War era Virginia.
Title: ALIMONY
Genre: Romantic-Comedy
Logline: When a founder of a dating app realizes her deadbeat husband’s alimony payments are bleeding her dry, she embarks on a mission to find him a new wife before her company goes public.
Title: The King of Ghosts
Genre: Drama
Logline: When a Haitian fencing master is reunited with his estranged daughter, he must decide between pursuing a new life with her, or remaining in a violent world of underground machete fighting with the orphan boy he’s caring for.
Title: Death’s Jaws At Her Back
Genre: Action/Horror
Logline: An ex-soldier is forced to confront her traumatic past when she becomes hunted by the product of a decades old Nazi experiment — an indestructible monster known as the Überkrieger.
24 hours left to get your June Logline Showdown loglines in (10pm Pacific, Thursday night)! Send your title, genre, and logline to carsonreeves3@gmail.com! Best five loglines will duke it out this weekend. Winner gets a review!
A couple of days ago I engaged in an activity I detest, which was to defiantly write off something I didn’t like. I just had to let the world know, in comment-form, that I hated “Joan is Awful.”
Is it possible, even once in your life, Carson, to keep your opinion to yourself? I guess not.
I watched half the episode and I was so put off by its annoying repetitive nature, that I accompanied my power-off of Netflix with a giant grunt. “What a waste of time,” I said, before posting my “Joan is Awful is awful” comment on Scriptshadow.
But the next night, something compelled me to finish it. And by the time I got done with those last 25 minutes, I’d changed my mind. I liked Joan is Awful quite a bit.
What changed?
I’ll answer that question in a second. Because the thing that changed my mind is a screenwriting mega-tool if you know how to use it. The problem is that it’s the hardest screenwriting tool of all to use.
I’m talking about… THEME.
Theme has always been weird. It’s like UFOs. They’re right up there in the sky but you can never quite see them. Theme is always blurry.
If you don’t believe me, google your favorite movie and ask, “What’s the theme of this movie?” I looked up Toy Story for example. I got five different themes spat back at me! Loyalty was one. The bond between kids and their toys was another. Learning to let go was another. The evils of jealousy. Self-acceptance was one.
If it’s that difficult to agree on a movie’s theme, then how effective of a tool is it?
I’m reminded of an article I wrote a couple years ago about White Lotus, specifically its theme of how the rich exploit the poor. This was what Mike White himself, the creator of White Lotus, in an interview, said was his theme. And yet I still had people in the comments telling me I didn’t “get” the show cause I got the theme wrong. It was, rather, about racism. Or the cluelessness of the 1%. Or the eradication of the Polynesian population.
That’s my issue with theme. Is that if you ask five people what the theme of a movie is, you get five different answers. And if theme is that loosey-goosey, can it really be quantified and taught?
Getting back to Joan is Awful, the episode is about an unhappy woman named Joan who works at a tech company, who, one day, comes home to watch Netflix with her boring boyfriend, only to find a new show called “Joan is Awful.” The show stars Selma Hayek, and Selma’s hair looks exactly like Joan’s.
Curious, they play the show. And a scene starts playing that is the exact same thing that happened to Joan earlier that day at work. As the episode continues, more scenes from Joan’s real life impossibly play. It becomes clear that, somehow, the show is a shot-for-shot recreation of Joan’s life, as it’s happening, including private jabs at her boyfriend, who breaks up with Joan even before finishing episode 2.
What follows is a rather convoluted series of events where Joan seeks out Selma Hayek (this is where I originally gave up on the show), and the two learn that AI is creating these episodes, using the digital likenesses of Selma and others. They then agree that they must destroy the supercomputer that’s creating these shows.
Enter Netflix’s CEO, who’s similar to the Architect (Matrix reference). She explains to Joan why they’re doing this. Joan’s show is a test-run. Netflix’s goal is to create real-life direct content for each and every subscriber on the streamer. Everybody will soon have their own tailored “Joan is Awful” show to watch.
Something about this explanation hit me. We are all so desperate for content. We want more more more. Despite there literally being tens of thousands of shows on demand, we’re still not happy. The logical endpoint for this is an AI supercomputer that can create endless shows catered for every individual on-the-fly. We’ll never run out of content.
This insatiable appetite for content cannot end well. And what the show is really saying is, let’s stop before it gets that far. Let’s go outside for once instead of binging The Bear season 2 (which I plan to do this weekend). The message (the theme), in that sense, is to live life, not content.
That’s when I realized why Black Mirror is so popular. Black Mirror shouldn’t be popular at all in this day and age. It’s not a continuous storyline. It’s not mega-IP like the Avengers or Star Wars. It doesn’t get to cheat and bring back characters the audience already likes. It has to start from scratch every time. And yet it still remains relevant. It still remains good. How does it do that?
In my review of “Match Cut” on Tuesday, I pointed out that you have to give your script a soul for it to resonate with people. Ashley chimed in in the comments with this observation: “I think if it feels like a soul is missing in a movie, it’s often because it’s missing a theme.” And that was an ah-ha moment for me.
That’s what Black Mirror does so well. It makes sure that every episode has a powerful theme. And that theme is what provides the episode with a soul. So when you watch a Black Mirror episode, whether you like it or not, you feel like you watched something that’s hit you on a deeper level.
I still don’t know the secret to coming up with a theme that everybody who watches a movie agrees on is *the* theme. Even a brief google search for Joan Is Awful’s theme gave me two themes that did not conclude what I just concluded. But I know that if you try to include a theme in your work, it has a much better chance of resonating with people. Look no further than Black Mirror’s sustained success as proof of that.
You’ve got 48 hours to get your loglines in for June Logline Showdown! Details below.
Genre: Drama
Premise: A schlubby, long-suffering late night comedy writer’s simmering anger and jealousy begin to boil over into madness as he suspects that his telegenic A-list boss is trying to replace him.
About: To get you guys excited about this Friday’s Logline Showdown, I’m reviewing May’s runner-up logline, the script I actually thought had the best chance at being really good. But I sensed it wouldn’t win just because it’s such a quiet concept. Yet another reminder to keep the reader in mind when choosing what concept to write. The more read requests you get, the more shots you get get at the winning combo.
Writer: Danny Albie
Details: 104 pages
Once again, this is a reminder that June Logline Showdown is this Friday. Deadline is THURSDAY! So get those loglines in!
When: June 23rd
Deadline: Thursday, June 22nd, 10pm Pacific Time
Where: e-mail all submissions to carsonreeves3@gmail.com
What: include title, genre, and logline
Hader for Andy?
Onto our review!
Andy Letts is a gangly 46 year old divorcee who’s the head writer on an aging late night talk show headed by the beloved Jack Rafferty. Andy’s life amounts to trying to write edgy jokes for Jack, getting turned down, replacing them with safe jokes that Jack wants, and watching as Jack gets all the credit.
Andy doesn’t do much otherwise. He doesn’t date. He masturbates to humiliation porn. He goes to therapy. He’s basically on autopilot. The only other activity he has is following this one girl on Twitter named Becca who occasionally writes funny tweets.
One day, Andy decides it would be a good idea to hire Becca. Especially because his entire writing staff is made up of straight white men. Jack, along with the show’s showrunner, are not happy about this new addition, especially because Becca wants to write more edgy left-leaning political humor. She’s more into “clapter” than “laughter.”
Becca eventually bullies her way into a segment on the show that does really well and that begins her meteoric rise. Within a month she’s the co-head writer on the show. More and more of Andy’s jokes are now being overlooked. It’s only a matter of time before she takes over his job completely.
Then, one night, Andy and Becca decide to get drinks. (Spoilers follow) The drinks go well enough that Andy invites her back to his place. They then get into a heated conversation about diversity that takes an unexpected turn into Becca threatening to falsely accuse Andy of sexual assault. The two get into a brief scuffle that ends with Becca dead.
Andy gets rid of the body, goes back to work, and hopes that everyone will just forget about Becca. And, for the most part, they do. But it turns out Andy’s not finished yet. The Becca escapade gave him a taste for blood, and a taste for finally getting that recognition he so rightly deserves after all these years.
The Head Writer has one of the most charged scenes I’ve read all year. It’s a scene that I’ll never forget.
But, on the whole, the script is a frustrating read for several reasons. So let’s talk about it.
The biggest problem here is that the story doesn’t have an engine underneath it. It’s one of those scripts where life is just happening. I understand that this is a character piece. But even character pieces need that engine pushing the story forward. We have to feel like we’re going somewhere.
After finishing the first act, I still didn’t know what this story was. Andy hires Becca but I didn’t know why. Andy’s problems at work are so vaguely conveyed that I wasn’t sure what the problem was that needed to be fixed.
About 70 pages into the script, Andy explains to someone, “My boss likes my writing but doesn’t like me.” And I thought, “Why didn’t I know that on page 20? Why am I only learning that now?” That’s how vague the first act was. It didn’t do a good job establishing the relationships, what was specifically wrong with those relationships, what was wrong with work, and why Andy needed to solve it by hiring Becca.
When Andy hires Becca, his reasoning seems to be a sprinkling of several things. The other writers don’t work hard enough. They need more representation on staff. Andy wants a younger voice to make Jack look hipper. Andy needs someone to help him with his duties. If you have a bunch of reasons, you don’t have any reasons.
For movies, you need one big reason so the audience is clear on why “the big thing” (in this case, Becca’s hiring) needs to happen.
In “Blackberry,” they need to hire Jim because they don’t have a shark. They have a bunch of geeks who are great at building phones but who don’t have any idea how to run a business.
Once Becca comes in, the script makes another curious choice. Becca insists on making more liberal jokes. Everybody on staff is afraid of this because of the repercussions. Hold on here. Unless this movie is set in an alternate universe, I’m pretty sure that the jokes you can’t tell these days on late-night television are conservative-leaning jokes. So that didn’t ring true at all.
We then go back to our engine-free narrative. Outside of Becca’s popularity rising, it’s not clear where the plot is headed or why we should still be watching. I still don’t entirely understand why Becca was hired. I don’t have a good grip on Andy’s situation with Jack. Jack kind of likes him but kind of doesn’t? It’s confusing. And now we’ve completely taken a left turn by turning the movie into a “late night talk show needs to be more woke” narrative, which comes out of nowhere. It was never established before Andy hired Becca that the show only told conservative jokes.
So all these things led to a very mushy narrative, and a narrative that didn’t have much push behind it. We don’t know where we’re going.
But then we get the Andy and Becca “date” scene.
One of the strategies to really get your reader invested is to write stories and scenes that rile them up. The things that Becca says and does in this scene – I got so angry! To the point where I was not unhappy when she met her demise.
More importantly, after forcing myself through the 60 pages that preceded this scene, only to be on the edge of my seat for six straight pages, I realized: This scene IS THE MOVIE.
But, unfortunately, everything around this scene, starting with page 1 and ending with page 105, needs to mostly be rewritten.
For starters, we need a stronger impetus for hiring Becca. It can’t just be because Andy thinks it maybe sorta might help. Somebody needs to come in and force them to do it. Or they were exposed on CNN for being the last writer’s room of all men. Something like that.
And then everything with Becca’s storyline needs to move faster. We can’t laze around. Create time goals. Maybe we establish that the Emmy nominations are announced a month from now and Becca is determined to get the show nominated. Something where we have a goal and we feel like time is of the essence.
Then, I think the Becca death needs to happen on page 45. Not page 60. You can’t be lazy with plot points in character pieces. It’s too risky cause the slower story is more at risk of getting boring. From there, maybe Andy finds her joke notebook. And so Andy starts using her jokes and he finally starts getting all the credit and acclaim he’s wanted. Meanwhile, the police are closing in on finding who killed Becca. And you can still do this thing where he starts offing other people on the writing team.
You do that, you’ve got a movie. Right now, you’ve got a meditation on what it’s like to be a head writer who nobody respects. That’s fine to explore that. But you need a plot surrounding it.
Script Link: The Head Writer
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: If you’re trying too hard to impress the reader, the line is going to feel off. Like this line, “Andy watches Shepherd cut a GIANT PIECE OF ICE CREAM CAKE. It’s so big, feet amputate themselves looking at it.” It took me several reads to realize this was a diabetes joke. It’s just too clever by half. The reader resents writers who are desperate to impress them. Just tell the story. That’s what we like.
A reminder that the June Logline Showdown deadline is THIS THURSDAY! Scroll down for details on how to enter!
Genre: Action/Comedy
Premise: A stunt man on location in Italy is mistaken for a famous assassin who just tried to take out one of the country’s biggest businessman. The businessman puts his entire financial weight behind finding and killing the “assassin.”
About: This script finished in the middle of the pack in last year’s Black List. The writer, Will Lowell, received his masters degree in film and television from USC. Up to this point, he has written and directed several short films.
Writer: Will Lowell
Details: 111 pages
A reminder that THIS THURSDAY is the deadline for LOGLINE SHOWDOWN. So get those loglines in!
When: June 23rd
Deadline: June 22nd, 10pm Pacific Time
Where: e-mail all submissions to carsonreeves3@gmail.com
What: include title, genre, and logline
On to the review!
If you’re a writer hoping to become the next Christina Hodson, Joby Harold, or Michael Waldron, screenwriters being hired to tackle these behemoth franchises, the genre you want to choose for your next script is Action-Comedy.
Those are the two most important ingredients for these mega-franchise movies. They want you to be able to come up with awesome set pieces (like babies falling from a building) and they want you to be funny. Studios need audiences coming out of their movies feeling like they had a good time. And the number one way to accomplish that is to make people laugh.
Some say the spec sale is dead. That’s incorrect. It’s just delayed. You write a great action-comedy spec and don’t get paid for it. But if someone hires you to write Iron Man 4 because they loved your spec, you, essentially, just sold the script that got you the assignment.
But what this means – if you want to make a lot of money as a screenwriter – is that you have to be strategic about the genre. You have to choose a genre where the biggest potential extrapolation of that route equals the biggest payday. Action-Comedy is the big enchilada in the payday department.
Sam Clark is one tough stunt man. The guy did several tours in the military. Now he gets to travel to unique places all over the world and do stunts for movie stars. He’s currently in Italy doing stunt work for an annoying Channing Tatum. During a particularly difficult stunt, he badly cuts his hand.
Elsewhere in Italy, a notorious masked assassin named Il Pistone attempts to assassinate a business magnate named Giuseppe Greco in his mansion, but unintentionally kills his adult son. Pistone aborts the mission but when he’s escaping, he cuts his hand on the fence. Giuseppe then puts the word out to every criminal in Italy to kill Il Pistone!
After a tough day on set, Sam goes to get a drink at a bar and meets a hot young lady named Clara and the two sleep together. The next morning, while Sam heads to set, he’s attacked by a random man. Sam’s military training allows him to escape. But soon, he realizes this is just the start. More and more men come out of the woodwork to try and kill him.
It becomes clear that Sam, because of the whole injured hand thing, has become mistaken for Il Pistone. And even going to the U.S. Embassy doesn’t help. Greco has too much influence here and so even Sam’s Murica brothers are after him.
While running around the city, Sam bumps into Clara again, who’s pissed off that she hasn’t received a text after their tender lovemaking session the night before. (Spoiler) But it turns out Clara isn’t being totally honest with Sam. That’s because Clara is Il Pistone! Eventually, Sam figures this out, and the two decide to team up to take down Giuseppe Greco.
This script was good.
But I’m still frustrated by it.
How can that be, you’re wondering. A good script is a good script. What else is there to discuss?
Here’s the problem. Good scripts are great. But great scripts are better.
The thing about good scripts is that there are a lot of them. Therefore, when you write one, you’ve only succeeded in getting lost in a sea of good scripts. You haven’t separated yourself.
Take the opening scene here. It’s as assassination scene.
It’s well written. It’s paced well. It’s described well. There’s a little bit of suspense. It has an emotional moment between father and son.
But I have read, literally, one thousand scenes just like it.
That’s the problem with a good script is that a good script is code for “good enough.” But “good enough” doesn’t get you much. It gets you acclaim from bored Black List voters who are used to reading lots of bad screenplays. They’re just happy that, for once, they’re not clawing their eyes out.
But this business is so freaking competitive that “good enough” is almost as bad as bad. Some might even argue bad is better. Because readers remember bad scripts. I remember Orbital. But good enough scripts? I’ve usually forgotten those by Sunday.
Someone just e-mailed me the other day for a script I reviewed a couple years ago. I had no idea what he was talking about. He kept telling me that I liked it. I gave it a “worth the read.” I finally found the script and, like this one, it was good enough. Good enough to get that ‘worth the read.’ But not good enough to be memorable.
I don’t know if there’s an existential plane for screenwriting discussion. But if there is, I would ask, after every script, “Does this script have a soul?” Or is it just a screenwriter executing a concept according to the steps he’s been told to take?
I watched this Black Mirror episode last night called Beyond The Sea. It’s complicated to explain but, basically, two astronauts on a deep space mission can link up with perfect human avatars of themselves back on earth so they don’t go insane in their tiny ship with nothing to do for years at a time.
One of the astronauts starts inhabiting his partner’s body back on earth and falls in love with his partner’s wife in the process.
That script had soul. It explored the human condition in a complex and, yet, universal way. It displayed tragedy, sadness, falling in love, happiness, jealousy — all these universal human experiences that, when added up, gave the script a soul. And, to be honest, I didn’t really like the episode. It was too dark and sad for my taste. But did it have soul? You bet it did.
Now, you may say: “Action/Comedy, Carson. None of those movies have souls. They’re dumb escapist fun.” Wrong. I just watched an action comedy yesterday that had a soul. The Flash.
It’s frustrating because I can go into a lot of the things that this script did well, particularly its plotting. The reveals (Clara is Il Pitone) and double-crosses (the Embassy is going to kill Sam) and the dramatic irony present late in the script when Sam thinks he’s protecting Clara when it’s really her protecting him.
Or when when Sam realizes that the only way out of this is to find and kill Il Pitone, and Clara is trying to talk him out of it because, of course, she’s Il Pitone.
All that stuff was fun.
But then you get this really over-leveraged Channing Tatum joke. If there’s anything that’s going to steal the soul of your script, it’s a drawn out Channing Tatum joke. Channing Tatum plays himself for a joke in EVERY MOVIE! That’s all he does these days. Which makes it a soulless creative choice. Go with someone unexpected. Josh Gadd in his first action film. Or weirdo Joaquin Phoenix. When you go below the surface with your creative choices, it’s like massaging your script with soul moisturizer.
This is more important than ever in the era of AI. Because AI is about to start spitting out really generic screenplays. Therefore, if you’re not consistently making interesting/risky/unique creative choices, your scripts are going to start getting mistaken for AI scripts.
Don’t get me wrong. Match Cut is not AI bad. But it is by-the-book. The writer masked a lot of that because his execution is strong. But it still feels like a script I’ve read many times before.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: As you know, I always appreciate a good character description. Here’s one I really liked in Match Cut: “AGENT GRANT (60s, ill-fitting suit, a Cold War relic lost in a sea of data analysis and predictive algorithms).” The writer uses something I call “essence description.” This is when you describe someone in a way that allows us to understand the essence of who they are.
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.
