The Flash

The Flash Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Ezra Miller, Sasha Calle, Michael Shannon, Ron Livingston, Maribel Verdú, Kiersey Clemons, Antje Traue, Michael Keaton.

Director: Andy Muschietti

What’s Good: It’s a trippy take on multiverse bringing back ‘comic’ to the ‘comic book’ movies

What’s Bad: The CGI screams ‘2016’ at various places (that’s the year, when it all started for this film)

Loo Break: During the second half but be back in a jiffy?

Watch or Not?: If you’re skipping this for Ezra Miller, watch it for Barry Allen!

Available On: Theatrical Release

Runtime: 144 minutes.

User Rating:

In the post-Zack Snyder’s ‘Justice League era, we see ‘The Flash’ Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) being aware of how he’s the janitor of the group & is called to clean the ‘Bat Mess’. Years later, Alan has been unable to recover from the emotional trauma of losing his mother and seeing his father in jail for a crime he has no relation to.

The Flash’s speed lands him into the ‘Chrono-Bowl’, imagine it like a ‘data server’ for all the timelines at once helping the multiverse to function smoothly. What would you do if you get the powers to literally dash through any timeline in the multiverse? You’d try bringing back the dead mother by doing things differently in the universe if she’s still alive. Barry Allen does the same adding Michael Keaton’s Batman, Supergirl (Sasha Calle) a young dumb-broke Barry Allen creating a team helping him to undo the mess he has created in the universe sans superheroes to travel back to his timeline.

The Flash Movie Review: Script Analysis

The makers released 3 fully-fledged trailers of this film and with every passing promo, it became clearer why they wanted to divert your attention to Michael Keaton’s Batman, Sasha Calle’s Supergirl & the barrage of rumoured cameos (some of them did come true) making you forget about the disturbing past of its lead character Ezra Miller. The philosophy of “separating art from the artist” is put to the real test here because Miller’s Flash is not the person they are in real life & is an incredible superhero with his humane flaws who doesn’t allegedly do anything wrong to the kids or go on to call people ‘Nazis’.

You can’t enjoy The Flash without Ezra Miller & that moral dilemma pinches you during the whole time they’re on screen. John Francis Daley (Spider-Man: Homecoming), Jonathan Goldstein (Spider-Man: Homecoming), and Joby Harold’s (Transformers: Rise Of The Beast) story does try to encompass a lot of Batman and some Superman in it almost stealing the limelight from character whose name is slapped on the title of the film.

The Flash has always been about the ‘slo-mo’ shots to portray his lightening fast world as a stable environment for us. Even in this one, the 600 FPS shots are built around with solid CGI smartly using the props to not make it look like a routine slow shot. Eg: Flash goes to take beers using his ‘phasing’ skill through walls and when he’s back the gas pops out completely indicating the speed at which he brought those bottles. The storyline is sprinkled with smart story plots throughout the film. The whole “Barry explaining Barry explaining audience” writing is a smart way to educate the viewers about the narrative’s complexities without even letting them know they’re getting educated. The humour in this film is one of the best you’d come across in a superhero film.

The Flash Movie Review: Star Performance

Director Andy Muschietti’s (It, It: Chapter 2) love for emotional character arcs helps Ezra Miller not only steer the narrative forward but also create the emotional bridge between them & the audience ensuring a memorable performance amidst all the chaos. Portraying the smartest double role execution one could ever do in a film, Miller nails both characters.

Micheal Keaton’s Batman gets all the points for nostalgia but he’s 71 and that thought acts as a roadblock while seeing The Dark Knight kick some serious a** of the bad guys. Though Keaton’s charm would let you forget every flaw and enjoy him turning the Caped Crusader for one last time (probably). Sasha Calle as Kara Zor-El / Supergirl required a more fleshed-out character sketch than the thin line she walked on. She was good, the character was not.