26.12.23
The Flash isn’t an awful film, but it feels awfully pointless. It’s clearly been made by a group of people who know that DC’s extended universe is breathing its final gasps of air, so it brazenly throws in an embarrassing number of stars in minor roles for one last chorus before the new Aquaman movie likely nails the coffin shut in 2023.
But for all its creative faults, cheap-looking CGI in several action sequences, and trying so hard to emulate the MCU whilst failing again and again to do so, a lot of the elements in The Flash did work for me to some extent. Ezra Miller does a decent job portraying a few different iterations of Barry Allen, displaying some acting talent mainly through silly humour and physical goofiness. There’s also a fun, nostalgic appearance from Michael Keaton, reprising his iconic role as Batman which shouldn’t work given his acclaimed and masterful performance in Inarritu’s Birdman. Yet, it delighted me to see him don the classic black and yellow Batsuit and shoot some baddies with the grappling gun.
I also moderately enjoyed the new take on Supergirl, played committedly by Sasha Calle, despite the reappearance of rather tedious, poorly developed villains like General Zod and a few pointless callbacks to other lacklustre DCEU characters which feel shoehorned in likely due to financial and contractual obligations. More controversially though, I prefer this to Guardians of the Galaxy 3, just because I didn’t find the humour in that film, nor the animal abuse entertaining or enjoyable.
As usual with DC movies, The Flash is easily 30 minutes too long, with drawn-out, slo-mo action scenes and weak plot threads that offer nothing memorable for viewers. Ultimately this film hasn’t encouraged me to see the new Aquaman movie, especially after Jason Momoa’s boring performance in Fast X earlier this year, or to dip my toes into the Flashverse or Arrowverse. I have no problem bidding a not-so-fond farewell to the mostly disappointing DCEU experiment and hope new DC leadership alongside James Gunn can course-correct these much-loved characters going forward.