Nearly a decade after the flashy small-screen premiere at Comic-Con with Grant Gustin's Barry Allen donning the fastest man alive mantle, and more than half a decade after Ezra Miller made the scene-stealing appearance on the "Justice League" movie, the Flash is making its solo debut on the big screen, despite of the real-life controversies surrounding Miller. This review is on the movie only.
The opening scenes take off running on a wildly comedic start, in a snazzy new suit and all. All Barry wants is his usual breakfast-to-go from his usual cafe. He gets called for superhero duty in Gotham City due to Batman being occupied, requiring him to run at a lightning speed from Central City. It never gets old seeing the Flash speeding through vibrant city streets and varied natural landscapes of the earth.
If you could imagine a hungry and jittery Barry trying to figure out how to save falling babies from a hospital wing in an imploding skyscraper, you've got an absurdly hysterical sequence amid the catastrophic ordeal.
Batfleck (Ben Affleck; “Air,” “Gone Girl,” “Argo”) makes an action-packed appearance right off the bat, in a high-speed pursuit of some baddies speeding off with a bomb. Another superhero cameo makes me feel like reminiscing. There's so much potential unexplored from the Synderverse (director Zack Snyder's DC Universe) and it's hard not to feel wistful about it.
Throughout his life, Barry has always been carrying the deep pain of his tragic past, his mother's murder and father in prison convicted of the horrific crime. Barry has never stopped trying to prove his father's innocence, from getting into criminal forensics and working on the court appeals. Being able to run faster than the speed of light gives him the opportunity to run back in time and reverse the past.
As we all know though, changing the past has butterfly effect consequences. Not only are you altering the specifics of your future, it would also change everything around and nothing would ever be the same. No matter how much we wish we could change the past, fix things that are broken, we can't, and sometimes we would just have to let go. Without our past the way it was, scars and all, it wouldn't have made us the way we are today.
Needless to say, Barry still goes back in time. He does one seemingly inconsequential act, which prevents his mother's death from happening, and consequently his father from taking the fall, however, it ends up breaking the universe. There are emotional family moments that will tug at your heartstrings.
Akin to “Back to the Future,” Barry encounters his past, younger self and gets into all sorts of troubles. Another experiment goes wrong, resulting in even more disastrous, and oftentimes humorous results. From a storytelling perspective, this is inventively told, springing freshness into the storyline, and making the movie an atypical solo superhero journey. From an acting standpoint, the dual roles are distinctively acted.
Barry realizes not only might he not be able to get back to the future, but he's also stuck in a world where he's powerless to stop General Zod's (Michael Shannon, "99 Homes") invasion (similar to the one in "Man of Steel"). Barry eventually meets up with a stranger of a Batman (Michael Keaton), the Batman of this universe, and tracks down an imprisoned Kryptonian, Supergirl (Sasha Calle). In Barry's true fashion, things do not go smoothly, and misadventures ensue.
If you haven't seen the Flash on CW, it's even cooler to see the scarlet speedster's superpowers. It's neat to see the new team of superheroes, especially with the introduction of Supergirl. At the same time, there's also a downer factor in the fights against Zod, especially in a world without Superman.
When casualties mount and another villain makes himself known, Barry must decide whether he'd be willing to make the ultimate, family sacrifice. With universes colliding and diverging, the movie dials the evocative elements way up by way of surprising cameos flashing through, all the way to the ending.
Rapidly kinetic action sequences, hilarious hijinks, inventive storytelling and heartwarming nostalgia. You may not be able to run at the speed of light, but you can run to the nearest theaters and see "The Flash."
