A Review of “The Flash (2023)”

 

The Flash is a hero I adore from the comics. It is crazy that it took this long for him to have a live-action movie. Unfortunately, the DCEU Flash movie went through development hell. It had multiple directors leave the project, multiple delays, multiple reshoots, the Ezra controversy, and constant changes in leadership at WB. Despite all these shenanigans, does this movie manage to deliver a great Flash movie?

Firstly, they do deliver some strong and emotional moments. It’s hard to be angry at Flash for wanting to save his mother and prove his Dad innocent. Seeing Flash cope with the unintended butterfly effects of going back in time and saving his mother, is a great concept. Barry’s desperation to save this timeline because his mother still lives is powerful stuff. It has a heartfelt story of grief which I liked. Funny enough, Ezra has great chemistry with himself. Ezra plays the original and new timeline Barry who both interact with each other throughout the movie. I like the contrast between a slightly more mature and serious original Barry compared to the younger whiny new Barry. There are some genuinely funny moments between the two. I am also impressed by how convincingly they made it seem like there were 2 Ezras on set.

One of the biggest selling points of this movie is Michael Keaton’s return as Batman. It is great seeing him again even though his performance can feel a bit stiff and wooden. I was worried about how they could convince me that a 70-year-old Batman would still be capable of fighting. However, the action scenes with him are awesome and very enjoyable. Ben Affleck also returns as DCEU Batman for 1 last time. He is not in it for long but he is good as well. His action scenes are pretty entertaining and his scene with Barry is a highlight. The music score by Benjamin Wallfisch is wonderful and I love how he incorporates the classic Danny Elfman Batman theme. The greatest part though is Sasha Calle as Supergirl. She is terrific despite not being in it for long. I also think the costume team nailed the Michael Keaton Batsuits and the Supergirl suit as they both look exceptional!

Unfortunately, the Ben Affleck Batsuit looks terrible. It is ugly and doesn’t even feel like a proper Batsuit. Likewise, the Flash suit just doesn’t look great. It looks too polished and very plastic looking. There are scenes where it looks like a guy in a giant red condom rather than a proper superhero suit. On that note, I am very mixed about Ezra Miller as Flash. He was all right in Zack Snyder’s Justice League as he was more of a supporting role with a better script. However, his performance in this film comes off as way more obnoxious and annoying. It doesn’t help that new timeline Barry is meant to be annoying on purpose but the result is both Barry’s are infuriating. He does deliver during the more emotional moments but at other times, not so much.

I am also very disappointed in the action scenes with the ‘Flash’. While the Batman action is awesome, the action scenes with Flash are just not that satisfying. They are bland to look at, especially when compared to speedster scenes from X-Men and even Avengers. The 3rd act in this movie is a little overwhelming with the amount of things going on. There are some things concerning the multiverse that occurs as well but feels kind of contradictory to the rules set. I also find the ending terrible and contradicts the whole message of the movie. Additionally, they do something in the ending that raises more questions than answers and feels a little dumb if they are rebooting the universe. My major gripe though, is the atrociously bad CGI. A lot of the shots in this film look very ugly thanks to poor CGI. Some scenes look like it is straight out of a video game than a movie. They also use it to recreate people’s likeness including dead people and it is disgusting to look at.

Overall, what a massive disappointment this ended up being. You can see some element of great in it but it is all overshadowed by the bad. It is sad to see how poor the last couple of entries in the old DCEU are. It makes me more appreciative of James Gunn rebooting the DCEU. We still have 1 proper DCEU movie left with Aquaman 2 but my hopes aren’t high.