The Flash

Finally, The Flash. After all the silenced controversy of its protagonist, one of the most promising films of the last stage of DC comes to light. The film was quite promising, and on balance... it falls short. Join me to find out why without stripping a single spoiler.

Let's start from the essential: the script. The story is basic to be a contemporary superhero movie. It contains humor, which feels excessive in the middle of the film. It has a lot of action, from the very beginning of the footage, which is appreciated. But eventually we get to the topic of fashion. On a personal and subjective note, I'm already sick of the multiverse. At least be original and rename the concept! The next movie that dares to close down and make fun of this concept will have my wholehearted support. Anyway, this applies to using time travel of course, and showing a couple of rather impressive cameos.

The direction is quite interesting. It has very daring use of angles and lenses that work very well with the story. The photography is effective and the edition is quite precise. The soundtrack is one of the great elements of the film that knows how to deal with nostalgia, but at times it feels too patchy. The acting is decent, as is the costume design.

The controversial element of this film is undoubtedly the visual effects. Surely the effects are present in almost the whole movie and almost half of them are pretty bad. The human figure has no real references neither in movements nor in logical details. I have seen video games from outdated consoles with a better visuals than The Flash.

Anyway. The Flash is a basic, action-packed movie that tries to be fun and emotional but fails too much in VFX, an element that its target audience is unforgiving in the year 2023.

I end by saying that if Muschietti had come even a little closer to The Flashpoint Paradox, this movie would have been a masterpiece.

I always start any review of a superhero movie by making it clear that these are not my types of movies and my opinion, for any superfans out there, should always be taken with a grain of salt. Now with that in mind, I have to say 'The Flash' is about as much as I can enjoy one of these types of movies. This was a very fun ride I'm happy to admit.

The movie is basically fan-service on overdrive. Anything a mega-fan has always wanted to see is likely going to show up at some stage in this movie. If that's your kind of thing then you are going to be in heaven.

I found the pacing good. The movie is just short of 2 and a half hours but that time goes by pretty quickly. As usual in these types of superhero movies I found the final battle scene the weakest the film had to offer. It got messy and convoluted and it was really the one part of the movie where I lost interest.

Of all the superhero movies I've seen this is probably the one least focused on the villain. He really does feel like an after-thought more than anything. The movie is far more about Barry Allen and his mission. Which makes it surprising to me just how much I enjoyed the film, because the one thing I do often get out of these films is enjoyment from the villain.

I think people are going to have a good time with this one. It doesn't feel like the usual copy and paste template that the MCU has been throwing out for 15 years now and it is certainly a step up from everything non-Batman that DC has been doing recently. I really enjoyed this. 8/10.

Ok so for me the Grant Gustin will always be my live action Flash. So Ezra Miller took some getting used to. But by the end of the movie he had grown on me enough that I could appreciate his version of the Flash. I enjoyed the movie ultimately but I think that overall enjoyment was greatly subsidized by getting to see Michael Keaton as Batman again. Overall, I think it's a good movie that was let down a fair bit by the CGI used throughout. It's just a shame that when the subject matter of the movie is the Flash it's going to be very CGI dependant. Ultimately I can imagine that there some talented and passionate CGI artists out there who did their best despite having their wings clipped by management.

The Flash has finally arrived, a film I've been looking forward to since it came to fruition back in 2019 after many years in development of different directors/writers. Flashpoint would be the inspiration behind the film and that got me excited as I love the graphic novel, this isn't a direct adaption, its inspired and has Barry Allen traveling back in time to save his mother as the plot point but after that, everything is different and honestly it works quite well in how you'll be in for a ride that you'll be unprepared for like The Flash in the film. Ezra Miller has been a topic of controversy for two years and I understand why someone would choose not to watch it for him but his performance is great in this and he's better than ever as The Flash. Then came the marketing, making Michael Keaton the main Batman with him reappearing as his character from Tim Burton's two Batman films, Sasha Calle as Supergirl and the first trailer brought back Michael Shannon as General Zod and Antje Traue as Faora-Ul which was the villains for "Man of Steel" which was the start of the DCEU, it feels fitting that they're back for the ending (Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will be the true conclusion). It also stars Ron Livingston, Maribel Verdú and Kiersey Clemons. With Ben Affleck along with other actors from the DCEU making cameos.

Barry Allen uses his super speed to change the past, but his attempt to save his family creates a world without super heroes, forcing him to race for his life in order to save the future.

The Flash is directed by Andy Muschietti from a screenplay by Christina Hodson, she wrote Birds of Prey prior to this so she has knowledge of the universe. Henry Braham served as a cinematographer for the film and shot The Suicide Squad prior to this aswell for the last two volumes of Guardians of the Galaxy. Benjamin Wallfisch did the musical score for the film and it's a good soundtrack, music fitting each scene both light hearted and darker, also the more suspenseful scenes. I think it was nicely edited. Andy Muschietti's direction was great, I really liked his vision for the project and how he wanted to make the project his own and fitting to the DCEU. I don't have any criticism towards him, great visual storytelling and it felt like he gave great direction to the actors.

The Flash met my expectations, it was a great superhero film which brought plenty of satisfying and joyful moments. I love the characters and DCEU, I think they did a good job at putting an ending to it. With the speed force and time traveling, we got the multiverse in film format (after seeing it in Arrowverse and Titans before), and I don't want to spoil anything but you'll surely find it worth sitting through. The Flash offers a lot of things to like, the visual effects could and should have been better though, the final battle sequence against General Zod deserved ten times better effects and a more detailed location. I also understand why Michael Shannon didn't quite like it in this film just because of how one-dimensional Zod is and how there are almost no deep themes, I wouldn't say there are no themes though as there's one strong theme that's executed perfectly on screen and in writing, the theme of loss. There was emotional depth in the film through the loss of Nora, Barry's mother, it was executed perfectly and performed perfectly by Ezra Miller. The writing offered some great comedy, plenty of laughs from me and the others in the audience on the premiere, Ezra Miller had that comedic timing. Overall, I think the writing was great, much better than her work on Birds of Prey. The dialogue was great and so was the characterization. I really enjoyed the first and second act, they were golden. The third was fine but could have been better. The action sequences were great, all of them! Again, here the visual effects could have been better, but the action sequences were well thought out. It was also nice to see Michael Keaton back as Batman, he was great! I also liked Sasha Calle as Supergirl, good performance. This is a film I'll rewatch, without a doubt. Great superhero film!

Much better than I thought and reviews led me to believe. Superwoman really worked for me. Michael Keaton was good. Ezra Miller wasn't hyper annoying. I could've done without the updated flash effects and the suit but not too bad. It's funny, fairly interesting and the plot isn't super convoluted or especially ridiculous (for a superhero movie).

Saw reviews complaining about inconsistent CGI quality. For most of the movie I couldn't figure out why; clearly an artistic choice. But then Chris Reeve pops up and yeah, that was pretty bad. I think it's the result of applying the stylistic effects they'd been using on the still-alive actors to an already not awesome deepfake but whatever the reason it was jarring and not necessary. There were a lot of nods and Easter eggs they would've been fine skipping.

So not perfect but nothing ruined it for me. Batman in the beginning really didn't sound like Affleck to me. They gave their Batman a healthy dose of Christopher Nolan Batman that I could've done without (what possible reason is there for having vents on your breastplate. Do his pectorals generate too much wind resistance when he flexes?)

Anyway worth seeing. Stands up well with the other DC movies, such as they are. I really don't see what the problem is if you liked all they other stuff. This is easily better than Aquaman and Justice League and Snyder-bloat Justice League. Yeah Ezra Miller is going through an annoying as all hell/total trainwreck phase lately. But hey, who hasn't sorta kidnapped an Indian and hoarded guns and acted like a total b!#h@$$ after they got arrested for something stupid and avoidable.. yet again, then whined about it/their/thouest pronouns to someone that made the mistake of addressing them with respect? That old chestnut. Just a steaming hot mess of human being but considering all that he's gotta be pretty talented since I was still able to enjoy his character in the movie.

I wouldn't be expecting a sequel though. Oh yeah, Michael Shannon was predictably good also, though not utilized all that much.