The Flash Review

The Flash is a film which comes directed by Andy Muschietti and stars Ezra Miller, Michael Keaton, Sasha Calle, Michael Shannon and Kiersey Clemons. The film takes place in the DCEU and follows on from the events that recenty occured in that franchise, so it does require some pre-watching of DCEU films to fully understand everything happening in there. It will also be of benefit to make sure you have watched the Tim Burton era Batman films from the 90s as Michael Keaton’s Batman features heavily in this film and some prior knowledge of that character is essential for enjoying this movie.

According to IMDB the plot of The Flash is “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.”

I for one was quite excited to see this film. I do really like the Zack Snyder DCEU universe and I enjoy all of the characters from that Universe. I don’t like much the way Zack Snyder has been treated by the studio or Henry Cavill and everyone else, but I will still support The Flash as a character and wanted to see what they could do here.

What did I think coming out of watching The Flash? Initially, I’d say it was a good time and I had a laugh watching it. It’s fun and full of quips and light-hearted jokes. It’s a very entertaining film. I loved seeing the Michael Keaton Batman back on the big screen. It was great seeing Sasha Calle as Supergirl, she was very fun to watch. It was amazing to see Michael Shannon as General Zod once again. There are also a couple of cameos in the film from actors of the past which made certain people in the cinema I was in scream when they saw them on the big screen. I won’t spoil what they were but they were special moments. The Flash was a super fun experience. I loved my time watching The Flash.

However that doesn’t mean the movie is awesome. There are some things about it that are disappointing. The CGI is poor and you can tell they didn’t really put too much effort into it, likely to save on the budget which was a smart move because the movie doesn’t seem to be a top earner at the box office. It’s just doing okay. The story gets out of hand, it’s a time travel movie and it’s fun at the start but becomes unbelievable after a while. There’s just too much going on there.

One of the things I also do not like about it was the complete erasure of Henry Cavill from the film, I’ve read online that there was a cameo filmed with Henry and it was cut, you can read about that here. I just don’t know what the problem is with the studio but this is a DCEU movie and they cut the DCEU Superman out of it, it’s really a kick in the gut to any DCEU fan.

The other thing that bothers me about this movie is that anyone who knows anything about the DCEU and the current state knows that James Gunn is going in a completely different direction with things and the current DCEU isn’t even continuing. So all this stuff that happens in The Flash, no matter how much you might of had fun with it, no matter how much you want it to continue, it’s not going to continue.

It’s a hard movie to review because I honestly did have fun with this. I loved watching The Flash and I had a wonderful time. I’d say to go see it at the cinema for a fun time. But once you leave and you look at the movie in the scheme of things, as a story it’s not going anywhere and that’s disappointing because it is a fun movie and it does enrich the DC Universe in a way because it brings back the Batman from the 90s movies which weren’t connected to the current franchise and now they are. So the whole thing is now wide open and seemingly they can pull characters from anywhere they want. But they won’t be doing any more of that because it’s all being rebooted which is a disaster for anyone trying to follow the stories of the characters they might like at the moment. It’ll be interesting to see how many fans stick around for the rebooted DCU because some people might be fatigued from Superhero movies by then.