Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) has been the super-speedster hero known as the Flash for a while. But for all the perks that has brought – from the camaraderie from his fellow superheroes to being recognized on the street by fans – he still has a core sadness inside him stemming from his mother’s unsolved murder and his father’s imprisonment for it. But when he accidentally discovers that he is capable of running so fast that he could travel in time, he realizes that he can go back and change one little thing and insure that his mother won’t die. Against the advice of Batman (Ben Affleck), Barry heads into the time stream and although he does manage to change his mother’s fate, he has created a world that is missing its greatest heroes at a time when its needs them the most.
At its core, The Flash is a multiverse story, another in a recent spate of genre films that explore the concept of multiple Earths and how things can play out differently depending on specific choices made at certain key moments. They are a good device to explore certain characteristics about a character, where sometimes the differences shown in an alternate version help to shine light on the version of the hero we are following. Here, while Barry sees a world where his family is still alive and together, it has also created a world with many of its heroes and that has put the rest of the population at risk. It creates a dilemma where the stakes suddenly become very deeply personal for Barry and one in which we can all possibly relate to in terms of the price we would be willing to pay to have departed loved ones back in our lives.
Director Andy Muschietti has delivered a fun adventure that pretty much stands on its own while simultaneously serving as a love letter to not just DC Comics, but to much of the film and television projects derived from them. His action set pieces here are energetically staged, as befitting the film’s titular hero. There are times when the CGI used might not be photo-realistic enough, but the verve within the sequences themselves carry the film. Miller’s work as two different versions of Barry is some solid work and even when the two are dressed similarly there is no issue in differentiating the two.
But for all the good things inherent in the film, there are a few drawbacks that may give some folks pause. Firstly, star Miller’s legal issues over the last two years have soured some on the actor and the film itself. (You can find more on information on the specifics elsewhere, we are not going rehash them here.) Although most the allegations leveled against them are from after the film had completed the bulk of its principal photography, there is a segment of moviegoers who may choose to forgo the film altogether. Secondly – and this is a spoiler so tap out now if you don’t want to know – there is a segment in the film that utilizes CGI to recreate certain actors who for various reasons were not able to participate in the production, to put it euphemistically. Some have raised questions about morality of the utilization of such technology to create these cameos and those may affect how one views the film.
