Rent The Flash (2023)

Utter tripe, but just about watchable - The Flash review by JD

First up I will say this is oddly watchable. Putting aside the questionable inclusion of Ezra (he is just performing for the crowds entertainment here after all and what he does in his free time is for the police to deal with) its all fairly entertaining.

So why only 3 stars? Well, its a bit poo outside of being brainless entertainment.

It appears screenplay was done on the fly and nobody actually questioned making a coherent story and character arcs around the plot.

Things just happen and thats the film. Given the material this is a really bad effort. And i cant help but feel the only thing that held it up was the source material and turning its back on political messaging that has infested marvel.

I know this DC universe is now done, but this film really does show what a complete mess the franchise has been. How can a universe with a Michael Keaton Batman, a Henry Cavil Superman a Gal Gadot wonder woman fail so very very badly.

All It Needed was a New Super-Villain called 'The Pan' and We'd Have Been Complete - The Flash review by Strovey

The Flash is an odd superhero movie, it has the elements we expect, a lot of explosions, a lot of cars flipping end over end, a lot of peril for people, including a ‘shower of babies’ that the hero eventually puts a stop to – but only just. Yet it mixes this in with a dorky alter-ego and some misplaced and at times rather low-brow humour. Pile on top of this a lot of people getting killed, and there were a lot of families of servicepeople who were going to be affected and the unpleasant stabbing murder of the main protagonist's mother. What age group was it aimed at? I have no idea.

The story is certainly nothing we have not seen in many films, books and other fiction before. A Sound of Thunder always comes to mind when anyone tackles this because the outcome, the moral, is always exactly the same. You cannot go back in time to change one thing without changing everything.

In The Flash it seems as if the writers could not resist the temptation to make this simple premise well, simple really. It gets convoluted and odd and makes little sense the longer it goes on. What it really seems to be is a good excuse for some hard-core comic-book, super-hero nostalgia porn, as every version ever put on any screen (in the Western hemisphere at least) of Superman and few other heroes pops up for a little cameo, including poor old Nic Cage’s fervent wish from decades ago. For me it did nothing but for some viewers I would imagine it was Nirvana.

The visual effects on display are at times poor, and Polar Express 'uncanny', which considering the development time and money spent is a poor return. Apparently, this was deliberate as it was supposed to represent the view through Barry’s eyes in the alternate dimensions and it had absolutely nothing with impossible deadlines and penny-pinching.

Ezra Miller plays dual roles and much like Ezra’s off-screen persona they are both at times good and others really bad. Playing up the camera and hamming it for it is worth and then in an emotional scene with his mother getting the effect required from the acting. Puzzling. Regardless of the events beyond the camera, I can only judge what I see on the screen. It is not a review of dreadful events in the real world although I have opinions on those, definitely for another Blog or place.

Throughout the run time we get superhero returnees, including croaky-voiced Affleck and Keaton as Batpeople and discarding with Henry Cavill we get Sash Calle donning a figure-hugging CGI suit as Superman’s niece who does very little except get angry and killed – about twenty times.

Michael Shannon returns as Zod, again looks mean, badly CGIed and does little else.

Really the whole thing is a mess but I am glad every probably got paid well at least.

Sprinkle throughout as some familiar faces to UK viewers, Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Sanjeev Bhaskar and Kieran Hodgson, who was sat on the sofa of Glaswegian living-room only a few days previously.

The more enjoyable aspects are when Barry interacts with his parents, the ever-reliable Ron Livingston and Maribel Verdú but people who watch The Flash do not want to see that, they are there for their heroes and explosions, and flipping cars and derring-do and to be fair you do get that.

Overall, The Flash had a job to do, to persuade me to review my bias against comic-book superhero films and it failed. Flashing lights, a billion dollars worth of CGI and visual effects, non-stop violence where peripheral characters die, a flawed protagonist, who starts out a bit wonky but gets better and learns near the end and a big ‘twist’ that I guessed the first time I saw the character.

If this was for adults it was too simplistic and too illogical and if it was for the younger generation too violent and panders too much.