Rent The Flash (2023)

Another Same Ol' Superhero Film - The Flash review by GI

There's a few entertaining moments to enjoy in this overly long superhero/comicbook film from the DC universe. But it doesn't take the genre anywhere new or original and builds up to the inevitable giant punch up. Most of the in jokes come from the references to previous DC films and, if you're a certain age, you'll get all these 'jokes' easily enough but I'm not sure younger audiences will and that's who this film is mainly going to attract. Perhaps DC hopes it will encourage their older movies to get a new audience. What is shamelessly on offer here is an attempt to meet the MCU on level grounds but it doesn't work here. The DC heroes don't comfortably sit together like the MCU ones do and consequently Batman, Superman etc fare better in films on their own and not joined up in a big gang. Here the quite minor character The Flash (Ezra Miller), alias Barry Allen, in an attempt to prove his father innocent of murdering his mother uses his super speed powers to go back in time but manages to change the past and finds himself trapped in an alternate universe where he has no powers, there are no other superheroes yet and the Earth is threatened by an alien invasion. Miller gets to play two versions of himself, mostly in a comic 'Dumb & Dumber' type situation and essentially gurns his way through the film. DC fans will applaud that we get a variety of Batmans from the past, the main one being Michael Keaton, and as the plot unfolds there are glimpses of various Supermans too. The cameos are amusing and some of the movie jokes too (the one about Back To The Future especially so) but the film lacks any real dramatic depth and follows the usual tropes of this genre, devoid of new ideas it's another mildly watchable family film that is instantly forgettable. Come on DC you nailed it with The Dark Knight Trilogy, almost nailed it with Man of Steel but otherwise it's mostly been a damp squib.

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.