Sprint into Fun: Review of The Flash

The Flash. Directed by Andy Muschietti. Starring Ezra Miller, Michael Keaton, Sasha Calle, Michael Shannon, Ron Livingston, Maribel Verdu, Ben Affleck. Rated PG-13 for partial male nudity, violence, foul language. Runtime 2 hours 24 minutes. 

After the obligatory action scene at the start (and who doesn’t love a superhero who saves babies and a dog), we move on to the central angst for Barry Allen aka the Flash (Ezra Miller): He is worried for his father, who is falsely imprisoned for the murder of Barry’s mother when he was a child. Overwrought, the Flash runs wildly fast and finds he traveled a short distance into the past.

Naturally, he wants to go back in time and prevent the death of his mother. Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) cautions him against this, saying he could destroy everything. Barry says he could also save Bruce’s parents. Bruce wisely says “these scars we have make us who we are." The emotional tug is too strong for Barry, so he goes back and does save his mother.

The way he saves her is reminiscent of the Isaac Asimov novel The End of Eternity, when a time traveler moves an ordinary-looking can and changes the course of a civilization. In this case, Barry has somehow removed the metahumans (Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman). What we have left is Batman, an ordinary human. Michael Keaton fills the cape in this alternate universe, and it’s a hoot seeing him as a burnt-out Bruce Wayne who no longer wants to fight the good fight.

Most of the dialog and character interplay are between Barry and a younger, pre-Flash version of himself. Because he didn’t quite come back to the present, the older, driven Barry has constant arguments with the college-age, carefree, obnoxious Barry. Ezra Miller is more than capable of filling both roles. While I was watching the movie, I wasn’t conscious of the fact that it was the same actor playing two characters; they seemed to be two different people.

Sasha Calle is a revelation as the anti-hero Supergirl. (Remember, Supergirl arrived on Earth after Superman, and that's why she exists in this universe.) This Supergirl brutally kills several bad guys. But at first she stays aloof from a world-threatening invasion. As she points out, she’s a Kyptonian, not a human.

Overall, The Flash is a treat for superhero fans. Although, the outfits are too tight in the loin area, if you know what I mean. One does not have to be a geek to recognize a number of multiverse cameos. And the plot holds up. They avoid the futility of endless cycles of endless multiverses, as well as the simplistic idea of always going back in time to fix things when something bad happens. This is more of a cautionary tale than just a show of superpower.