The Starlight Journal

Since James Gunn announced his overarching plan to reset the DC Extended Universe, The Flash has been touted as the film that will set this plan into motion. With the film’s usage of time-traveling and multiverse storytelling, two increasingly prevalent themes in modern comic-book movies, it seemed like the perfect film to do so. Barry Allen’s mishaps through the Speedforce could be used to initiate the changes Gunn and Peter Safran have for the DC Universe, be it recasts, storytelling resets, or whatever else they had in mind to showcase that this is the start of something new. It would be blissfully ignorant, however, to act as though this was a movie with a squeaky clean reputation going in. For a film with so much on the line for the future of DC movies, years of directorial changes, script rewrites, delay after delay, and not to mention the very public unraveling of its main star, there were many – myself included – that felt downright uncomfortable fully being able to support this movie, despite some exciting trailers and nostalgic returns from classic DC stories. So the real question is, with the movie now out, was DC’s “big reset” worth all the headache and controversy?

Since the beginning of the DCEU a decade ago, it’s safe to say things didn’t go as we had hoped. Movies we thought would’ve been surefire hits like Batman v. Superman and the theatrical cut of Justice League underwhelmed critically and financially. It took until 2018’s Aquaman, a movie most consider to be simply fine yet fun, for the franchise to earn its first billion dollar hit worldwide, currently the only DCEU film to do so. It was unfair to compare the early stages of the DCEU to what Marvel Studios was doing at the time, three phases into arguably the biggest film franchise in history, but you couldn’t help feel some form of embarrassment for DC Studios when Marvel was having multiple billion dollar films a year, while DC struggled to get people to the theater to see their biggest characters. There have been highlights – the 1st Wonder Woman film and Gunn’s The Suicide Squad I consider to be genuine very good films – but there’s been a whole lot of subpar and quite a few outright bad films in my opinion over the 10 years of this rocky storytelling initiative. Like many I hoped things would turn around for the DCEU, things seemed promising just a few years ago when a solid stretch of well-received films occurred, but since the re-opening of movie theaters in the wake of the pandemic, DC has struggled. Black Adam and Shazam 2 both disappointed, putting any plans of The Rock being the new tentpole of the universe in the ground before they could even get going. With James Gunn taking over, it made sense for a soft reboot of sorts to happen; while I was sad to see the likes of Henry Cavill be removed from their roles before they could have another shot on the big screen – perhaps this was what DC needed. 

WIth the time travel story of The Flash, this would be the perfect first step in moving towards a new DC Universe. So does it land? Well, about that ……. 

On one hand, The Flash is leagues better than DC’s last two theatrical efforts. I was not a fan of either Black Adam or Shazam!: Fury of the Gods, so it was nice to get a change of pace and immediately jump into the film with an exciting Justice League action set piece. The film’s first act is exciting and emotional, albeit a bit campy. It’s a joy to see Ben Affleck back as Batman one last time (for all the faults of his films, he was a favorite Caped Crusader of mine), and the film does a great job at reminding us of Barry’s tragic backstory, since for those who may not have taken the four hours to watch the Snyder Cut, it’s been nearly 6 years since his last film appearance. There were some moments of CGI wonkiness, as seems to be the new norm with DC lately (we’ll talk more about that later), but for the first third of the movie I was having a good time.

It’s simply impossible to go through this review without bringing up all the controversy surrounding Ezra Miller. I won’t mince words, I find them to be a terrible person, and the fact that they were not recast is astounding to me. Seeing the press tour for the movie without the presence (or even mention, really) of your main star for such a big film like this is just surreal. For many, Miller’s continued involvement was enough to avoid the film altogether – and while I chose to still see the movie to support everyone else who worked on the movie – I totally side with anyone who chose to go that route with The Flash. My issues with Ezra are double though, as besides being a shit person, I think they’re a shit actor as well, so watching a movie where there’s two Ezra Millers on screen for the majority of the runtime was a special test for me. This is now two favorite franchises of mine where I’ve had to suffer through them to get through movies I want to love, and while the Two Barrys were portrayed in an amusing way (and the effects used to have two variants of Barry on screen at once were the one part of the effects that didn’t bother me to be honest), it’s not a movie where you can just ignore one person involved and enjoy the rest, because while the trailers make it seem like an ensemble piece with Sasha Calle’s Kara Zor-El and Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne – it’s Barry’s story first and foremost. It seems the public has fully rejected Miller, Warner Bros. Discovery’s continued insistence on retaining them for their DC films simply astounds me.

So let’s talk about the time travel and multiverse portions of the film, the big thing that attracted most to this movie. Like recent multiverse-focused comic-book films like Across the Spider-Verse, the movie promised a mix of nostalgic returns and new alternate twists on familiar characters and story-beats. We get both of those here, the majority of the movie taking place in an alternate 2013 around the time of Man of Steel, as a result of Barry messing with time to change the fate of his mother. The majority of the film’s marketing focused on Michael Keaton’s return as Batman, after last portraying the role back in 1992’s Batman Returns. To me, it was Michael Keaton being Michael Keaton, so by default he was very enjoyable. Quite a few scenes poke fun at his relatively outdated gadgets and tech compared to Affleck’s Batman, but I really enjoyed seeing him put on the cowl once more. The nostalgia bait is far from perfect, the repeating of classic quotes from 1989’s Batman caused me to roll my eyes rather than fist pump the air in excitement, but it’s far from the most egregious bits of fanservice the movie throws at us. For those who grew up with Keaton’s Batman films, I’m sure his return registered way stronger for that generation, but as someone who wasn’t even thought of when the Tim Burton Batman films were released, I just thought it was a fun nostalgic touch.

Getting to see the return of Michael Shannon’s General Zod was enjoyable in the time we focused on his character, and I cannot say enough of how much I loved Sasha Calle as Supergirl. She was the highlight of the entire film for me, stealing every scene she had and taking advantage of the relatively small amount of screentime she was given. However, this is the main problem I have with this movie. Characters advertised as co-leads are barely in the movie at all. Keaton’s Bruce Wayne has a fair amount of screentime, but Zod and especially Supergirl have barely ten minutes, and have their arcs ended in such an unsatisfying way. If Gunn and co. choose to go with a different actress for their upcoming Supergirl movie and don’t bring back Sasha for the role, it will be an absolute criminal offense after how much she was wasted here.

The movie completely unravels in the third act, making narrative choices that baffled me, a twist villain that you could see coming a mile away, and fanservice for the sake of fanservice that was borderline offensive in how it was done. This is why I’m nervous of what is coming for the future of the DC Universe, because the changes made in the third act of The Flash are ones I am not big on in the slightest. Sure you’ll get a cheap nostalgia pop from some of the audience, and it did work for some people in my screening, but I’m going from cautiously optimistic of the future to rather nervous. I have yet to be disappointed by a James Gunn project, that much has me hopeful we’ll get some good stuff in the future, but the more and more changes they make to the DC Universe, the more I feel there are too many cooks in the kitchen. I wish I had a solution on what to do, but I honestly don’t. I just hope we can get consistent quality stories that aren’t thrown out the window two-thirds into the movie by gratuitous CGI fests disguised as third acts. And speaking of that….

One way I described this movie is that it does the same things both very well and absolutely terribly at the same time. Whether it be the story, nostalgia, and especially the special effects, I have a hard time describing it, but the movie kind of negates its positives and negatives when analyzing it. The special effects though, yeesh. There are points where it looks quite good, and points where it looks downright dreadful, and unfortunately these moments are always during jam-packed, exciting action scenes. Director Andy Muschietti recently did an interview where he claimed this was an intentional choice to show how wacky the Speedforce looks from Barry’s perspective, but yeah no I have a hard time believing that. Whether it be a scene involving a terrifying CGI baby, and A.I. and deepfaking in the third act that should have you further questioning how ethical this practice really is (to preserve spoilers I won’t go in detail here), it’s downright comical to look at, and this has been a big problem with the last several DCEU projects. Their continued insistence on closing most of their films with a CGI fest final act, when more-often-than-not the effects are lacking, I don’t know why they keep making the same mistake, but I also don’t know how movies with as large of budgets and as many delays as these have had, continue to look so weak visually. Bad CGI isn’t a dealbreaker for me with a movie, but it certainly doesn’t help.

The Flash certainly isn’t the worst DCEU film out there, but it’s far from the best. I don’t enjoy ragging on the DCEU, and it makes me happy that so many are loving this film, and like I said I was there with you for the first hour of the movie. Had it not fallen apart halfway through, I would’ve championed this movie a lot more, but the end result of a story that goes off a cliff, poor visuals, and confusing long-term decision making make it an overall middling movie for me. We still have 2 more DCEU films releasing this year, let’s see if they go out on a stronger note as we look towards the future.

The Starlight Journal is a new project of mine I’ve been wanting to get off the ground for a long time now. If you missed my reviews of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and The Booygeyman, feel free to give them a read! If you are interested in reading more of my thoughts on movies, I journal every movie I watch on my Twitter and Letterboxd accounts and would love it if you’d join the fun.