The Flash Movie Review: The thirteenth film of the DCEU (DC Extended Universe) – the first solo for the homonymous protagonist – is also the most controversial and debated cinecomic of recent years. He has flirted with oblivion several times but that chapter there, at least on the screen, seems concluded. 

Finally, on June 15, 2023, Warner Bros distributes, The Flash arrives in Italian cinemas, directed by Andy Muschietti (IT chapter one and two, The Mother) and has a good cast that includes Ezra Miller, Sasha Calle, Michael Shannon, Maribel Verdù, the great Michael Keaton and maybe it’s best to stop here. Screenplay by Christina Hodson, based on characters from the DC Universe.

The technical term is not solo film but stand-alone film. As a definition, applied to the present case, it leaks everywhere. Because Barry Allen / Flash fights his battle in good company, we can seriously discuss whether the centrality in the story is enough to make him the undisputed protagonist. 

Only, Barry sure is, spiritually. Physically, no. As a self-celebration of the DC imaginary, the film works great, sometimes at the expense of the originality and power of the story. But it is difficult, even wanting to, to remain indifferent to certain atmospheres, and certain suggestions (aesthetic, musical, narrative).

The Flash Movie Story: War Against Canon by Barry Allen

Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) runs because he doesn’t have time. Time, ultimately, is the arbiter of his life. He works, in civilian clothes, as an intern in the Criminology Laboratory of Central City, his city of him. Otherwise, he is the superhero. The Flash, by definition, is the Justice League’s “Jaal,” because they call him when someone else’s mess needs to be cleaned up, or when the titular hero is busy elsewhere. 

Mostly it’s about replacing Batman; Barry and Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) have built a good friendship. There is an analogy, brought to light by The Flash, regarding their respective origin stories: they both lost their parents. And that pain defined them, conditioned their relationship with the world, cementing their heroism. Barry, however, his family has lost her in a different way from Wayne.

Barry’s dad, Henry (Ron Livingston), is still alive and in jail, accused (wrongly?) of the murder of his wife, Nora (Maribel Verdù). The boy firmly believes in his father’s innocence and tries to get him out of trouble with the complicity of Wayne Enterprises. A series of footage from a supermarket’s CCTV system, technically cleaned up, would exonerate him by proving that he was not at the crime scene at the time of the crime. 

Difficult to get something out of a track like that. Barry, however, has an incredible resource: he runs faster than everything. Even some light. And here the temptation creeps in, dangerous to hear Bruce Wayne, who tries in every way to discourage him but there’s nothing to do. 

The protagonist is convinced that if he runs faster than time maybe he will make it, to go back and save his mother. Nora’s death is the Flash’s defining moment, the canonical event, just as the murder of her parents had been Bruce’s big bang. Barry Allen declares war on the canon to save two lives, actually three: his, his father’s, and especially his mother’s.

It is not important and it would not even be fair to clarify whether Nora is saved or not, due to the intervention of her son. The very fact that Barry tries has enormous consequences on the tightness of space-time and the harmony between dimensions. Barry makes a huge mess and is the first to pay the consequences. 

Alone and without points of reference, hostage to a world subtly similar to his, which is actually very different. Forced to look in the mirror, the protagonist plays chess with fate. The Flash brings back an old acquaintance. General Zod (Michael Shannon) returns to Earth fearing its destruction; he is looking for a Kryptonian held in some dark prison, a Kryptonian (Sasha Calle) will discover. 

Barry understands that Zod’s return is a consequence of his intervention in the space-time line and tries to remedy it. But it is difficult because in the place where he is, there is no trace of the Justice League and Batman is very different from how he remembered it. Older (Michael Keaton), scruffy, with a particular light in his eyes. Flash doesn’t know it but that one, of the many Batmans, is the best. Also a little rusty, but that’s not a problem.

The Flash Movie Analysis:

Andy Muschietti subjects The Flash to the standard treatment and his cinecomic just doesn’t seem to be missing anything. The genres overlap, there is action but also a little comedy, science fiction, and existential torments; noisy entertainment, mostly. Once again, the emotional and narrative barometer is the family: the need for, the absence, and the impossibility of building one on one’s own terms. Reflection on the relationship between destiny and free will is reflected in the gauntlet launched by Barry at the key event in his life. 

The death of the mother is the embodiment of the most feared enemy: the canon, the immutable flow of events, impossible to control and from which there is apparently no escape. The tension that animates the film is not all that different from that which runs through the contemporary (more successful, more formally daring) Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Can the hero break free from conditioning and (re)write his own story?

The question applies to both, The Flash responds by plundering the pop archive of the DC Universe in search of the best, the iconic, the sure shot. Ezra Miller arrives at the viewer partially overwhelmed by a wave of unedifying particulates in his private life and very worrying, if taken literally, about his mental health. He does well to handle the film’s double challenge. 

Because of Flash, in this story, there is more than one. To grow the character you need to make them talk while maintaining a basic coherence, on a character level, without neglecting the differences. And Miller does it, to credibly return the existential puzzle of Barry Allen and the Flash.

And the others? Michael Keaton brings an unprecedented lightness to his legendary characterization, humor tinged with melancholy; the years go by, but gracefully. Of Sasha Calle and her mysterious Kryptonian (seriously?) We would like to know and see more. The Flash is an intense cinecomic, evocative in terms of imagery, which leans too much on what has already been seen and what has already been done, on that same DC canon against which the protagonist engages in a merciless fight. 

The discourse on alternate realities and rewritten timelines, Multiverse more or less, resolves itself in the self-referentiality of a celebration that merely scratches the surface. The film confronts the hero with his own demons, forcing him to redefine the roots of his heroism more maturely and consciously, without however developing the premise. Once again, there are always some welcome exceptions, the genre struggles to take a step forward.

The Flash: conclusion and Evaluation

The construction (narrative) of time travel is suggestive, at times valuable in the yield. The workmanship, the technical quality of the action, is not always the best; not everything, not always, works as it should. It is the mantra of The Flash, an entertaining film with a wild pace, built on the bizarre personality of a protagonist, self-deprecating and intense in one fell swoop. 

The reference to models and icons of the past is central to understanding the film, its strengths, and its limitations. The seduction of mythology also tells the reluctance of the upper floors to think of the cinecomic in a fresher and more original way. Good job to James Gunn.