Movie Review: 'The Flash'

The Flash (2023)

Directed by Andy Muschietti

Written by Christina Hodson

Starring Ezra Miller, Michael Keaton, Ben Affleck, Michael Shannon, Maribel Verdu

Release Date June 16th, 2023

Published June 14th, 2023

Let's address the elephant in the room. There are numerous stories regarding the life of Ezra Miller that demonstrate that they may not be a good person. There have been allegations of abuse, grooming, and other types of criminal behavior, including kidnapping and, for a time, he was even suspected of murder. It's incredibly hard to objectively look at Miller's work and separate that from the person. I'm going to try and do that in this review but I want to make it very clear that regardless of how I feel about Miller's work and the movie The Flash, Miller has a lot of things to answer for and this review is not intended in any way as a co-sign of Miller the person.

The Flash stars Ezra Miller as Barry Allen, super-hero. Having been introduced in the Snyder-verse of the DCU, The Flash is now almost the last of a dying branch of a franchise. And yet, despite that negative energy running in the background of the movie, The Flash manages to be quite good. Against many odds indeed, director Andy Muschietti, famous for his deft and ingenious work on It Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, has delivered a rousing, emotional and wildly inventive super hero blockbuster. It's not without its flaws but those may be inherent to behind the scenes development where producers plotted this film with sequels in mind that are now unlikely to happen.

We pick up the story of Barry Allen as he is helping Batman/Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck), respond to a heist that turns into a dangerous and deadly building collapse. Baddies have stolen a deadly biological weapon from Gotham General Hospital and while Batman goes after the weapon, it's up to Barry to save the patients and staff of the now collapsing and on fire hospital. In a visually dynamic, if slightly tedious segment, Barry rescues a group of babies falling from near the top of the collapsing building. In time lapse we watch as Barry comedically but necessarily snacks while in the air, snatches baby after baby out of the air, saves a nurse and a therapy dog, all while a massive building is collapsing over them all.

This is an objectively terrific display of the powers of The Flash and the humble, sweet, but unusual character of Ezra Miller's The Flash. Miller's Barry Allen is sweet, shy, and anxiety ridden. He's a reluctant hero whose journey is one in which he confronts his mistakes, his past, his pain and trauma, and grows up before our eyes. He becomes more and more of a hero as he discovers himself and sees the errors of his ways. He's always been headstrong, even as his nature is to wilt in front of people. Here that headstrong quality is met with a self-examination that causes Barry to become more responsible, more like the hero Batman/Bruce Wayne believes he can be.

It's a terrific arc that takes on a tragic, sad, and lovely melancholy as Barry longs for his late mother and the family that was shattered by her murder. Following a conversation with his father (Ron Livingston, currently behind bars, accused of killing Barry's mother, Barry uses the speed force to travel back in time to see if he can save his mother. Barry's mother is played by Maribel Verdu and she is utterly incredible in this relatively limited role. In her brief screen time, Verdu elevates otherwise familiar material about how we mythologize and simplify the memories of our beloved parents with an ethereal kindness, an impossible level of charisma, and a radiant loving presence. Verdu floored me in her few scenes.

In lesser hands than hers, and director Andy Muschietti, Barry's mother, Nora Allen, could be a plot device. But with the incredible work of actor and director, the role feels rich, alive and beautiful well beyond the plot and her function within it. The mother/son chemistry of Verdu and Miller is incredibly powerful and it builds to an emotional climax that I was not expecting, one that hit me right in the heart. I'm perhaps personalizing this too much, but having lost a really great mom, one very reminiscent of this conception of Nora Allen, I was deeply touched by their bond. That this is also the motivation for the plot and all of the action that Barry takes in this plot, means that the whole movie gets a charge from this chemistry. It's so strong for me that I think the movie might be as good, or even better on a rewatch because you would go in knowing just how powerful that relationship is and how devastating and emotional it all will become.

I got a little overwhelmed just writing that. And I haven't even gotten to how emotional it was to see my childhood hero, Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne/Batman, again for the first time in nearly 30 years. Though Keaton's reintroduction to the DCU is a tad awkward and quite strange, it's not how we remember our Bruce, the recovery is quick and Keaton finds this character again flawlessly. His haunted heroic qualities remain, the way he was driven by pain and anguish while remaining a brave, strong, forthright hero. Keaton simply IS Batman and while I will always love and appreciate what Christian Bale did with the role of Batman, Keaton will always hold sway over me via both nostalgia and his overwhelming talent.

The Flash contains a number of other surprising, downright shocking, and borderline gimmicky cameos as well but I won't spoil that here. One of those cameos is quite emotional while others bring a smile. One of the cameos will be reasonably divisive, that's the kind of gimmicky/showy cameo, but I didn't mind it, for the most part. I could tug on a few threads of The Flash, threads like THAT cameo, if I wanted to but I enjoyed the movie far too much to want to do that. I am planning a spoiler heavy review where I will tug on one significant thread related to the film's conception of time travel that I found inconsistent, but that's a minor concern compared to what works in this really quite good superhero movie.

The Flash is a terrific adventure, an emotional, rich and resonant film that's also a lot of fun. I'm torn about praising anything to do with Ezra Miller, but I cannot deny that Miller a very talented actor. Miller may perhaps be a deeply troubled and potentially dangerous human being, and it is hard to separate that from the movie. That said, I got lost inside The Flash. I got lost in the action, suspense, surprises and nostalgia of The Flash. I was especially taken with the incredible performance of Maribel Verdu. Of all of the tragic parental stories in the DCU, which is rivaled only by Disney in crafting tragic parental deaths, Verdu is the most memorable and, for me, the most beloved of the DCU's dead parent lineage.

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