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Star Rating:
The Flash is the DCEU’s solo Flash movie. The Flash uses his speed to go back in time to save his mother, but when he does, he unknowingly causes alterations in the timeline and ends up in an alternative reality where General Zod has returned and there’s no superheroes to stop him from destroying the world.
Honestly, this movie turned out much better than I was expecting it to. From all the discourse I heard online about it, I was expecting it to have some major issues, but I genuinely enjoyed it. I just think it suffered from the real-life problems regarding the main actor. For this review, I’m going to ignore those issues and just focus on the movie itself.
Given that time travel can be a complicated subject and hard to do without any inconsistencies, I think this movie’s plot did a pretty good job. I didn’t find anything confusing or conflicting.
I’m sure there are still aspects of the time travel you can pick apart, but they aren’t noticeable while you’re watching the film. And I especially don’t want to pick them apart during this review if I want to leave out any spoilers.
I did like the return of Michael Keaton as Batman, but some lines of dialogue from him didn’t make much sense unless you had a good memory of the 1989 movie. Luckily, I had recently rewatched it. Because of that, I liked the references, but I do think the writers could have placed them better, particularly the “let’s get nuts” line highlighted in the trailer.
Michael Keaton did an excellent job playing Batman again. But he’s a different version, and he’s supposed to be. So, don’t expect him to instantly be what you remember. But the changes make sense, and he doesn’t stay that way for long.
The same can be said for Supergirl. She’s not Superman, and she’s not supposed to be. This is Supergirl, and she’s a particular version specific to the alternate reality the flash is in. She’s not a replacement. She isn’t perfect or better than Superman. She’s just her own character in this specific reality, and she’s well written for that role.
However, I found the younger Barry Allen to be annoying. It’s clear they wanted to show a difference between the older and younger version and between having his family and not, but it was a little excessive and overdone. They could have toned him down a bit and still showed a change.
The other major issue I had with The Flash was the CGI. Superhero films rely heavily on CGI, and some areas of it in the movie just seemed rough. There is a particular scene towards the end of the movie that just looks really bad. It reminded me of when CGI just came out. It’s really noticeable, and it’s honestly shocking that movies in 2024 can have such rough CGI.
But those issues didn’t ruin my interest in the plot and the movie itself. It had a nice balance between comedy and seriousness. And there’s some deep heart at the core of the story. In fact, there was a particular scene that actually made me cry.
It’s a long film but doesn’t feel that way. It’s well-paced, and I never felt like a scene wasn’t needed. There aren’t any scenes that felt too drawn out or unnecessary. But the details also didn’t feel rushed either.
The Flash isn’t necessarily a movie I’ll keep rewatching often, but I still enjoyed it. There were a few issues here and there, particularly the CGI, but some of the issues I mentioned above might also just be personal preference, like younger Barry’s personality. Still, this film turned out better than I thought it was going to be, and I think others will enjoy it too for just being a superhero action movie.
Check out my other DCEU movie reviews as well.
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