I'm excited for the new DCU, but we're still a few years away from seeing the start of that. For now, my interest is in seeing how WB pivots the remainder of their projects to transition viewers into a new continuity. That begins in earnest with this movie I watched recently. After we get a bit of a day in the life of Barry Allen, the main story kicks off when he's compelled to use his speed to go back in time to save his mom from being murdered (which results in his dad being wrongfully imprisoned). This is the classic setup to the iconic Flashpoint storyline many people are familiar with (including non-readers whose only exposure to the character is the CW series), and the result is similar: Barry ends up in a different timeline where reality is significantly different from what he knows.
As you may expect from alternate universe shenanigans, some stuff feels similar, but many more things are radically different. In this timeline, General Zod (from Man of Steel) has only initiated his attack on Earth, most of the metahumans we recognize from the DCEU don't exist, and the Barry Allen here doesn't have his powers. The main Barry must now try to fix this hot mess, which will have him interact with the other Barry and a few heroes that don't exist in his time. I've always found Barry Allen's tragic origins compelling (the bizarre circumstances of his mother's murder pushing him to work in forensics, which leads to the accident that gave him his powers), and I'm glad the emotional weight of that is tackled throughout the movie. Whether that's through Barry's conversation with his dad (who's resigned himself to his undeserved fate), arguing with other Barry about the luxury he doesn't understand he has, or the big decision he makes at the end of the movie, I'm happy with how they made that a focus of the story. Playing the foil to Barry Allen is... Barry Allen. While the main Barry's got jokes to him, he's more serious than his variant, who is the goofy idiot that folks may recognize from the Justice League movie. Though I can't say all the silliness he's involved with lands for me, I was amused by most of his shenanigans and his earnest reactions to all the crazy shit that's happening around him. This movie doesn't quite go all in on having everything feel drastically different from the main timeline (which is a sensible approach since having familiar elements will make the deviations stand out more), but the main deviations the marketing used to sell this movie (the grand return of Michael Keaton as the '89 Batman and the introduction of a new Supergirl) are pretty exciting. It's also neat to see Zod back, though he doesn't really get anything to do, which is a shame. While having this small squad of heroes in this wild alternate timeline leads to some fun action sequences, the third act started to feel like it meant nothing to me quickly. It might be obvious what I mean by this, but I'll try to keep it as vague as I can. While I appreciate why the heroes take the fight to Zod motivation-wise, the conflict eventually morphs into fighting for the sake of having a fight in the movie (which, in fairness, is not a problem endemic to this movie). Granted, the futility of the conflict is a deliberate story choice that ties into the very thing that kickstarts the movie's events (Barry's tampering with the timeline), but I can't ignore how my investment in the conflict with Zod steadily decreased as time went on and its ultimate purpose in the overall story became apparent. I don't mind it being used in this way conceptually, but it does come at the expense of the characters they spend time introducing and building up. I liked the ending in terms of what they do for Barry's character, but if you were expecting this game-changing universe reset to build up to the new DCU, it didn't really feel like that to me. There's still an element of intrigue to how things end up, to be fair, but we won't see any of that until the actual beginning of the DCU. Since this is a multiverse story and they literally sell this movie with the nostalgia of the '89 Batman movie, it's unsurprising that this movie's got fan service. There are a number of cameos here (some expected ones, a few completely shocking appearances, and a couple that are arguably in bad taste upon further reflection), plus a good helping of loving references to Tim Burton's Batman (some really neat, like the music, and others that feel... forced). As with a lot of situations with fan service, they're mostly there to get a pop out of fans like me, and I can't say the cameos are used in a meaningful way like, say, No Way Home. Then again, I had the "whoa, neat!" expression on my face for some of the references, so who am I to judge? They take a rather interesting approach with the VFX in this movie, as many elements feel noticeably off next to the live action visuals. I'm told this is deliberate, perhaps to depict how The Flash perceives reality. It's a bold move, since I can see people deriding this stylistic choice as "terrible." Personally, I don't have strong feelings about it, but it's definitely jarring to look at. While there are some elements that left me with an odd feeling (like some of the story choices or the strange CGI), I left the theater feeling positive about The Flash. The humor was mostly fun, I liked how significant Barry's backstory was, and the fan service was amusing even if it's just for the sake of it. That said, I don't think it did enough to be a fitting end to the DCEU (which itself had a lot of weird story choices all throughout) or an exciting prelude to the DCU. - end -
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June 2024
Derryck
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