Even with how much I go to bat for the superhero genre around here, I was… kind of dreading going to see this one?
Part of that is because of Ezra Miller and what can loosely be described as their touring psycho circus over the past year and a bit (it’s been going on for much longer, but I mean in terms of mainstream coverage of it), of which I will not be getting into as it could take up this entire post all on its own… and quite frankly, I don’t feel all that comfortable commenting on it at length to begin with.
Part of it is because the entire conversation concerning the DCEU, the beginnings of its transition into the James Gunn-led DC Studios, and people still clamouring for Snyder to come back, has grown extremely tiresome, with this film being the cornerstone for that major transition.
And part of it is because I didn’t exercise due caution when it comes to new blockbusters and wound up having quite a bit of the film spoiled for me beforehand (specifically the… let’s call them ‘necromantic cameos’), and what I saw didn’t exactly raise hopes of this working out in the midst of everything else.
As I’ve gotten into in past reviews, the main reason why I do these reviews in the first place is because… well, I have fun doing this. It isn’t to present myself as some high arbiter of taste or to get involved in fandom politics; I enjoy watching and writing about films. Simple as. And watching films with this much baggage behind them, both as art and as studio product, tends to kill the mood for me. But at the very least, having now watched the film in question, I can say that I had more fun with the film than I was expecting.
The story has the scope of a large-scale event comic, with a lot of different moving parts, plenty of recognisable characters, and narrative stakes that could lead to the destruction of reality itself if the heroes fail. Also like most event comics, it is an absolute mess in terms of pacing. Its main plot conceit of Miller’s Barry Allen going back in time to save his mother’s life, and in turn completely altering history, is taken from the Geoff Johns comic Flashpoint, as is the key inclusion of Batman in the main plot.
Now, Flashpoint is… a tricky comic to talk about, as it was initially meant to serve as the conclusion to Johns’ own run on the Flash comics (one of my personal favourite DC runs), but it then had to be retrofitted as a lead-in to the massive company-wide universe reboot leading into the New 52 era. As a result, what began as a very intimate story about one man learning to accept that it isn’t possible to save everyone, even when you can outrun Death itself, became a convoluted behemoth involving a war between Wonder Woman and Aquaman, Superman being tortured and experimented on by a government project since childhood, and Batman being Bruce Wayne’s father Thomas seeking justice for his dead wife and son… well, until it was later revealed that his wife had become the Joker and, bloody hell, comic books are complicated.
Anyway, my point in bringing all this up is that, much like the source material, this film can sometimes feel like it’s a story that just happens to have the Flash in it rather than strictly being about him. Despite the fact that we end up with two Flashes (echoing back to Flash Of Two Worlds, the story that introduced the DC Multiverse back in 1961), we also have Michael Keaton returning as Batman, Sasha Calle as Supergirl, Michael Shannon reprising General Zod from Man Of Steel, as well as the aforementioned cameos from even more past iterations of the DC universe on-film.
However, as someone who really wasn’t a fan of Flashpoint, I still think this did a bit better with the general idea. For one, even with how chaotic it gets, the story primarily is about Barry Allen (both of him) dealing with the repercussions of the change and the fact that they were the ones who made it happen. The interplay between the Barrys can get a bit much, between the mainline universe’s Barry being more seasoned and confident and his younger alternate-universe self being… well, about as obnoxious as he was back in Joss Whedon’s Justice League. But not only does the comedy eventually find a decent equilibrium, I’d argue that the emotional drama between them works as well. This is particularly true during the final act, when it really lays into Barry’s ability to go back in time and how much that power… can really fuck with your mind if you let it. Much like superheroes at large, I have something of a fondness for these kinds of time travel yarns.
There’s also how, even for as overstuffed as it is, the writing lands on some genuinely good moments at times. I don’t know who exactly is responsible for such things, whether it’s Christina Hodson of Bumblebee and Birds Of Prey fame, the initial story treatment from Daley & Goldstein and Joby Harold, or even if some of Miller and Grant Morrison’s rewrite made it into the final product (wouldn’t exactly be the strangest thing to happen concerning this film), but when it gets to detailing how all this multiverse shit works in-universe, there’s some decent layering to it.
Like how a throwaway gag about Eric Stoltz starring in Back To The Future in this new universe not only references a real-life casting What If? and acknowledges where this film’s approach to time travel comedy comes from, but also sets up how the film at large toys around with all these different actors playing familiar characters, like the appearance of Keaton or the later tributes to past Supermen. Or how Keaton-bat uses spaghetti to explain the Multiverse and how Barry changed the timeline, which also ties into the inciting incident that caused the change in the first place. Miller is more than a little dicey, but them tearfully contemplating the fate of a tin of canned tomatoes… yeah, I’ll admit it, that actually got to me. Hodson again shows that she can set up effective familial drama in the midst of high-key sci-fi silliness.
It also keeps the stronger aspects of the original Flashpoint story, specifically in how it ties Barry’s want to save a parent with how Batman… well, became Batman. I’m not as into Keaton’s Batman as a lot of folx out there (truth be told, I actually like Affleck more in the role, misinformed as it is), but he does very well with what he’s given as far as establishing that connection. It may lack the impact of what was done with Thomas Wayne originally, but it still holds onto why that team-up was done and made sense initially.
Okay, I’ve gotten pretty friggin’ deep into the more extra aspects of this whole thing, so let’s break things down real simple: Does this work as superhero entertainment? Well, for the most part, yeah. The CGI gets very rough at times, even when it’s being used on decent ideas like the strange arena-like visualisation of Barry’s time travel, but during the action scenes, it holds together just enough to sell the cool of Supergirl, Batman, and two Flashes teaming up to fight a supervillain. That statement alone is the kind of material I like seeing in big-screen capeshit. Same for the event comic sense of scale, come to think of it; as a send-off for the DCEU iteration of this universe, it does a good job at making that universe feel pretty darn big, even if it stays stuck on Earth for its entirety.
Also, in the midst of those admittedly-unsettling deepfake cameos, there’s one appearance that genuinely had me cheering. I have never been happier to see a giant spider in my life.
Much like the film itself, this review has likely devolved into a complete goddamn mess, but to put it simply, I had fun with this. I liked the action scenes, the performances were pretty good (even if not all of the actors had ideal material to work with, like the mostly-wasted Supergirl), and the way it shifts from a personal story to a big superhero team-up throwdown back into a personal story felt like the right move to make to both appease this film needing to be another DC blockbuster and stick the landing where the original Flashpoint was unable to (actual Multiverse Of Madness-ass ending notwithstanding). It has its deep-set issues, both visually and textually, but after just how awful the last two DC films were (real talk, I’ve talked a lot of shit on Man Of Steel, but in comparison to Black Adam and the Skittles debacle, I’m considering giving it another chance), something this messy yet ultimately entertaining is weirdly relieving.
My reaction to this is basically the same as mine for Batman V. Superman: It’s a crowded mess, and parts of it already haven’t aged well, but when it gets shit right, it’s a lot more fun than I was expecting going into it.
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