When the emo kids are now the screenwriters.

Jackass and Jackassier.

Flash uses his super-speed to time-travel into the past to stop his mother’s murder. And meets his younger self. And discovers he’s a jackass.

THE FLASH is a surprisingly touching film about the love between a son and his mother; a poignant theme which is subsumed by the bombast of the perfunctory CGI and obligatory juvenile gags to compete with Marvel.

Ezra Miller headlines his first (and probably last) feature as Barry Allen/Flash, with a character that is not exactly canon (since his introduction in 2017’s JUSTICE LEAGUE). Oh, he’s still a police forensic investigator (as envisioned by his Silver Age creators Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino), but his personality skews Jackass Millennial rather than the thoughtful scientist of DC Comics, drawing down disdain from the purists. However, as soon as Barry meets Younger Barry (playing himself in seamless efx), we start to see Jackass as the straight man, and Younger Barry as Jackassier than the Jackass.

Matter of fact, this film restores gravitas to Barry’s character, imbuing him with a veteran’s insight and dread, while his younger self flops along in devil-may-care slappability. This raving dual performance is a testament to Miller’s acting prowess, no matter the haters who see him as one-note B-character with a queer running style. Even with his real life crimes and misdemeanors constantly garnering bad press, this movie (with some better efx decisions) might have been a grand stepping stone towards Miller making his Flash as iconic as Iron Man or Wolverine, if not for James Gunn being installed as producer-dictator at DC and scarring the slate clean of all the best ever actors to embody their DC superhero roles (Cavill, Affleck, Gadot, Momoa, and even Miller)…

Based loosely on the landmark crossover comic series Flashpoint, THE FLASH retains core elements of that sprawling epic saga:

• By tampering with the past, Barry creates a new present without the Justice League existing
• An older Batman helps Barry in his quest to get Back To The Future [yes, say it like Doc Brown]
• A Kryptonian is entombed in a power-depleting cell
• Much like the tragedy in STAR TREK’s The City On The Edge Of Forever, Barry realizes that his now-saved mother has to be un-saved for the universe to right itself.

Writer Christina Hodson (with John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein and Joby Harold) and director Andy Muschietti (IT: CHAPTER TWO) do a stellar job compressing the vast Flashpoint story and, being in development hell for decades, wrote the multiverse element into the story long before “multiverse” became the Baby Shark fad it is today.

In flashback we see Barry’s parents: Ron Livingstone as dad (replacing Billy Crudup from JUSTICE LEAGUE) and Maribel Verdu as mom. Because if you ever want a boy to love his mother in an almost Oedipal manner, you can’t go past the cougar from Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN. I kid THE FLASH, because these flashback sequences are poignant, Barry reminiscing with tears edging his eyes; how his father left for a specific can of tomatoes and his mother was murdered offhandedly by a burglar; seeing his younger self flee the crime scene in fear instead of helping; Barry’s father wrongfully convicted for the murder, spawning Barry’s lifelong quest to unearth evidence to free him.

In frustrated rage, present-day Flash runs – runs so fast he unintentionally breaks into a nexus where all time and multiverse converge. Contemplating capitalizing on this time-travel ability, he first consults Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck – yes, the Best Batman is a cameo in the first act, as is Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman and Jeremy Irons’ tactical Alfred; but Ben actually looks old enough to be the grizzled Thomas Wayne version of Batman from the original story!). Barry implores: “I could save her. I could save… your parents.”

But Bruce is resigned to his fate, and the paradoxes of Barry traveling back to rectify wrongs become apparent: If Batman’s parents lived, there would be no Batman.

But travel back Flash does… and all Marty McFly breaks loose!

By changing one small thing, Barry finds himself in a timeline with his mother alive, and the pure joy he feels is contagious. Until Jackassier appears. Cue sitcom gags of the 60’s, with Barry hiding Younger Barry from his parents. We must then endure a little slapstick of Younger Barry gaining superspeed. But with his mother alive, the butterfly effect has wrought its changes to the world – there is no Superman, no Wonder Woman, no Aquaman, no Cyborg… and Eric Stoltz is Marty McFly!

Though the adventure takes off from here – recruiting Michael Keaton’s Batman (in a funny scene), saving Sasha Calle’s Supergirl (where the rescuee becomes the rescuer) and battling Michael Shannon’s Zod (in a terrifying repeating death sequence) – we are always reminded of that most touching aspect of Flash’s motivation: keeping his mother alive no matter the cost.

At one point, Younger Barry sarcastically retorts to Barry chiding him: “Sorry about that, mom!” – and Barry/Ezra plumbs depths of emotion we never knew he could access, ripping into Younger: “Shutup! You don’t know how lucky you are!” It’s an electric moment, Barry’s rage fueled by the fact that Younger Barry has never known a world without his mother, never known her loss, or the sacrifice to bring her back. Like being in war – how do you describe it to people safe in their beds?

Batman Keaton asks Barry: “You can travel to any timeline. Why do you want to stay, and fight to save this one?”
“Because this is the world where my mom lives.”
I’m not crying – you’re crying…

These moments are the most touching parts of THE FLASH. First viewing, you are distracted by the fake babies, and strange plastic sheen of the nexus cameos. Second viewing, the mother-son emotions hit hard… and if the film had retained more of this tone… shoulda woulda coulda… if only there was a real nexus where we could rectify our mistakes…

Is it just me, or is her costume super vaginal?

In Flashpoint, Flash and Batman rescue an emaciated Superman from a power-depleting prison. In THE FLASH (in the grand tradition of “girling up” male properties – OCEANS 8, GHOSTBUSTERS 2016, THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER, FOUNDATION, ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE) they discover a female Kryptonian. Sasha Calle is Kara Zor-El/Supergirl (though she retains her Kryptonian canon name, this brunette dynamo is visually based on Superman’s dream daughter in DC Comics, Lara Lane-Kent); she comes from pain and deprivation, so when released, she is not suddenly in line with the frivolity of Jackassier, rather playing it somber and grounded, which immediately endeared her to me. I will never ever EVER forgive whoever is responsible for the removal of Henry Cavill as Superman from the DCEU, but the filmmakers’ decision to keep Supergirl’s tone as serious as MAN OF STEEL saved this gender-swap.

There seems to be a missed opportunity for Kara to be a love interest for Barry. Way back in the first act, the jokes were flying, about Barry “knowing sex exists, but never experienced it,” and his Jackass interactions with Iris West (Kiersey Clemons), however, by the time Barry is fleeing the prison carrying Kara, he has been upgraded to the “mature” Jackass, and he reassures her, “I’ve got you!” It’s a hero line. Then when Kara is lifting the barely-conscious Barry into the lightning to restore his powers, she in turn assures him, “I’ve got you.” Screenwriters don’t usually reprise lines like this unless they’re indicating a “connection” between two characters. It goes nowhere, but the teen girl in me wishes it would.

The final battle on a bare plain pits Flash, Jackassier, Batman and Kara against a Kryptonian army led by Zod, seeking the blood of Kara to terraform Earth into Krypton. The filmmakers really did Michael Keaton proud here, making him a combat Batman not unlike Batfleck (although I don’t know how he holds his own grappling a Kryptonian soldier, who should theoretically be as strong as Superman).

It is here that Barry and Younger Barry go back in time again and again, to change the outcome of this fatal battle, but this is no BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II, where this gambit was played for laughs. At first, it’s sad, as Barry realizes “not every problem has a solution,” then it becomes disturbing as Younger Barry keeps trying to rectify the past. In the Kryptonian battle Younger Barry tried to phase through a shard of flying metal and failed, the metal jutting out of his forearm like a steel blade. At first reminiscent of our favorite berserker X-Man, as more pieces fuse to Younger Barry returning from more failed pasts, it conjures the final horrifying scene in Jeff Goldblum’s THE FLY, after his fully-insect body has melded with the transporter booth, an inhuman hybrid of meat and metal. Younger Barry traps himself in a time-loop: “I’ve lived more than you can dream”…

“Do you feel as plastic as I look?”

It is here that multiverse timelines swim by, with their wealth of cameos – George Reeves, the Jay Garrick Flash, Christopher Reeve and Helen Slater’s Supergirl, Adam West’s Batman – the multiverse has always been an excuse for fan service. But is it really fan “service” if the CGI is so unrendered? Put it this way – they ALL look like Henry Cavill’s mustache… And then – the horror! – Nicolas Cage as Superman! (Considering his casting was an abandoned misstep, why is he even here?)

This whole cameo sequence is a misstep. It seems like the movie’s climax, rendering many viewers too distracted to be fully immersed in the emotion of the actual climax, where Barry will tearfully face his living mother one last time, knowing he is about to restore the timeline and lose her forever. Heart-rending. Yet in restoring the timeline, Barry hits upon a bittersweet solution where, if he cannot save his mother, then at least he would save his father. Who says a can of tomatoes can’t save the world?

We come away from THE FLASH with shoulda woulda coulda emotions. There were some real beats in there that fleshed out Barry Allen for upcoming roles, if only comics fans weren’t such whiners, if only there wasn’t that fan-service cameo scene, if only those cameos were actually fleshed out more, if only this wasn’t the penultimate DC Extended Universe film (the last being AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM OF CLICHÉ MOVIE TITLES), which effectively means all the forward momentum this movie might have had is now relegated to another timeline, not ours.

Writer-director James Gunn, whom we all respected for restoring Marvel back to health with GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, and for restoring faith in DC with THE SUICIDE SQUAD, now pisses us off by biting off more than he should probably be allowed to chew, discarding all the best ever DC superhero actors set up by Zack Snyder, dishonoring all that talent, sweat and tears by bringing in new actors for his 2025 rebooted DC Universe. With the blessing of Warner Bros., who couldn’t keep their shit together from listening to the vocal minority of comics fan whiners, and so blamed Zack Snyder for their losses.

It seems Warner Bros is the Jackass. And James Gunn the Jackassier.

END