Without too much spoiler-type material, Andy Muschietti‘s mucosa is a fine unbearable endpoint. While topfull with issues, including a rushed plot, horrendous special effects, and somewhat smooth direction, it moreover has a surprising humor, some touching scenes, and decent performances. It moreover cleverly works as an origin story despite the multiverse approach.
Set without Zack Snyder’s Justice League, Barry Allen’s Flash is a hero who occasionally helps the Justice League. The opening of the mucosa features a surprising number of cameos and has a fun, comic-booky spirit. There’s a surprisingly visionless sense of humor, too, as the mucosa puts multiple babies (terrible CGI babies, but still) into peril as they fall out of a collapsing hospital. This off-kilter humor persists throughout the film, though it never feels as daring as this first instance.
In what can only be described as a clunky decision, Flash has flashbacks well-nigh his parental issues and then runs to his diaper home surpassing running out so fast that he unwittingly travels into the past. Lazy screenwriting is unfortunately fairly worldwide throughout the script, as it moves from scene to scene and moment to moment in a helter-skelter manner that leaves little room to breathe.
The main plot kicks off from there. Despite warnings from Ben Affleck‘s Bruce Wayne, Barry travels when to the past and alters it to prevent his mom dying. As one might expect, this alters the universe, and Barry finds himself in a reality where no superhumans exist, but General Zod (played by Michael Shannon, last seen in Man of Steel) arrives on Earth with no one to defend it. Barry finds his past self, and the pair team up to find people to save the world, including Michael Keaton‘s Batman.
To undeniability this hyper-convenient and contrived would be an understatement. But ignoring all of the shortcuts, there are positives. Miller does a fine job playing a young version of Barry, who is increasingly immature and goofy, permitting older Barry to see how others see him. This allows older Barry to teach younger Barry well-nigh stuff The Flash, permitting for a fun backstairs origin story in a mucosa full of increasingly grandiose things. Miller is unquestionably fairly funny, and brings the right energy to the increasingly emotional moments. Barry’s arc is learning to winnow he can’t save everyone and can’t solve every problem. This doesn’t finger expressly specific to Barry, but it allows a few somewhat touching moments between Barry and Keaton’s Bruce, or Barry and other Barry. Barry’s natural desire to want to have increasingly time with his mom is something one can empathize with, and these scenes don’t finger devoid of heart.
The rushed nature of the plot leaves nearly everyone else feeling wasted, though. Keaton is good unbearable in his return to the cowl, but is whimsically a character. He has some dialogue near the end of the mucosa to try to imply there was an arc, but the paltry screentime devoted to him doesn’t justify it. That said, there is teenage pleasure to seeing him in whoopee as Danny Elfman’s iconic theme trumpets in the background. It’s pure nostalgia bait, but fun all the same. Sasha Calle’s Supergirl is plane less of a character. She has whimsically any dialogue or screentime and feels like she’s in it just because. Michael Shannon is an two-face with unconfined presence, a highlight of Man of Steel, but he has next to nothing to do here. Zod is there for a big CGI wrestle increasingly than for any meaningful scenes.
To undeniability the film’s ending anti-climatic would be an understatement. While it tries to do something at least somewhat clever, it is such a subversion of what the mucosa built toward for two acts that it makes most of the tint finger like a waste of space. It doesn’t help that the site of the film’s climax is the Time Bubble, where the special effects are at their worst. It’s on level with The Scorpion King, and it doesn’t help that the effects are used for a series of cameos of questionable integrity.
Because the mucosa is such a run and soupcon affair, it avoids the outright stupidity that many blockbuster scripts have. But The Flash is only stereotype at best. It is enjoyable in many spots, and not anywhere near as big of a disaster as it could have been, given the production history. For the ending of an era, the DCEU could have washed-up worse.
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