I Watch Films: The Flash (2023)

 

The Flash

Barry Allen aka The Flash, the fastest man alive, joined the Justice League in Justice League or possibly Zack Snyder’s Justice League. When villains rob Gotham Hospital Batman and Wonder Woman call him in to save people as it collapses while they chase the bad guys. He succeeds, then is late for work at his job as a forensic expert. Batman chases down some CCTV footage which fails to exonerate his dad, Henry Allen, who is in prison as he was falsely accused of murdering his wife (Barry’s mum) Nora Allen.

In a fit of various emotions Barry goes for a run, going so fast that the Speed Force opens a chronobowl, an arena of possible events laid out to see*. Barry runs backwards in time to the day his mother was killed and makes sure that she buys enough cans of tomato so his dad doesn’t have to leave. Returning to his own time he is knocked out of the chronobowl by a mysterious figure.

He finds himself in 2013, his parents variously alive/out of prison. It’s the very day he gets his speed powers. He convinces his annoying younger self to go to Central City Police Station to recreate the events that gave him his powers; both Barrys are struck by lightning. Young Barry gains powers but Old Barry loses his. Young Barry starts making all the mistakes Old Barry did when he got his powers, despite the best attempts to train him.

At this point General Zod arrives on Earth, mirroring the events of Man Of Steel. Knowing the destruction to come and his own failures, Old Barry tries to locate members of the Justice League. He comes up short on all but one. He goes to Wayne Manor, where he’s confronted by a long grey-haired and bearded Bruce Wayne. But it’s not Ben Affleck of the other films, it’s Michael Keaton of Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992). Bruce theorises that when he altered time he changed the past as well as the future. Initially refusing to help (in an aside Bruce says he’s retired after he cleaned up Gotham City which now has low crime rates) Old Barry leads Young Barry to the batcave where they try to discover where Superman is, and see if Old Barry can get his powers back (he can’t). Eventually Bruce Wayne finds the information and puts back on the mantle of Batman. Young Barry adapts a spare batsuit for himself, as unlike regular clothes this will withstand doing things at speed.

Batman’s report has a Kryptonian pod in a facility in Siberia; assuming that’s Superman they head there. It’s not, it’s Kara Zor-El, Superman’s cousin. She’s unhappy at being kept prisoner so their escape is bloody and violent. Back at Wayne Manor she’s initially suspicious and ambivalent about Zod’s threats (he’s going to Kryptoform the Earth). Eventually she helps Barry get back his powers by flying him into a lightning strike. The four of them head to where Zod and the Kryptonians are. Zod needs the Codex, and killed Superman in his pod in a failed attempt to extract it; he now believes it’s in Kara. They fight; Zod kills Kara and Batman sacrifices himself, to no avail. Old and Young Barry run back in time to try again. And again. And again…

Time breaks, alternate realities appear. Other versions of Batman and Superman, past and notional. It’s the multiverse baby and nothing will be the same again.

It’s nostalgia and novelty, seeing The Flash’s origin story from a viewpoint of a Flash who’s lived through it once. Old Barry, annoying, frenetic, awkward, wanting to be a hero while relegated to clean up by the other heroes, he’s the mature one, or at least the maturing one. Young Barry, who never had to live through loss and failure, he’s everything a hero ought to be, refusing to give up. And he’s the wrong hero for this situation.

The design on this film is good, and it is nice to see Keaton back to finish a trilogy. If these dips into the multiverse by superhero films are good for anything, they are for that! Meanwhile we also nod to the future with a cool, violent superwoman, and lots of weird old versions, plus a look at what could have been with Nicholas Cage. And if I don’t care about this Flash, not like when there were nine years of TV behind him, well, at least he learned something and went through a change. It’s good when characters in a film do that. It’s good that they remembered to do that in a superhero film.

Watch This: Nostalgic superhero film with characters to cheer for
Don’t Watch This: Will this end a batch of films or will it be ignored? In either case inessential

* In a triumph of design the chronobowl makes more sense when you see it in action than when described