The Flash (2023)

Top comments

1. 

   Toastinator

   Barry learns a lesson at the end and then unlearns it 20 seconds later.
   The movie is mostly entertaining but all plotlines and characters are wrapped up unsatisfactorily. 10 months 2 weeks ago
2. 

   jeroeno

   After the first 5 minutes I already checked out completely, if they spend 300 million dollars and years of production time and these effects are the best they could do, it's just over. If the studio doesnt care, why should I care? 10 months 2 weeks ago
3. 

   Siskoid

   When people complained about the CG in The Flash, I was thinking, well, that doesn't usually bother me very much, but whoa Nelly - they weren't wrong! While one could accept that it was a choice (albeit the wrong choice) to make the time travel sequences look like video game cut scenes with CG characters of that caliber (mixed with "I don't even know what I'm looking at"), it's a problem that crops up elsewhere, leading to action scenes you can't really care about because it doesn't look like any humans were involved, just deep fake faces applied to video game avatars. Indeed, the best Easter Egg/inside joke/nostalgia thing in the movie is absolutely undermined by this problem. And as a comics guy, I will never not be annoyed at the Geoff Johns-ism of pretending the whole thing with Flash's mom is a "canon event", integral to the character. It's not. It's a late addition to make him more like Batman or Spider-Man (hero must have tragedy), and they already did this while story on the WB TV show (down to the Crisis stuff), so what's the point. But while I thought this version of the Flash was fun comic relief in Justice League, it's a version that does not hold up well as the lead of their own feature film. That kind of comedy in fact taints the whole thing. The Flash is ridiculous and once Young Barry is added to the cast, he's stupid and obnoxious beyond the audience's endurance. The humor is often juvenile, and surely, this is the superhero who says "shit" the most. It's to the point where the movie is mocking DC's cinematic efforts and things done are often undone, or are pointless, including one particular hero's noble sacrifice which really does nothing. The movie has its moments - some cool action bits, speed tricks, and lots of cameos - but mostly thanks to Michael Keaton's Batman. The trailer (which spoils a large proportion of the surprises) made me cringe, showing him mostly repeating lines from Batman '89 - nostalgia done wrong - but it's not so bad within the movie. But to get him in there at all makes the script tell us a bunch of hogwash that doesn't understand the difference between a time travel story and a Mult-eye-versal one. But then there's a lot this movie doesn't understand about the canon it's referencing, so it's a lot more like the "way off" superhero movies of the 90s (including the aforementioned Easter Egg) than anything produced in recent times. The WB has been taking the wrong lessons from their successes and others' for at least 35 years now, and this is very much like they thought "oh, people liked Peacemaker? more like that, then". 8 months ago

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