'The Flash' Review Thread
The Flash
- Rotten Tomatoes 71% (117 Reviews)
The Flash is funny, fittingly fast-paced, and overall ranks as one of the best DC movies in recent years.
- Metacritic: 60 (31 Reviews)
Reviews
If The Flash ultimately proves uneven, its wobbly climactic showdown far less interesting than the more character-driven buildup, the story’s core of a young man struggling to reconcile with the loss of his mother carries it through.
In The Flash, the multiverse of possibilities that opens up by toying with the past becomes an excuse to throw everything but the Batcave sink at the audience.
Easily the best in the genre since Spiderman: No Way Home, this fresh, invigorating, and hugely entertaining summer treat is as good as it gets when it comes to cinematic takes on superheroes.
IndieWire (B-):
Taken on its own merits, Andy Muschietti’s film has lots to offer, and frequently shows flashes (apologies) of brilliance that set it a cut above most of its existing DC Universe brethren.
A movie that spends all its time racing from one poorly-thought out story element to another, from one only modestly satisfying nostalgia shout-out to another, and with only questionable results. How fitting, yet how disappointing: The Flash has the runs.
USA Today (3/4):
Worth the hype, though trying to do so much also leads to a head-scratching kitchen-sink climax.
TotalFilm (3/5):
Perhaps it’s no surprise that Barry Allen’s fitfully fun, fan-service-freighted headline act sometimes looks like an expanded universe imploding to ambitious but often messy effect.
IGN (7/10):
The superhero fan service is strong with this one – perhaps too strong at times – but it never fully overshadows Barry Allen’s genuinely tragic and heartfelt story of grief.
AV Club (B-):
It’s sometimes buried under layers and layers of storytelling knots that the film never fully untangles, but the fun is there, and when the film is really working, that turns out to be enough.
The Flash is, by far, the best movie to come out of this modern, post-Nolan Warners/DC collaboration...
Guardian (2/5):
Despite some diverting touches, Miller’s smirking, gurning, mugging doppelganger performance is a trial and in any case gets lost in the inevitable third-act CGI battle apocalypse.
Screen Rant (2/5):
The Flash is a passable multiverse superhero movie, but no amount of DC cameos can make audiences forget the awful off-screen actions of Ezra Miller.
The Flash, much like Barry himself, has been stranded with no real sense of history, and no real sense of the future, either. It does the best it can.
ScreenCrush (6/10):
Michael Keaton’s Batman return saves this movie.
Entertainment Weekly (C+):
It's well-trod territory at this point, even for a speedster.
What makes Andy Muschietti’s The Flash a great movie is it’s not about saving the universe.
London Evening Standard (4/5):
This is one of the best superhero movies of the 21st century so far. Just sit back and enjoy the flashes of greatness.
Slash Film (7.5/10):
The Flash is a funny, emotional, action-heavy crowd-pleaser.
Slant Magazine (2.5/4):
Nothing Batman or Supergirl do in 'The Flash' to save the world is more effective than what Barry Allen does to save it with a hug and a can of tomatoes.
Austin Chronicle (2/5):
It’s a pitiful disservice to itself, turning a relatively fun, if rocky, movie into nothing but another product designed as a carousel where you can point at things and people you recognize.
The Times (2/5):
A morally specious movie that’s mostly about reflogging the cultural canon of an entertainment conglomerate.
The Flash is one of its strongest entries and should, even with some flaws, be considered a jewel in the DCU crown.
This is [Ezra Miller's] first time shouldering the weight of an entire D.C. Justice League vehicle. They carry the whole thing easily, practically in the palm of their hand, as if it were the remote control to the Batcave's garage door.
Cameos and fan service are fine to have, but the story has to be there to back them up, and it’s not quite there with The Flash.
The Flash is a bright, colorful, imaginative film with enough verve to pop off the screen, even though it’s often nonsensical in its wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.
While director Andy Muschietti lets bad FX, in-joke cameos and muddled time-travel mechanics sprawl out on the couch and stay awhile longer, within its template the movie does have a peculiar, likable energy.
NME (4/5):
A funny, action-packed and, of course, fast-paced adventure follows – with a surprisingly moving emotional centre.
MovieWeb (4/5):
Ezra Miller saves the Snyderverse in a stunning superhero adaptation that gloriously lives up to the hype. The Flash is the DC film that fans have been aching to see.
ThePlaylist (C):
Considering how “The Flash” makes many of its characters face death and inevitability throughout, “The Flash” should not feel as hollow as it does.
Empire Magazine (4/5):
Set to be one of the final entries in what we know as the DCEU, this is also one of the best, a witty and warm buddy comedy that deserves to be more than just a Flash in the pan.
Synopsis:
Worlds collide in “The Flash” when Barry uses his superpowers to travel back in time in order to change the events of the past. But when his attempt to save his family inadvertently alters the future, Barry becomes trapped in a reality in which General Zod has returned, threatening annihilation, and there are no Super Heroes to turn to. That is, unless Barry can coax a very different Batman out of retirement and rescue an imprisoned Kryptonian… albeit not the one he’s looking for. Ultimately, to save the world that he is in and return to the future that he knows, Barry’s only hope is to race for his life. But will making the ultimate sacrifice be enough to reset the universe?
Cast:
Ezra Miller as Barry Allen / The Flash
Sasha Calle as Kara Zor-El / Supergirl
Michael Shannon as General Zod
Ron Livingston as Henry Allen
Maribel Verdú as Nora Allen
Kiersey Clemons as Iris West
Antje Traue as Faora-Ul
Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne / Batman:
Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman
Jeremy Irons as Alfred Pennyworth
Directed by: Andy Muschietti
Screenplay by: Christina Hodson
Story by: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein, and Joby Harold
Produced by: Barbara Muschietti, Michael Disco
Cinematography: Henry Braham
Edited by: Jason Ballantine and Paul Machliss
Music by: Benjamin Wallfisch
Running time: 144 minutes
Release date: June 16, 2023