Can The Flash live up to Twitter’s hype? 2023
hat a few months make. Ezra Miller’s legal and reputational issues had cast doubt on Andy Muschietti’s The Flash as recently as September. After a press and cinema owner screening at CinemaCon in Las Vegas this week, it is being called one of the best superhero movies ever.
Just to clarify. This movie may be as good as The Dark Knight, the original Superman, Black Panther, Avengers: Endgame, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, according to the geekerati, who can only twitter. DC—owned by Warner Bros.—makes it.
DC has generally made sleepy epics, whereas Marvel’s loud blockbusters have changed cinema. Ezra Miller’s fast-moving hero: new?
This company produced Suicide Squad, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Justice League, which made comic book fans question if they loved superhero movies. The new DC Studios under James Gunn promises to reset the DC multiverse so we can forget everything we’ve seen previously. At least, whatever Gunn doesn’t want to pursue.
The Flash is partially inspired on the famous Flashpoint comic book series, which saw Barry Allen wake up in an other universe where Superman is a frightened weakling, Batman is Thomas Wayne (Bruce’s dad), and the Amazons and Atlanteans are destructive forces in eternal battle.
Miller will play two versions of The Flash (in the comics, the second Flash was the Reverse-Flash; in the film, it will be a Flash from an alternate timeline). Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton will reprise their roles as Batman and Supergirl, respectively, while Sasha Calle is said to be a revelation as Kara Zor-El.
This week’s trailer shows Allen “breaking the universe” and changing the past. DC may suffer even greater consequences than predicted. It’s amazing!
Multiverse movies can explain away DC’s superhero universe mismanagement since 2013’s Man of Steel began the Zack Snyder era as the result of conflicting different histories.
If the new Supergirl impresses or Michael Shannon’s General Zod shakes the DC foundations he should have earned a decade ago, they can return in future episodes. If Batfleck is favorably accepted, he may reprise the role.
Perhaps that skulking, meat-headed guy with the guns from Dawn of Justice was a bad Bruce Wayne from another universe where everything is backwards and audiences love to watch terrible movies in their gazillions.
Other reasons to smile exist. If the hype is accurate, The Flash may provide a much-needed pattern for how to depict Batman (Batmen?) in ensemble comic book movies, something nobody has done previously (with the possible exception of Snyder’s director’s cut of Justice League). Now that Robert Pattinson’s dark knight has arrived, this superhero party might really begin.
