

She goes right for a movie-geek sweet spot by confusing grown-up Barry with the news that Eric Stoltz played Marty McFly in the Back to the Future franchise - a story cleverly echoed in the Flash’s own narrative arc. Hodson’s script strikes an initially playful note in the discovery of how history has been altered in unforeseen ways. Their differences become more pronounced when a corrective experiment goes wrong, leaving the more seasoned Barry powerless and his reckless younger self equipped with gifts he can’t wait to use. That glitch allows for Miller to display their sharp comic timing, as mature, mindful Barry and his impulsive adolescent counterpart struggle to find a workable middle ground. Barry’s experiment works to a degree, but he gets punched out of the time-space continuum before completing his journey, landing him in the same timeline as his 18-year-old self, on the day he got his powers. The kinship between veteran and novice superheroes whose lives have both been defined by tragedy weaves in a moment of poignancy. Pained by raw feelings stirred up by the trial, Barry stumbles on a way to use his superpowers to travel back in time, ignoring Bruce’s warning that tampering with the past will trigger an uncontrollable butterfly effect. But that character’s presence here is more of a placeholder for later developments with which fans of the Flash comics will be familiar.
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As he gulps down whatever snacks he can grab to recharge his depleted energy reserves, Barry quickly calculates how to rescue a bunch of tumbling infants, a hysterical pediatrics nurse and a therapy dog.īack in Central City, Barry encounters his college crush, Iris West (Kiersey Clemons), now a journalist reporting on his father’s case. The resulting set-piece involves the destruction of a neonatal care unit on a high floor of the skyscraper, causing what Barry calls a literal “baby shower” and clueing us in to the movie’s infectious sense of fun. He describes himself as “the janitor of the Justice League,” always last on Alfred’s emergency call list and invariably cleaning up some Bat mess. It also introduces the self-deprecating humor that amps up the charm in Miller’s characterization as Barry. The sequence gets us acquainted with the Flash’s red suit and zippy movement - a cool combo of high-cadence Tom Cruise sprint and ice-skater elegance, trailing luminous ribbons of electricity - as he sparks up and bolts across land and sea.

Batman is in pursuit of fiends who have stolen a potentially deadly virus from Gotham Hospital, which is now collapsing into a sinkhole caused by their explosive entry. An urgent call from Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred (Jeremy Irons) alerts him to a situation unfolding that requires his immediate presence. Habitually late for his job in criminal forensics analysis at the Central City Research Center, Barry is further delayed at the breakfast bar where he picks up his regular morning fuel.
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Barry’s consuming desire to go back into the past and fix things to save his family is the emotional engine driving the plot.īut before all that gets underway, Muschietti makes the smart decision to show us Barry at full speed in an amusing superhero riff on a James Bond-style action prologue. Part of that insecurity stems from the tragic loss of his mother (Maribel Verdú) and his anxiety over the drawn-out appeals process of his father (Ron Livingston), who was falsely charged with her murder. The script by Birds of Prey writer Hodson is at its best in the early scenes establishing Barry as a virginal nerd who has gone through college without managing to acquire much self-assurance, even after mastering his superpowers. Spoiler avoidance makes it essential to keep the many cameos under wraps, but they pluck from both contemporary and vintage DC entries, even including one anticipated project that never came to fruition. And The Flash takes a leaf out of the Spider-Man: No Way Home book by welcoming back multiple actors who have played the Caped Crusader. The frisson that exhilarates the audience when he first appears as a long-retired, reclusive Bruce Wayne, and shortly thereafter as a reborn Batman, continues in waves as each of his iconic Bat-vehicles revs its engine. The biggest news on the retro front is the return of Michael Keaton, more than 30 years after he last squeezed into the Batsuit. Cast: Ezra Miller, Michael Keaton, Sasha Calle, Michael Shannon, Ron Livingston, Maribel Verdú, Kiersey Clemons, Jeremy Irons, Antje Traue
