Red alert: This review about the Scarlet Speedster’s first solo cinematic vehicle is FILLED with spoilers so if you haven’t seen The Flash yet, run, Superfan, run!
I’ve just returned home from watching The Flash, starring Ezra Miller in the titular role and co-starring Michael Keaton as his iconic 1980s Batman, and I absolutely cannot stop smiling.
Recap:
Barry Allen/The Flash (Miller) is tired of cleaning up all of Batman/Bruce (Ben Affleck)’s rescue messes, being late for work, trying to get his dad Henry (a re-casted role from the Justice League with Ron Livingstone taking over from Billy Crudup)’s conviction overturned and failing to impress Iris West (Kiersey Clemons), his long-time crush. Being the fourth last first person on Alfred (Jeremy Irons)’s superhero call sheet isn’t helping to improve Barry’s mood either.

After a particularly hard day that includes him rescuing a nursery of babies, a service dog and a nurse and watching Batman and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) flirt awkwardly, Barry accidentally reverses time and gets the bright idea to go back to the day his mom Nora (Maribel VerdΓΊ) died to save her.
Bruce, while sympathetic to the absolute trauma losing your parents gives you, gives Barry the “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” speech and considers that to be the end of the discussion. Oh, Batfleck, when will you learn? Barry will do what Barry does best: mess up the timeline!

After a super weird non-date with Iris, Barry runs back in time, dodging a Time Wraith (something like a ghost) in the Speed Force, and changes his mom’s fate by correcting what he thinks is the chain of events that led to her death in the original timeline. Welcome to Flashpoint, people! That one change, instead of taking Barry back to his own timeline, sends him back to an alternate version of the past, 2013 specifically, where he is a college student returning home to both of his parents.
Barry relishes living his ultimate dream life for just a second before the 18 year old Barry (played by Miller too, with more innocence and a daredevil attitude) of this new timeline shows up and chaos ensues. With two Barrys in the same timeline, things are bound to get a little crazy. A series of misadventures leads to the original Barry losing his powers and alternate Barry getting them.

The ripple effect, which Bruce warned Barry about, is felt all over the world since Superman (Henry Cavill) is missing in this timeline and cannot stop General Zod (Michael Shannon) from destroying Earth to build his new evil version of Krypton. In fact, Barry’s time-changing mishap has erased all metahumans and demigods from this timeline so Barry cannot even ring up the Justice League for help. Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) was never born, Wonder Woman is off-world and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) hasn’t been created yet.
Alternate Barry comes up with a possible save, though: Batman DOES exist in this timeline. He just hasn’t been seen for years. Original Barry finds his way back to Wayne Manor, which won’t be familiar to the 2020s movie fans but which we 80s and 90s babies recognise immediately: it’s Michael Keaton’s Wayne Manor!!!! Woohoo!

The two Barrys get a beatdown as a welcome from a sprightly yet grey-haired and sandal-wearing Bruce. Original Barry is shocked that Bruce doesn’t look like or act like his one back home. Alternate Barry is overwhelmed by the fact that Bruce Wayne IS Batman – since he was just a little kid when this version was the Caped Crusader.
It’s there, in the cosy kitchen of Wayne Manor, where Bruce explains rather haphazardly with some pasta and tomato sauce that what Original Barry did wasn’t merely go back in time – he created four different realities or, as we now know it to be, the multiverse. Barry’s time-hopping is the intersection point and because of this, there are multiple versions of the world.

Bruce, against his better judgement, decides to help the two Barrys break the Kryptonian he has found out of a Russian stronghold. An awesome battle ensues and they manage to rescue β¦ Kara Zor-El/ Supergirl (Sasha Calle). As with all of the comic book lore that has come before, Kara and Kal-El/Clark’s pods were separated in space and she was captured. Kara has no idea where Kal-El is. After resting at Wayne Manor and being powered back up by the sun, Kara goes to confront Zod who announces that he killed baby Superman when he discovered that it was Kara’s blood that contained the miracle seeds to recreate Krypton.
Kara returns to Wayne Manor to find that Bruce has agreed to a freaky experiment to give Original Barry his powers back, despite Alternate Barry’s protests. Our misfit Justice League engages in an epic battle with General Zod and his alien army that is a visual marvel (LOL!) but ultimately a deadly one: both Kara and Bruce lose their lives.
Original Barry makes the unfortunate mistake of showing Alternate Barry how to reverse time so that Kara and Batman don’t die. Except that is their fate and despite the many times Alternate Barry, who has now decided that Supergirl is the love of his life and mother of his future children, goes back to save her and Batman, the end result is their deaths.

In the Speed Force, Original Barry tries to get Alternate Barry to see sense and understand that the only way to save the multiverse is for their mom to die. Just as Alternate Barry is about to make peace with this decision, the Time Wraith shows up. In a twist, however, that the TV series The Flash fans will be familiar with, the Wraith is actually Savitar/ Dark Flash, the older version of Alternate Barry who has gone back so many times to save his mom, Kara and Bruce and never succeeded. He has gone quite mad in his attempts and because of his meddling with the timelines, the multiverses are now destroying each other.
We get a SUPER awesome montage of the alternate universes, including seeing the legendary late Christopher Reeves and Helen Slater as the original Superman and Supergirl; Adam West as the 1960s TV series and movie Batman and β¦ wait for it β¦ Nicolas Cage in the often-talked about but never produced Superman Lives film by Tim Burton!

Mad Barry tries to kill Original Barry but Alternate Barry swoops into save him and is killed instead, thus also killing Mad Barry. It is a mindf*** of note! With their death, Original Barry decides to run home. Not before stopping off to correct his mistake of saving Nora and sharing an emotional moment with her (bring your tissues along – you’re going to need it), though.

While he is there, Barry can’t resist doing one teeny, tiny thing he thinks will help his dad in the future. Once home, he discovers his little correction worked: his dad’s appeal is granted and he is a free man. Barry even has Iris by his side. It’s coming up roses for our Speedster, right?
Not so fast, Barry… As our Flash gets off a call with Bruce, whom he is eager to see and tell his entire adventure to, the Caped Crusader pulls up in his fancy car. He makes his way through the paparazzi and we, like Barry, are expecting to see Batfleck until the crowd parts and we see β¦ George Clooney’s Bruce! WHAT?!!!

When a confused Barry asks who he is, this version of Bruce asks “What’s wrong with you?!“
What’s wrong, indeed! Oh, Barry.
Impressions:
I got to watch The Flash ALL by myself in Ster Kinekor V&A Waterfront’s D-Box cinema (a 4D movie theatre with chairs that are motion-activated to make you swoop, shake, bounce and float when the characters are doing the same onscreen) and it was awesome. In fact, the usher came in as the credits rolled to tell me that he could tell that I thoroughly enjoyed the movie because he could hear me scream and shout with joy outside π

Look, this film is pure fan service and for once, I cannot fault DC Comics and Warner Bros Pictures for giving us exactly what we wanted. Director AndrΓ©s Muschietti clearly had fun shooting this movie because not only does it make all of our comic book and movie lovers’ wet dreams come true, it is a truly funny, moving film with gravitas.
The fact that Muschietti balances the outrageously hilarious Cage’s Superman with flowing locks and all (this is extra funny when you know Cage is going bald at a rapid rate) and the emotional wound of seeing Reeves’s Superman alive and well is what endears him to me.
The Flashpoint plotline has been done onscreen in both the Arrowverse series and animation films. It was a tall ask for Muschietti to put his own live action spin on it but with the help of writer Christina Hodson, he pulls it off admirably.

Lead star Miller’s horrendous personal issues and criminal cases have tainted this film’s release, there is no denying that. I, like many people, have questioned CEO James Gunn’s decision to go ahead with The Flash’s release but I am now so happy that he did.
I haven’t smiled this wide since Spiderman: No Way Home and Doctor Strange: Into the Multiverse. Giving us THREE Batmen? Are you kidding me? Even if the most lambasted one was added at the last minute, I feel like Clooney was always better at the ridiculously handsome and suave Bruce Wayne playboy part of it all, back in the late 1990s.

Keaton… GODS, Keaton! I finally watched his 1989 Batman debut film as an adult last night (I was a toddler when it was released so I have no recollection of it) and I was blown away. His Bruce/Batman is more off-center, daring and tenacious than Batfleck’s measured, reserved and responsible one (that isn’t a bad thing. Someone has to be a good leader of the Justice League and with all of the craziness we’ve seen them display in previous movies, it is well needed). It makes total sense that Barry would be able to talk Keaton’s Bruce into a suicide mission.
I had absolute shivers hearing Keaton once again say “Yeah. I’m Batman” and oh my god, seeing Wayne Manor, complete with its hall of historical artifacts and the Bat Cave? Heaven on Earth! The Bat Mobile is still sexy as all hell and I was swooning.

I am always going to be sad that Gal Gadot’s time as Wonder Woman has ended. I am doubly sad because the chemistry between her Wonder Woman and Batfleck on that bridge is HOT. I know that his Bat Cave is filled with all kinds of toys that would make a love scene between these two there so goddamn erotic. DC and Warner Bros, give me my Batman and Wonder Woman sex scene, you cowards!!!!!

Calle’s Supergirl is a departure from what we’ve seen of Kara onscreen in the original Superman movies, her 1984 solo movie, Smallville and the Supergirl series. She is a brunette in The Flash, which makes the family connection to Cavill’s Superman more believable. She’s hardened by her imprisonment and she is reluctant to partner with the Barrys and Batman. I loved how Calle made the role her own. She isn’t a mere stand-in for Cavill in the wake of Warner Bros and DC reneging on their contract with him. Her Kara needs her own film soon, please.
With Clooney now being Bruce in Original Barry’s timeline, what does this mean for the new DC cinematic universe? Only time will tell!

All in all, The Flash surpassed my expectations. I cannot recommend watching it enough!
With this being Father’s Day weekend, I’d be remiss in not thanking my late dad Faizel for introducing me to the wonderfully wacky world of comics. He loved Keaton’s Batman and I bet he would have loved this movie. Happy Father’s Day, Dad xx
Go see The Flash at a cinema near you!