The Flash

[Westside Steve]

The Flash

DC Studios

PG-13.          144 min

 

So, a little bit of a spoiler alert even though there's nothing that you really didn't see in the previews if you watch them. But what the heck:

One thing about Hollywood is it whenever one studio has an idea, there are plenty of others with the same idea and are working on similar projects at the same time. Hence this rash of metaverse/time warp stuff. It's not just a coincidence that both the SPIDER-MAN flick and now the FLASH and the new INDIANA JONES right on its heels, are jumping from universe to universe and or time to time like bar hoppers on Key West. Anybody that knows superheroes knows the FLASH  and even though he's been around since the 40s and 50s he is still one of the lesser gods of the DC Comics Mount Olympus. Giving credit where credit where its due this one is a little bit different than your typical debut or reboot superhero flick that tells the story of how they got their powers. This time around it seems as though they've taken a page from the Spider-Man series and made Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) a little more of a young dork than the chronically tardy research scientist he originally was. And even though there's a bad guy to defeat, namely Zod the Kryptonian bad guy from the Superman series, the story is more about a young boy whose mother was murdered and his father framed for the crime trying to make things right. Now much like the Talking Heads did decades ago ‘you may ask yourself’ what does this have to do with the metaverse? Well as you may recall from your science classes or your comic book reading apparently the faster you go the slower or faster time goes and theoretically you may be able to travel forward or backward in time. So since Barry AKA The FLASH is super fast he figures he could go back in time and save his mother and or his father. The bad news is there's something called The Butterfly Effect meaning if you go back in time and change even one little tiny thing which will set the entire world on a new and potentially terrible path. Like changing the trajectory of an arc even a fraction of a degree.

Anyway this little bit of science theory is going to throw a monkey wrench into both of his tasks at hand.

Because the entrance portal from the time warp is never exactly the same he will find himself in an entirely different parallel universe every time. That means in order to defeat Kryptonian outlaw General Zod, he needs to put together the other members of the Justice League of America. That means for every parallel universe there is a slightly different version of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman etc etc. Just for the record Michael Keaton stops in to play Batman again. So for my money that's a more interesting twist on the  Metaverse than the animated Spider-Man flick. As for the ending? I won't blow it but I will tell you it was not the usual blowing everything up gag.

B-

WSS