The Flash

It’s a minor miracle that The Flash got anywhere near a release when you consider the protracted production and subsequent problems. There was a brief fear that it would go the way of Batgirl and just be dropped but no, here it is for better or worse.

Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) is a forensics expert who isn’t going the places he should be. He’s rebuked by his boss and teased by his colleagues at work. Thugh unbeknownst to them he’s actually been on superhero duty as The Flash helping out Batman (Ben Affleck) in Gotham City. Not that he feels he’s really appreciated being on response and recovery duties, even after heroically saving babies and a nurse.

Compounding his troubles is his father who is on trial for the murder of his mother. It’s a tragedy that’s traumatised Barry, more so he’s convinced his father didn’t do it. But the evidence and alibi aren’t going his way when a freak event in which he travels in time convinces him to go back and try and save his mother.

So we have the ‘Butterfly Effect’ in which he brings his mother lives but creates an alternative him - just much more immature – and an alternative timeline that sees him meet one familiar face (well publicised but I’ll not mention) plus Supergirl Cara (Sasha Calle). The evil villains are Russians and later on Kryptonians led by Zod (Michael Shannon) looking for a new home and set on terraforming Earth for themselves.

What director Andrés Muschietti and writers Christina Hodson and Joby Harold have constructed is a fairly familiar time travel, paradox, multiverse mishmash that is probably best not thought about too much. The film flows at a fairly even pace (the two hours thirty fairly fly by) with the usual big SFX and action sequences littered about the story. Having said that some credit is due as away from those there’s a little more emotional depth to the story and characters than expected.

But let’s not get too carried away with all that as The Flash is about action, and there’s plenty of good humour too. It’s also about the fans so it draws heavily (at times clumsily) on DC’s pantheon of superheroes for cameos, some with due reverence. These are blatant crowd pleasers though not sure they add too much overall similarly the Kryptonian invasion is a fairly weak storyline which serves only one real purpose.

It’s far from the disaster it could have been yet not as good as it probably could be, and more enjoyable than Black Adam and Shazam 2.

The Flash is in cinemas now.